Sick of Losing Soulmates

04

A Dumb Screenshot of Youth

Thanksgiving at Lilliana's house was always filled with spanish music being played loudly, enough food to feed an entire army, and enough family members to pack the dining room from wall to wall. And even though it could get annoying at times, Lilliana was always happy to go home for the holidays. Only one thing could make her visit home better, and that was her brand, new, shiny boyfriend to show off to her family. She just hoped that her family would like him as much as she did.

Thankfully, Aiden was immensely charming. He knew how to make all the women in her family smile and her dad had taken a liking to him, so everything seemed to be going swimmingly. During dinner, he knew when to speak up about politics and important issues and when to joke around. Lilliana's family seemed to love him and she was ecstatic about that.

After dinner, she led him up to her bedroom to show him old pictures and to get some alone time with him since her family had been hogging him all day. Lilliana opened her door and led him inside, suddenly nervous that they were all alone. He looked around for a minute, taking in the room, and smiled.

"This is where my beautiful girlfriend grew up, huh?" Aiden said, looking towards Lilliana and smiling. Lilliana felt small under his gaze, but she ignored the feeling and smiled right back at him.

"Yeah, it is," Lilliana spoke, her voice quiet. "Take it in in all it's glory." She plopped down on her bed, and crossed her legs, trying to get comfortable. Aiden sat down right next to her and took hold of her hand. They both sat in silence for little while, taking in the sound of the party still going on downstairs. Lilliana closed her eyes for a moment, admiring the serenity between the two of them, wondering why she was ever so scared to be alone in her room with Aiden.

The spell was broken when she felt the bed shift. She opened her eyes to see Aiden walking around her room, looking at the decorations and awards that Lilliana had acquired over the years. He stopped at her wall of pictures. Lilliana put pictures up there from all the good memories that she had been able to capture. The majority of her wall was filled with pictures of Maribel, which is odd considering she didn't like to be photographed. But, as per usual, Lilliana made it work.

One picture of Lilliana and Maribel had caught Aiden's eye, and he had the audacity to take it down from the wall. He walked back over to the bed and shoved the picture in Lilliana's face. "What is this?" He asked.

"Um, a picture?" Lilliana replied, her eyes barely focusing on the picture that was mere centimeters from her face. Aiden pulled it back a bit so that she could get a good look at it. It was a picture of Maribel and Lilliana at the beach, sand in their wet, messy hair and Lilliana, their cheeks tinged red from the sun. Lilliana had been kissing her best friend's cheek when she snapped the picture. "Oh, it's just me and Maribel at the beach last year."

"Well," Aiden seemed to be at a loss words for a bit, "why are you kissing her?" His voice had the same edge it had two weeks ago.

"Okay, calm down. I'm not actually kissing her. I'm just kissing her cheek. We're best friends. Everyone does it."

"Yeah, well, I'm not comfortable with it," Aiden retorted. His eyes were mean, and his face no longer held a smile.

Lilliana was quiet for a moment. Was her boyfriend actually jealous of her best friend? "Excuse me?" She said, not even knowing what to say.

"You heard me," he said. "I'm not comfortable with you kissing your best friend and taking pictures of it and putting it up for the world to see."

Lilliana was fuming. She couldn't believe that her boyfriend was actually jealous of a picture. He was comfortable with everyday gestures of love towards the people she cared about. She had so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to yell at him about. But she stayed quiet. She didn't say anything. She kept quiet for a bit, before nodding her head. "Fine. I'll take down the pictures. I won't do it again."

Aiden sighed. "Thank you." He sat back down and kissed her cheek. "I knew you'd understand. These pictures, they're just dumb screenshots of your youth. They mean nothing. Your future, our future, is what really matters." He pulled her in for a hug and she nodded against his chest.

Lilliana felt too drained to even try to argue with him. She had seen him when he was angry and she didn't want to go through that again. It was better to just agree with him and everything would be okay. At least, that's what she believed.

I lied I'm posting today lol