Blue Letter Night

7. Beth is rational

Anne and I were board to say the least. With feet propped up in the bed, we laid on the shaggy rug beside her bed, the soft feel of the carpet against my bare shoulders was itchy with the layer of sweat in between.  The only exchange of words Anne and I had made in an hour was a simple

"What do you wanna do?"

"I don't know,"

Then we laid in silence, my eyes picking out patterns from texture of the popcorn ceiling. I could tell already the summer was going to be unbearably warm. Mostly I just figured it was going to be an unbearable summer, between Mason and the inevitable heat, it was going to be rough.

From downstairs I heard the sound of the front door closing.

"What's that about?" I asked Anne, not moving from my position. Machelle was at work, and most days Max didn't leave his room, let alone the house.

"Oh, Mason has decided he's going to rekindle things with his kindergarten bestie, Eddie. That must be them,"

"Noooo!" I exclaimed, "not Eddie! Eddie is way too good for Mason," I had known Eddie sense preschool, we only became friends in the seventh grade, when he helped me in home economics; I wasn't much of a cook, but lucky for me Eddie was. I wouldn't have considered him a friend friend, more like a school friend.

"Well I guess we know what we're doing today," Anne hopped up and stuck out her hand for me to grab. I sighed and used her hand to help me up.

"Let's go investigate," she said in a devious way.

"Wait wait," I stopped walking, "You're just going to run in there without a plan?"

"Yeah, live life on the edge dude," she grabbed my hand and tugged me along. I rolled my eyes and trudged behind her.

Downstairs, Eddie and Mason were talking as though they had never been apart; their conversation was fast paced and resembled one I might've had with Anne. Anne and I peered around the corner of the kitchen to see the two laughing and talking about what they had missed in the past nine years, which was a lot.

"Well they certainly are wasting no time rekindle their bromance," I remarked in a whisper.

"Seriously," Anne snickered, "lets go say hi,"

"No, no, no, why would we do that?"

"Oh I don't know, probably because I'm not spending the summer shacked up in my room with no excitement," Anne tugged me out into the open. Sometimes Anne was just like her mom, igniting situations that might provide slight entertainment. The Carter's coming back was arguably the most exciting thing to happen in Stanmore for a few years.

"Hey!" Eddie greeted cheerily when he spotted us at the entrance of the kitchen, "Anne, Beth, what's up guys!" I smiled at Eddie. Eddie had never been anything but friendly to me— to everyone really— and I appreciated that. Everyone always joked he looked like a teenage Li Shang from mulan, minus the man bun, and I sort of saw it. He played just about every sport the school offered, meaning he was buff beyond belief and could bunt just about anyone across the football field. I secretly wished he would do me a favour and kick Mason all the way back to where he had come from, but Eddie would probably feel sorry if he accidentally kicked a dandelion.

"Hey, Eddie," Anne and I greeted in unison.

"How's it going," Anne continued walking towards the counter where him and Mason were sitting. I followed behind awkwardly.

"You know, pretty good. I got my man Mason back so overall a pretty good day," he answered. It was ironic that the thing that made Eddies day was the thing ruining my summer.

"You know, Mason and I were gonna go to the mall— it's got air conditioning and everything. You guys wanna come?" Mason gave his friend a look, but Eddie just shrugged.

"Sure," Anne replied. I gave Anne the same look Mason gave Eddie. Anne rolled her eyes in response.

I quickly made the excuse of running upstairs to get cash with Anne. Really, I just wanted to ask if she had lost her mind. What could've possibly compelled her to agree to spend an afternoon with my childhood rival who was still a massive jerk. Anne thought the excuse was true enough because she followed me up the stairs.

"What on earth are you doing?" I asked.

"Beth, you know we would've just sat there the whole day. Besides don't you want to try and get along with Mason?"

"I'm trying to make it through the summer without an incident. I find the best way to do that is to avoid Mason all together,"

"Come on Beth it'll be fun," she was trying to convince me but it wasn't working. I could see that she did really want to see this play out. Looking towards my rational side, which was the dominant side when it came to nearly everything, I could see that there was no way out of this. Mason would be living here for three months, and after that it wouldn't be like I was rid of him again; he would be living right around the corner, we'd go to the same school, and our parents were best friends.

"Fine," I agreed reluctantly. Anne smiled a winning smile. I grabbed some cash and shoved it in the back pocket of my jean shorts, told Max where we would be, and met everyone at the front door.

I was almost nervous to go outside. The sun was sweltering, and I hadn't put any sunscreen on. It was a real pale person problem to go outside for five minutes, even with SPF 80 and still walk away with a sunburn. It wasn't a long walk to the mall, but long enough for me to be wary.

On the way we joked around about teachers Anne, Eddie and I had throughout the school year—

"Oh god! And Mr. Markidies and his freak out over the intercom,"there was a round of laughter from the three of us, Mason laughed quietly so he wouldn't seem out of place even though he had no idea what Anne was talking about.

"Where'd they had that much super glue?— and the goat too!" Anne put her arm around my shoulder while catching her breath.

"Who cares!" Eddies laugh echoed around us, "It was amazing. That'll be us next year guys,"

"We'd better start planning then," Anne remarked.

Mason and I stood on opposite sides of the line we walked in, and Still, I could feel the out of place feeling he must've been experiencing. I quickly made a subject change, one that we could all be included in.

"Well I don't care what our prank is gonna be; i'm not even going to think about school until I've procrastinated on my summer reading for so long that I need to read Huckleberry Finn in one night," there was a murmur of agreement from everyone including Mason and I felt relief from both myself and him.

For a moment things seemed to be calm—that is until Mason made a remark about how if we didn't arrive at the mall soon, dainty little Bethany would be a pile of charred paper. I suddenly regretted my previous nice deed.

"Mason," I said kindly, "you've been a jerk you're whole life. Why not take the day off?"

"Jesus, everything that comes out of your mouth is so annoying," he shot back.

"Mason," I spat. Eddie and Anne stifled a laugh.

"Oh you must think you're so clever huh, Rogers?" He sneered.

"It was pretty funny," Eddie light heartedly.

"Dude your my friend, you're supposed to be in my side," he told Eddie.

"Lets just get to the mall so we can have AC before we all die of heat exhaustion," I replied.

"I second that notion," Anne said. Eddie made a sound of agreement. Mason stayed silent but kept up with the group as we speed walked into the cool air of the mall.