Darling ▹ P. PARKER

I. MY BEST FRIEND

❝BEAUTIFUL THING #1: MY BEST FRIEND.❞

Genesis and I have known each other since we were in elementary school and we've been through thick and thin. If one of us had a bad day or we just aren't feeling like ourselves, the other one will rent the most cheesy rom-coms we could find and then laugh at how bad they all are. We don't really talk to other people besides one another, but we wouldn't have it any other way; it's just how we work. But the best is our Friday nights together!

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          SCHOOL WAS NEVER easy for me, but not entirely impossible, either. Sure, I didn't have the good looks or popularity of Liz Allen or the face material things like sports cars like Flash Thompson. What I did have, though, was an excellent grade point average and a best friend to eat pizza with on Friday nights while watching Netflix series we both so desperately needed to catch up on. Tonight was one of those nights.

          Genesis and I had ordered a shit ton of pizza and I had bought over a dozen bagels for our marathon of Twin Peaks that night. But the good wasn't the only great part. We always spent our Friday nights at her house, when her parents were out working late and her little brother was at football practice and where I wouldn't have to look at my dad's bitch of a wife. Plus, with no one home, we could go downstairs and raid her brother's secret ice cream and soda stash in the basement without ever getting caught.

          "So!" Genesis shouted when we entered her room. "I've got four blankets, ten pillows, and two plushies from the Walgreens down in Manhattan. Which do you want? Cuddly hedgehog or cuddly cat?"

           "The cat, duh!"

           "Did I really have to ask?" Genesis rolled her eyes, throwing the cat plushie at my face. she eyed the bag in my hand, seeing the contents of it. "You did not bring those."

          "What?"

          "Those bagels!"

          I laughed, sitting down on her bed and opening the bag up before pulling one out and taking a bite. Through my full mouth, I attempted to say, "Let me live a little!" but it just came out as a garbled mess of crumbs and bagel-bits. This made Genesis roll her eyes even farther into the back of her head.

          "I don't speak Bagel, sweetie!"

           I swallowed hard on the food, "I said let me live a little! Friday nights are the only time I can binge on my favorite foods without Brynn smacking a single jelly bean out of my hand like someone poisoned it for something."

           "She's still making you and your dad stick to that diet?" Genesis gasped in disbelief.

          "Yes! She never lets me eat anything that has a single amount of fructose corn syrup or grease in it. Even when it was my birthday and I wanted nothing more than to get a slice from Scottie's down the street from our apartment complex! I swear she's just upset that when I eat french fries, they don't go directly to my thighs like her. But to be fair, I do play volleyball to work off all of those extra calories."

          "And you have that Egan guy as your gym teacher."

          "That too. You know he bumped our usual lap number to seven!"

          "Which is exactly why I'm glad I have Coach Sellars as my gym teacher at my school. Now, enough about gym class. You and I have one day, seventeen hours, and forty-one minutes-worth of Twin Peaks to watch this week with three boxes of pizza to accompany it!"

         "Okay, I know you didn't do all that math yourself." I shook my head. "What'd you use?"

         "Bingeclock.com, duh."

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          At about one in the morning, Genesis fell asleep, forcing me to turn off the show, knowing she'd be on my ass if she found out I watched ahead without her. I, still very much awake and still very hungry, decided to go out onto the balcony of Genesis' room with what was left of the pizza and breadsticks we ordered and my pen and notepad for something to do besides eating.

          I scribbled a few ideas for my short story in my creative writing class. New ideas flowed through my head as I looked down at the skyline of Queens, with the bright lights of Manhattan visible in the distance. With every sound, every voice still tired from lack of sleep heard from somewhere on the street, a new thought popped into my head, needing to be written down at once. The shimmering lights of the city twinkled in my eyes, sparking another inspiration as I scribbled down an idea about getting lost in the stars.

          Grinning, I took another bite of my pepperoni pizza and took a glance at everything I had written down so far. After about fifteen-twenty minutes of time to myself, I had a total of seventeen different possibilities for my short story. Still, being as greedy as I was to strive for something better, I spent an extra few minutes out there. That was when I heard-

          "Woo-hoo!"

          The motions of my pen stopped abruptly. Now, I had heard a lot of noises in my time on that balcony, but I didn't hear anything so wake, sober, or close. Truly, whatever had made that sound was nearby, ten feet at the very most.

         "Hello?" I stupidly called out while shooting to my feet. I unsurprisingly got no answer in response. Shaking my head, I returned back to my seat. "You're hearing things, Wendy."

         "Yeah!"

          This time, when my head lifted up, I caught sight of the thing. It was just a shadow in the night, but I saw the outline of a body flying through the air. The person's hand was held tightly to what looked like a rope, but something much thinner than that. The person was swinging from building to building on the rope-material, laughing along the way. It seemed pretty stable until the material snapped into two, sending the person falling to the ground.

          I stood up once more, my hand flying to my mouth to stifle a shout of surprise. I ran to the edge of the balcony, finding the person lying on the floor, groaning in pain, but managing to move every so slightly to their feet.

          "Oh my God, oh my god!" I cried. I started banging on the door to Genesis' room to rouse her, but she was too heavy a sleeper to even make a movement to imply she heard me. "Dammit, Gennie!"

          I swiftly rushed back over to the edge to call out to the person to ask if they were alright, but when I peered down onto the streets, the figure was missing from view with nothing left to go off of. So I stood on the balcony of Genesis Cortain's bedroom, staring down at the streets of Queens, wondering if what I saw was real or some sugar-induced image.