Run Between

New Year, New Life

It's different, I realize as I sit in the same booth at a restaurant I have on all my birthdays, to be sitting with my two best friends being guys rather than girls. Sure, Scarlette is there too, but nothing has been the same ever since the spring when I learned I'd be playing Skye. Is this so bad, though? I've made new friends, Kat has shown her true colors, and my dream has come true. Overall, not a bad fifteenth year.

Over the course of an hour, we eat, laugh, eat, call each other nicknames (trying to rival 'Muck'), eat, and wait for cake to come. Finally, the fluffy piece makes its way to our table, a few off-tune voices rise up in a chorus of "Happy Birthday," and I blow on the candles until their fires are completely gone. Once we've stuffed ourselves, we pay and walk out of the restaurant and through the rest of the mall. However, before we've gotten more than a few steps away, I run straight into a blockade of red cheeks, blonde hair and a fast speaking mouth.

"Lucy! Oh, my God, I've been looking for you, I thought you would be here, but I couldn't find you." I look up into the face of my best friend--ex-best friend, I remind myself.

"Why're you--" I try to cut in, but Kat's words leave no room for mine.

"I'm so, so sorry, I never should have said anything, I mean, if you don't want to like Aidan, don't like him. I just thought you did, and you're my best friend, and I want you to be happy. And then you were mad at me, and Chloe and Sophia and Lucy were the only people who wanted to hang out with me, and--I'm sorry. I shouldn't have forced you to like--oh."

My heart completes a gymnastics routine I didn't know it could do, until it falls flat on its face. No matter how much I denied it, I had missed Kat, with her too-fast pep talks, her sunny face, her way to always make someone feel good. But as I look up into the shock that completes Aidan's face, and the guilt in Kat's eyes, a smile I did not realize was there slips from my face. 

"Lulu," Aidan says slowly, almost painstakingly, in a voice I have never heard emitted from his mouth before, "Can I talk to you for a second?" I nod, and follow him towards a store, while Steve and Kat chatter excitedly and Scarlette looks on in amusement.

For a moment, we stand solitary, until Aidan blurts out, "Do you really like me?" I wait a second, trying to work up the courage to respond. Finally, before I allow myself to chicken out, I say, "I think so. I didn't realize it, but, I mean--if you don't, that's okay. I still want to be--be friends." I choke a little over the words, although for what reason I'm not sure.

A smile plasters itself onto Aidan's face, and doesn't move. "Good," he replies, back to his normal self, "Because I like you too."

"What?" I exclaim, more out of pleasure than misunderstanding. "Did you really just say that?" Could a new year really mean a new life? A better one than even I had now?

"I hope you heard it, because I'm not saying it again." And, without any warning, he presses his lips to mine. We quickly pull away, but nothing can ruin my mood.

Except, maybe the realization that someone has snapped a photo.