The Counselor [OLD VERSION]

Watching the stars

‘But the next day at school wasn’t quite as I expected. When I arrived at school, I went straight to my locker to lay me coat in there and grab some books. Suddenly I felt arms wrapping around me. When I turned around I saw my best friend, Bree, next to her were my other friends. They were all smiling.

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Bree asked. I actually didn’t know where to start, but before I got the chance to explain, Payton was already talking.

‘You have a really big house, right? We should have a sleepover at yours? I mean, you owe us, kinda.’  I nodded, that was the least I could do to make things right. It was so funny to see my two favorite friends being so different from each other. Payton was loud, tall and tough, while Bree was sweet, small and cute. 

‘Sure, don’t you hate me for not telling you?’ I asked, I was starting to get a little nervous about this whole situation.

‘I don’t hate you,’ Bree said. And that was that, after that we didn’t talk about it anymore. Of course I talked about my dads, but we didn’t talk about the whole not telling them situation. And to my and my brothers surprise, nobody started teasing us, nobody started gossips and nobody looked at us like we were weird. They just accepted it and moved on.

A week later I organized the sleepover at my house for all my friends. They were all shocked to see how big my house was, they knew I was a little richer than most of them, but I never showed it off. So they were overwhelmed by the size my house was.  The whole living room was covered in blankets, pillows and mattresses. And everybody brought food. It was so much fun, we watched movies, told stories, cuddled with Atlas. When Bree and I walked to the kitchen to get something to drink, Bree noticed the clear night sky. It was absolutely gorgeous, so we decided to make a blanket fort in between the trees in my backyard. We all lay down in it and watched the stars through the hole in the middle.  It made me think back to the night on the roof with Ryan and Jake. Stars made things better.

‘Look at those stars,’ Bree said, she was pointing at stars right above us, ‘That one and that one to the left and those in the middle, they look like a flower like that!’ Seconds later we were all smiling at the flower of stars. And then slowly everyone fell asleep, until just me, Bree and Payton were still awake, even Atlas was snoring at the entrance of our blanket fort.  ‘I’m glad you told us, Sky,’ Bree whispered and she turned her head to look at me.

‘I should have told you right away, it was stupid to hide things from you,’ I whispered back.

‘Yeah, it was stupid,’ Payton whispered then.

‘Payton!’ Bree exclaimed and she sat up to look at Payton, who was laying on the other side of me.

‘You can’t just say that, she has had a hard time.’

Payton and I started laughing at the same time, Bree could be so protecting and motherly sometimes and it was really cute whenever she did that.

‘Sorry, Bree, you kinda have a point,’ Payton said, ‘Group hug!’ And Bree and Payton hugged each other, with me sandwiched in the middle. For a moment, I felt really good again, but at that tme I didn’t know it would be one of the last times I would feel this way without medicine.'