Ex Friends ||Petekey||

Every Star Burns Out

Pete stared out the window, attempting to count the stars. He couldn't see many. The city lights overpowered their faint glow. He preferred the country for that one reason. He loved the stars and space itself. It was a mystery. He sighed and cast his eyes downward, twiddling his thumbs. He needed to find something to do with time. He knew his game boy was in one of the boxes, he just didn't know which.

He knew he shouldn't have, but who was there to stop him? He looked through Emma's window curiously. It was kind of like looking at your phone when you wake up. You check your notifications to see if anything important happened while you were in the dreamscape. But this time it was looking through a window that was a mere foot away from his own, seeing how things were going for his neighbour. Maybe she was having a better day than he was.

His first day had been shit, to put it nicely. He had already gotten a detention for 'snapping back' simply because he corrected something the teacher had gotten wrong. He had scowled as they changed it subtly. He supposed he was in school, what was he meant to be, smart? Pfft.

As predicted, he was the fresh meat for the sports stars of the school. Pete wondered why he ever wanted to be like them but as he pressed on the forming bruise, he remembered. He'd rather not be on the receiving end. As much as he hated it, he hated getting thrown around even more.

When he looked through the window, Emma was face down on her bed, her shoulders shaking and her hands clenched in fists. Pete had never seen anyone at their low point (besides himself, of course), and the sight pained him. Pete couldn't imagine how his parents felt, knowing one day they could wake up and their child wouldn't.

He lightly rapped on the window, hoping to draw her attention and somehow make it all better. Heal her wounds. He could play superhero for a moment of that. Even if he couldn't do it for himself.

Emma's face slowly appeared as she nervously lifted her head. Her tears flowed through her makeup like they were mapping out the stars Pete had been watching. Her hair was messed up and tangled. She looked out the window at Pete's blurry figure and wiped her eyes, managing to smudge her eyeliner even more.

She rolled off the bed ungracefully and trudged over to the window, opening the latch and swinging it open. She shoved her glasses on as she did so. They were a light navy and thin framed. They foggy up a little from her hot tears.

"Do you like watching people cry through their bedroom windows?" Her voice was croaky and sounded slightly deeper than when he first heard her speak. Pete passed it off.

"No! No, I just... I was counting stars and I got bored. Your curtain was open, so I just..." he quickly came up with an explanation, trailing off towards the end of his sentence, hoping that the girl would understand what he meant.

She smiled weakly and sniffled before giving a small laugh and gently reaching out to touch Pete's shoulder. "Calm down, I was kidding," she assured him. She moved a few strands of her greasy hair out of her face with her slender fingers.

"Oh..." he realised. He tried to quickly take the spotlight off of his misinterpretation and onto the matter at hand. "Why're you crying, if you don't mind me asking?"

She looked down and fidgeted with an ornament on her windowsill, a glass unicorn. "My boyfriend broke up with me." She stated plainly but Pete could hear the bitterness behind the words that in any other order wouldn't carry the same message.

"Why?" he asked, mentally cursing at himself for being so intrusive.

"He found something out about me," she said flatly.

"What was it?" Pete asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.

"I'm not gonna tell you."

Pete just nodded in response. He could respect that.

"Wanna Play Mario Kart?" It had always cheered him up when he had someone to play it with. There was nothing like playing Mario Kart while your parents fought in the next room.

Emma just smiled. "You should be a therapist." She joked but let Pete help her through his window none the less.