Aparri x reader ~our love~

Chapter 4

"Just trying to keep it fresh." She rises from the floor and holds out her hand. "Anyway, your virginity is the least of our pretrip problems. Come on - your house." Upstairs in my room, Mia pans my closet with her video camera, doing her best movie-announcer-guy voice:

"In a world where summer dreams really do come true, (Y/n) and Mia plan the vacation of their lives. There will be beaches. There will be bathing suits. And there will be boys. But something lurks just below the surface, threatening to ruin the A.B.S.E. if these clever, beautiful gal-pals don't turn their attention to its immediate resolution: (Y/n)'s wardrobe is a total nightmare!"

Owing to Mia's tireless quest for the smallest ratio of fabric to flesh legally allowed, her summer attire - and even most of her winter set - is always beach ready, featuring cute halters, short skirts, and strappy black sandals.

Owing to my mother's tireless quest for the ultimate deal, combined with her standard-issue fashion immunity, my wardrobe - taken as a collection - should be tried, convicted, and hung. Devoid of anything cute, short, or strappy, my closet houses an anthology of half-price, off-season sale items typically excavated from the basements of overcrowded department stores where I elbowed my way past mobs of middle-aged women bargain-hunting in the loose underwear bins."What do you suggest?" I ask, fingering the shirts that hang in front of us.

"I don't even know where to start." She turns the camera on herself and makes an exaggerated shrug in front of the lens. "Just take it all out and throw it on the bed."

I'm not in the mood to dismantle my entire closet, but I do as she asks. It makes her smile, just a little bit, so I don't fight her. Sometimes when she looks happy like this, I watch her from the corner of my eye and wonder if my best friend is still in there somewhere, the one who used to stage elaborate weddings for our dolls and deal me an extra thousand dollars in Monopoly so we could conspire against Julian. In the postdeath murk of our relationship, I don't know if I'll ever see that Mia again. We're such different people now; if I met her on the street today, just like this, we would never be friends. But once in a while, her smile comes back - however fleeting - and I see her, really see her, and know I'll do anything to keep her here a little longer, to keep her from slipping back into the coma of silence that nearly overtook her last year. Even if it means talking about clothes and boys and milk-shake diets instead of things that matter.

"(Y/n) (L/n)'s wardrobe malfunction, take one." Mia films while I toss heaps of unwearable clothing on the bed by the armful. I have a few passable favorites, supplemented by frequent raids on Mia's closet, but I force most of the embarrassing ensembles into hiding, where they wait in vain for the day when they, like their more stylish brethren, might be called into fashion service. "God, (Y/n). What are these?" Mia sets down the camera to grab a pair of old jeans with her finger and her thumb as though pants can transfer a contagious virus.

"They're my old favorite jeans from middle school. They have good memories."

"(Y/n), ankle zippers are never good memories. And what the hell is this thing? It's completely ruined." My mouth goes dry as Mia pulls a white tank top from the plastic bag I've kept it in for the past year, stuffed behind all the shoes on the closet floor. It has splotches of purple, crusty and fading from its original birthday blue. At first I didn't want to wash it because it reminded me of that night and everything it was supposed to turn into. After he died, I didn't want to wash it, get rid of it, or do anything to it.

Ever.

"Garbage pile," Mia says, ready to cast it aside.

"Don't!" I dive toward her and snatch the shirt out of her hands with more force than I intend. It's the only surviving witness to the night Julian  and I changed over from friends to whatever it was we became, and it's nearly impossible for me not to cry.