wild life | l.p

Chapter Three.

Arianne kicks her feet under the blanket, reaching across Zayn towards the headboard and grabbing one of his pillows to hold against her chest. She twists her mouth, confused but watching intently at her friend's apparent new all time favourite movie until it finished.

Her silence when the credits start rolling says everything.

“You didn’t like it?” Zayn asks in disbelief, “Really?”

“I just like Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man better than Tom Holland.” Ari says, shrugging, “I mean he’s still cute but--”

“It’s not about how cute they are, you donut.” Zayn rolls his eyes, “It’s about their acting. How believable they are to their character.”

“I thought Garfield was a believable Spider-Man!”

“Maybe, but Tom Holland fits the age and storyline a lot better.”

Ari shrugs her shoulders again, pulling her phone out to reveal the time. She’s now officially late to dinner, and has two missed calls and a couple of angry texts from her mother, but none of that is anything new. Zayn notices this, nudging Ari lightly on the arm, “You going home?”

“I should, I guess.” She sighs, “It’s just stupid though. I’m nineteen. I don’t know why I still have to have a curfew and report back to mom all the time. I’m old enough to legally go to jail. I think I can make my own decisions.”

“Maybe she’s afraid that you’re going to end up in jail if she doesn’t keep tabs on you.” Zayn chuckles.

“Don’t be stupid, Zayn.” Ari shakes her head, “We all know I’m going to end up in jail. I hit a girl today for possibly calling me a bitch.”

“Possibly?” Zayn snickers, his eyebrows raised as he judges Ari even more given this new information, “You mean you don’t actually know if she did or not?”

“She did…” Arianne thinks, looking towards the ceiling as she racks her brain for the memory from earlier today, “I mean… she must have. She did. Yeah, she definitely did.”

“You’re insane.” Zayn says, shaking his head at his friend. “And I thought you said that you didn’t hit her.”

“I didn’t!” Arianne protests as she climbs out from the covers and adjusts her now wrinkled clothes. “What would you call what I did? I pulled her ponytail and she fell to the floor. It’s not hitting… but what would you call that?”

“I’d call it mentally unstable.” Zayn pokes, knowing that this is the kind of joke he would only make to Arianne and no one else. “I’d call it: you-need-anger-management.”

“I’d call it screw-you-Zayn.” Ari laughs too, knowing that he honestly is probably right. She really needed to do something about her anger. At least do something about going off the wire and causing big scenes. She had been guilty of doing that a little too often lately.

Ari grabs her empty pint of ice cream, throwing it in the garbage. She picks up Zayn’s, feeling how heavy that it is and realizing that he must not have had much of it. “Zayn these are like 20 calories each. You only had two bites. That makes you like what, negative 700 calories for today?”

“I don’t count calories.” Zayn states simply, “And I’m too cold for ice cream today.”

Arianne knew this was a lie. Both statements. But she decided to let it go. Zayn seemed to have had a good day today. He wasn’t irritable, he wasn’t sad. He was just his regular old self, so Arianne decides that today, she won't press any further.

“I’m putting this in your freezer with the other two.” She declares, pulling her bag onto her shoulder. Hagrid had saunters back into the room once the door creaks open, probably anticipating the moment that he gets to come back in and see what the two friends are up to. Arianne lifts her foot in the air, and Hagrid runs underneath it, letting the arch of her foot rub the spine of his back a few times until he's satisfied.