Weathered Love

RELAPSE

Mackenzie was in the hospital for a week. Not as long as she sometimes was, but longer than she promised. I didn't let on that I was mad at her though. Because I was too happy to see her when she finally came back to school. Just in time for finals.

"Thank God the torture has concluded!" Mackenzie exclaimed on our last day of finals. We had met up at the front of the school so that we could go out and celebrate finals ending.

"Mrs. Knowles really drilled that thesaurus into you guys," I teased at her choice of words. Mackenzie shrugged.

"I'm going back to talking bad English then," she joked. I smiled. She looked much better, summer break was starting, and even the weather seemed to be happy. We didn't have to wait much longer for Ivan and Samantha to join us.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into letting you drive all of us," Ivan huffed. He loved being the driver. He loved driving in general. I think it was his freedom, his version of running, except he got a driver's high instead.

"I'm going to make sure I take the bumpiest roads, just for you," I teased, giving him a big smile. He just rolled his eyes and then casually put his arm around Samantha's shoulder, then led her away from us. No doubt, they wanted to sneak in a kiss before leaving.

"So we're going to be stuck waiting for them for, like, an hour," Mackenzie complained.

"Or we can just leave them," I mused. "I'm sure we could go, celebrate, come back, and they won't even notice that we left."

Mackenzie laughed. "Let's test that theory, shall we?" she joked.

"Hey guys!" came Karen's perky voice from my right.

"Hey Karen," I said, smiling at her.

"Got any plans?" she asked.

"You're welcome to join us for a celebratory bubble tea," Mackenzie offered. "I think we just lost half our group."

"Who?" Karen asked.

"Samantha and Ivan. They went off to the track field. We won't see them for a while," I explained. Karen smiled, but her smile looked sad.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

She nodded, her smile suddenly changing. Her mask was on. She needed us to believe that everything was perfect.

"Hey ladies," Caleb said, coming up behind Karen. But he didn't hug her or kiss her or even put his arm around her. What was going on with them?

It's none of your business, I told myself. If there was something going on, and either of them wanted to tell me, they would have.

"Hey Caleb," Mackenzie responded with a reserved smile. As head of the "Caleb secretly likes Ivy" group, she had roped Samantha in with her. Ivan had joined voluntarily. Maybe he even co-founded it. It definitely showed in her comment to him when we visited her in the hospital. "So," Mackenzie continued, turning to me. "Bubble tea?" she asked.

I nodded. "You guys are welcome to join," I offered. "I'll text the others." I pulled out my phone and sent a group text to virtually everyone I was friendly with, just to ensure I didn't forget anyone. What started off as an intimate outing between four best friends quickly grew into a huge event.

We managed to get Ivan and Samantha to somehow make their way to my car (their lips didn't part ways while they walked). They continued their makeout session in the back of my car. "Well, I'm burning this car," I joked, just loud enough for Mackenzie to hear from the passenger's seat. She burst out in her choppy, contagious laugh, which managed to cause Ivan and Samantha to finally come up for air.