i can't stay mad at you

seven

Miles

My mood has been strangely neutral while Olivia is here. I don't have the urge to curse her out like usual. I don't know exactly what this means but her presence is unusually calming today. She came over in sweats and her hair in a bun. She looks.....cute. Maybe it's because if her and Ethan start dating, I will be seeing her more often, so i'm subconsciously being nice to her.

When she leaves, I grumble my way back up to my room. It's 4:00 and I don't know what to do with the rest of my day. It's a nice day out, so I decide to go out. Without acknowledging my mother I head out to my car. I think about visiting my dad, then get too sad to go through with it. I stare at my dashboard for a couple minutes. It really is a nice day. My happiest moments are when I'm able to actually enjoy life. I'm a generally angry person, so these moments when I can take a breath and just enjoy the life I have, are truly the best. They don't come often, but it's appreciated when they do. I sit in the car listening to my all time favorite "i'm a little sad but for the most part i'm okay" playlist, which mainly consists of Post Malone and old Drake. For about an hour I really just sit there, thinking, which is not the best thing for someone like me to be doing. My mind drifts to Ethan, and growing up with him. We always had the greatest times as children running around my backyard, playing soccer with my dad. I immediately change the direction of my thoughts towards Olivia. Olivia...the innocent, pure Olivia. My feelings towards her confuse me to no end. Every emotion I feel is electrified when she's around. I don't know what this means, but I want to get to know her. I want to touch her curls and learn about her family. I want to get an A on this project with her and listen to her rant about stupid shit. I just want...to talk to her. I don't know what to do with the feelings, so I store them to another part of my head and turn up the music.

"Dude, can Hopkins get anymore boring?" Ethan whispers in my ear. Stats is the most boring class and Mr. Hopkins does not make it any easier with his gloomy voice and frequent coughing.

"It sucks that I have to spend my first period everyday this bored." I respond, not caring to whisper. What is Hopkins really gonna do if he heard me? Exactly.

The period drags and drags as he talks about statistical inference or something of the sort. Senior year could not go any faster. Hopkins finally stops talking and hands out a worksheet.

"So, how was your date with that girl."

"First, her name's Olivia, which you know, and second, well...it was okay."

"Okay? What happened?"

"I don't know, it was just kind of weird and awkward. We don't have much in common, and she's not really my type I guess."

"I don't know why you went out with her in the first place. I could tell you didn't want to."

His eyes scatter around nervously, "You could?"

"Yes dude, you were being so weird about it." I shake my head, and look back towards my worksheet. I wonder if Olivia is upset things didn't go well. Maybe she really liked him. "What about Olivia?"

"What about her?"

"Did she seem...upset, ya know, about things not going well."

"No, we actually started to have a good time when we both admitted we weren't into it. That's when it started to get fun. Yeah, she's great, I think we will be good friends. Just friends." He looks like he's trying to convince himself more than me. I would ask him what's really up with him, but that's just not how our friendship works. We don't really have mushy discussions, ever. If something is really up, he'll tell me. Or he won't. Either way, I'm fine.

"Oh. Thats cool."

The rest of the period ends pretty quickly after that, and I'm off to my class with Olivia. I mean, I'm off to Anatomy. I need to stop associating everything with her.

Mr. Green makes us spend the period gathering as much research for the project as possible because it's due Wednesday and we won't be working on it in class tomorrow. Lucky for us, me and Olivia are mostly finished, with just a couple more slides to add.

"I think we should make a slide about the steps they're taking to cure this." Her talking, takes me away from my thoughts.

"Sure." I lean into the laptop we're sharing. She smells like a mixture of some perfume and hair products. Her hair is down today, and it's glistening under the light. I'm infatuated with the pattern. She turns to look me in the eye, while I'm staring.

"Yes?" Shes smiling as if she just caught a kid trying to steal a cookie.

"Um..what..hair products do you use?" I say the first thing that come to my mind. I sit back in my seat, ashamed of how stupid I must seem. I almost let my stupid anger get ahold of me before she speaks.

"Well I use lost of things. A bunch of creams and moisturizers and curl enhancers, you know the deal."

"Um, no I do not know the deal."

"How could you not know, your hair is curly?" She genuinely looks confused.

"I don't put anything in my hair besides water."

"Wow. It hurts to know how dry your hair must be." She says and I almost get pissed off until she starts to laugh. The sound calms me. What the fuck is happening to me and how do I make it stop?

"Well what the hell am I supposed to use?"

"Miles, of all your years of life you've never thought about buying a product for your hair? There's so many different brands and smells, you really need to hop on the train buddy. Your hair is screaming for moisture." I never really cared that much to even worry about my hair. And just because she says anything doesn't mean I'm going to start caring.

"Yeah, whatever." We continue to find more information and I continue to pretend I'm not stealing glances of her from the corner of my eye. Time passes on and I internally decide I'm done with whatever weird feelings I have for this girl. I'm graduating with the months to come, and I don't have time to be thinking about Olivia.

"Hey um, I don't know if Ethan told you but, we're just going to be friends." She looks up from the computer, but not in my eyes. She speaks nervously. Why would she be nervous?

"He did. And I don't care." Why would she feel the need to tell me anyway?

"Yeah well, I was telling you because I think he can really use a friend, so maybe you guys can-"

"I don't need you to tell me about Ethan, if he needs to tell me something he will. The fuck you think I need your help to understand that for?" Anger quickly consumes me. The quickest way for me to get angry is for someone to tell me what to do or how to handle a situation. I don't need anyone's help getting by and I certainly don't need Olivia's help on my relationship with Ethan.

"First off, if you would have let me finish, I was going to say he just seems a little sad so maybe-"

"You're crazy if you think I give a shit what you think. Ethan is a big boy, he will come to me if he needs to." Anger bubbles up and up and- "Why the hell are you trying to fix what's not broken? Things would work perfectly if you minded your damn business for once." It's possible I'm being dramatic, but it's a serious pattern for her to overstep my unspoken boundaries, and it's time I stop it before she thinks we are about to be best buds and telling each other our deepest secrets.

She stares at me for a good 15 seconds at most before turning back to the laptop. She takes out her phone, and inserts her headphones, officially shutting me out. She carries on scrolling through google for more information. I sit there blocking her out as well. Whatever, if she wants to be a child then fuck it. Fuck her.