Counting the Days

Day 4,992

Every story begins with some sort of cliche, right? Some girl is not your average girl, the shy, nerdy kid finds true love. This isn't your average Joe story, kid, it's not even a story at all. It's just my life. 

"Layla! You ready to go?"

"Yeah mom! Hold your horses!"

My sister popped her head down from the top bunk.

"We don't have any horses, though."

"Oh would you shut up Cyra? That would be great."

Cyra laughed and then looked somber. She smiled sadly.

"I'm gonna miss you, kid." She ruffled my hair.

"I'm only gonna be gone for three days!"

"That's a long time! Mom won't let me have any friends over so it's gonna be boring. With a capital b."

"Oh gods Cyra never say that again. What are you, my 59 year old uncle trying to be cool?" Before she could respond I ran out of my room and fell down the stairs. I jumped up and shot out the door, and didn't bother to get in the car. It was only a mile down the road, and I hadn't ran in ages. If I was gonna make tryouts I would have to run before conditioning.

As I made my way down the road, my phone rang, so I stopped running and looked at the caller ID. It was my best friend. My face lit up, and I felt warm, despite the freezing temperatures. I laughed to myself as I hit the answer button.

"Howdy stranger"

"Hey there nerd."

"How's it going, Layla?"

"Pretty good I guess."

"Okay that was your fake smile to the world answer. Real answer?"

"I feel shitty."

"Mhm. What I thought."

"I'm almost to your driveway. Just gotta grab my secret skateboard."

"Ah, yes, the unnecessary skateboard you keep in the woods."

"Unnecessary? Completely necessary, what if I'm getting chased by the demogorgon?"

"Then you would call Eleven. Oh god no I said eleven please don't-"

"WILL!"

"You're annoying, Layla."

"You're a weirdo, Sara."

I skated around the path to the back of her house and climbed up the ladder to the fire escape landing by her room. I pushed the screen door open and did a cartwheel into her room.

"LAYLA IT'S 11:11!"

"CRAP!"

We both grabbed our phones and opened Spotify. We went to each other's profiles and clicked on the most recent playlist, "11:11 Day 767," and listened. You're probably confused about that, you see Sara and I are music addicts, so instead of making a wish on 11:11 every day like most kids, we listen to each other's freshly created playlists for each other. Each one is 11 minutes long, and it serves absolutely no purpose other than to make other kids weirded out by us, and gives us an excuse to shout "WILL!" at the top of our lungs everyday. If you haven't seen Stranger Things, you wouldn't get that reference.

Sara and I spend about an hour each day talking about our playlists. Today I watched a movie of someone's stupid love life. That reflected in the songs I chose, "Somebody Else" by The 1975, "Loving Someone" by The 1975, "Paper Thin Hotel" by Malt Maltese, "Sick of Losing Soulmates" by dodie, I'm not going to list them all, but you get the picture.

Sara was the only person I could talk to. The only person who understood. One of the only people I had. I had a lot of friends, sure, but none of them would get it. There was no one else I could scream "WILL!" at and wouldn't get mad, or be confused.

The only problem is that the world was about to end in about a day, and no one had any idea.