365 Days

April 18th 2016

April 18th 2016...

April 18th was the last good day I had that year. Honestly, things started looking up momentarily after April 17th. I thought it was a path to a better life, like we were somehow getting back on track, that Jess just had a bad day or something.

I was a tiny bit wrong there.

Jess and I made up-ish on the night of the 17th. Well, not really. I kinda accidentally denied his follow request on twitter and then cursed myself out for it.

During school the next day, I was bummed to the bone. I didn't say much, on the 18th, just kept my head down on my desk and only spoke when spoken to.

After school, Jess's mom suggested we go get slurpees. I was guaranteed Jess was gonna make some nasty face at the thought of going anywhere with me but instead, he surprised me, and agreed.

We set off to get slurpees and it was a good day. We walked outside the old house and headed in the direction of the convenient store.

"Guess what?" Jess spoke, surprising me. I just thought we'd walk in silence the whole time. I didn't expect this.

"What?" I asked, pushing hard for genuine, not wanting to let him think I was at all disinterested.

"I like someone" he told me after a moment of hesitation.

"Ooh, who?" I asked.

Yes, we were in a relationship. But it wasn't like Jess to really fall in love with someone else and I knew that. Plus, whenever any one of us felt something, even if the other wouldn't really approve of or support it, we'd always be able to talk to each other and to listen.

"You know our music teacher, Ms. Edmunds?"

I gasped, shrieking a little too. Of course I did know this already. I'd known it since 5th grade. Which relieved me, a lot, because I'd thought it may have been some dumb hoe classmate of ours. I don't know.

He told me that he spent a lot of time with her and she was just helping him with music and finding songs to listen to and stuff like that. I was happy for him. I knew he didn't really have a legit chance with her, but it's okay to feel things. And I wasn't exactly in a position to push his buttons by turning into the jealous girlfriend.

On the way back from getting slurpees, we saw her walking down the sidewalk with grocery bags in each hand. I nudged Jess's arm when he noticed her and he immediately went over and offered to help her carry them. I took a bag as well and we walked with her until we reached his house, which was when he invited her in to come meet his parents.

"I've already met your mother at parent teacher interviews" she laughed.

"But you haven't met my dad. And my little sister, she's only four."

So yes, Ms. Edmunds agreed to come meet the family. When we got back to Aarons residential, Mrs. Aarons was on the phone in her bedroom across the hall. Mr. Aarons, however, came into the kitchen and had a talk with Mrs. Edmunds about his academic career. He wasn't very pleased with Jess, talked him down mostly but Ms. Edmunds did her best to reassure him that Jess was a bright student.

Jess showed her his bedroom and I went up as well. We talked with her for a few extra minutes and Jess offered to carry her bags out. Once she'd gone, I laughed at him a little when May Belle came in asking him if he could do nails with her.

Jess volunteered me to join her instead, saying he had to shower. So May Belle and I did our nails. I hadn't done mine in so long, I was actually like 4-5 years old maybe. So I was much worse than May Belle. She did hers much better than I did mine but insisted I keep it on for school the next day. And that I did.

So April 18th wasn't bad at all. It was almost as good as April 15th. Maybe. But I'd written in my diary that night and when I flipped to the page just today, I'd reread the entry and realized I was hoping April 18th was a serious turn-around, making the events of April 17th just a bad day. But boy was I ever wrong.