friends | jeff atkins

t w e n t y f i v e

🌸 d e v o n 🌸

"Can we forgive and forget, if only for the weekend." I mumbled to myself the lyrics of one of my favorite You Me At Six songs from the passenger seat, my mom and I both drowning each other out with headphones and our own music.

I closed my eyes and pushed my head against the glass as I watched the surrounds around me change with every town we cut through. I had never been outside California, Beverly Hills of course, but never California. I had a girl in my Psychology class last year that was throughly convinced California was its own country, Makenna and I had an inside joke with this for the rest of the year until it got us both sent to the office because the teacher accused us of bullying the girl. The girl hadn't even realized we were making fun of her and surprisingly at the end of the year she passed, I personally think it's because the teacher felt bad for her and wanted to pass her so she could graduate.

I slip in and out of consciousness before my mom taps on my shoulder signaling for me to take out my earbuds, and right during the middle of the new Halsey album too.

"Devon, this is it."

"This is it?" I look around disappointed as we drive down Main Street. "It's kind of, crummy."

"It'll take some time." She said smiling. "I've never been this far north, it's exciting."

"Why did Uncle Philip move here?" I ask once again looking the street up and down. "It's like a cheap version of One Tree Hill."

"It's not that bad!" My mom says hitting my arm. "I think your aunt Noelle grew up here, I'm not for sure why they picked here when he left the military."

"I wish they would have chosen a town with a Starbucks." I rolled my eyes and put my earbud back in, turning it up hoping I could drown out the town with some more Halsey.

We drove through streets with tons on tiny little homes right next to each other and everything began to look so foreign to me, I had never seen houses so close together except for in San Francisco. We began to distance ourselves from the little houses as my mom started up a hill to some bigger house, I quickly identified this as being where the kids with money lived.

"Alright, the realtor said she'd be on her way to show us around and give us the keys so we just stay put." My mom says leaning back her in her seat and pulling out her phone. "Remember the plan."

"Wait, you haven't seen the house yet? Like the inside."

"No but the pictures were nice and-"

Mom was interrupted by a loud thump on my window, I turn to my left to see Jessica squishing her face and pulling her nose up to look like a pig on my glass. I didn't even have to think about getting out of the car, I frantically unbuckled myself and opened the door pulling Jess right into a bear hug.

"Hey Dev." She said as we pulled away from our hug. "Welcome to Crestmont, specifically Newberry Avenue. Do you like it?"

"It's um...homely." I clearly faked a smile looking at the house, which was surprisingly bigger than I though. "It's a five bedroom, four and a half bathroom house, that's just nothing to me because I lived in a seven bedroom seven bathroom house all my life."

"What did you do with all the rooms, it was only you?"

"Well I had a playroom in one, that turned into my yoga room later. And we had a home gym in one, a spare room for when Makenna's parents were fighting."