Forte Knox

4. Acquaintanceship

Getting over our differences was proving to be harder than I thought, and I thought it was going to be super hard. For one, Cher absolutely adored chick flicks and cliches while I could barely stomach any of it. I was more of an action kind of girl.

That said, we wound up spending the better part of the night arguing over which show to watch.

"I can't believe you've never seen Mean Girls!" Cher exclaimed, exasperated.

We were both sprawled out on the floor in my movie room (yes, there is a room at my house dedicated to the full theatre experience, complete with a giant flat screen tv and a state of the art surround sound system) with our popcorn getting colder by the minute.

"I'm sorry I'm not your typical millennial."

"But you don't have to be a millennial to watch Mean Girls."

"It's just not my thing, okay? Besides, Lan and I have a strict schedule to follow, and tonight is supposed to be Broadway Friday, which means we must watch a broadway musical."

Cher exhaled loudly and fixed me with a look. "But Landon isn't here, is he?"

Thick silence filled the air as her words sunk in.

"You know what?" I finally found my voice again. "Clearly, it was a bad idea to invite you over and clearly, our acquaintanceship is not working out."

Cher pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's because you're making it so hard! I'm just trying to be your friend because other than Landon, I don't think you really have any. I can't believe I actually felt sorry for you!"

"Yeah? Well, I never asked you to feel sorry for me, Cher McCarthy!"

We seethed and glared at each other for a few seconds, both unwilling to back down. It was my phone ringing that snapped us out of it and Cher continued to burn holes at the tv while I answered Landon's call.

"Hey."

"Hey Ri!" My eyebrows furrowed. He sounded chirpier than usual.

"What's up?"

"I heard you're hanging out with Cher McCarthy tonight." I could almost see Landon's knowing smile behind his words. "How's it going?"

Horrible. "Great. It's going great."

"Really? I'm so proud that you're branching out, making new friends."

"Uh, me too? I mean, I'm proud of me too."

Landon chuckled. "What are you two doing?"

I twirled a strand of hair around my finger. "We're watching Mean Girls."

He laughed this time, a deep hearty laugh. "That's amazing. I never thought I'd live to see the day where you'd actually watch Mean Girls!"

I forced a laugh too.

"I'm happy you're having fun." I made an unintelligible noise at that. "Anyway, break time's over and I gotta get back on the field now. Say hi to McCarthy for me, will you? Catch you later, Ri."

"Later, Landon."

I turned to Cher after the line went dead, realising that I had just dug my own grave.

She smiled at me, sickly sweet. "Mean Girls it is."