Stuffed Mattress

Chapter One

Sun Tan - Wallows

Mia

Senior year kicked my ass, but your girl is a free independent woman of eighteen years, and she is ready party! Kissing my framed high school diploma, I hang it on my new bedroom wall. A couple friends and I are all taking a gap year and renting out a house together. Everyone except Markea, leaping into culinary school. Connor, my boyfriend, and I share a room while the other two share the other room.

By other two, I mean Phoenix and Markea. Phoenix has been my best friend since diapers. Markea joined our group in middle school, and together, we make a decent horror movie cast. Starring Phoenix, the troubled white girl, Connor, the jock, Markea, the token black, and me, the white looking Mexican for more diversity points. I'd probably be killed off after Markea.

After I'm satisfied with my room, I stack my last three boxes of clothes and shoes in the corner of the room. I look around the room, looking if it is good enough. The walls were once a bright neon pink, and we tried painting over it with white twenty times, but I could still see the pink bleeding through. Connor and my bed is in the middle of the wall across from the door. I go to Phoenix's room. She's taping up some of her band posters when I come in, some music playing from her Alexa. Her hair is up but not really. Random strands of fiery red hair pokes out from her weird bun that she uses a rubber band to hold up. 

When she sees me enter, she calls out, "Alexa, shut up." Alexa listens. "What time is it?"

"It's 7:00-ish. I'm decently satisfied with my room, so I came in here to chill, not to rush you," I say.

"Alright cool, Mia. Alexa, play my Freshman Year playlist."

"Oh, God," I mumble as 21 Guns begins to play. I sing along with Phoenix as she continues to hang up her couple of band posters, mentioning how you "never truly grow out of your emo phase." Once the chorus starts, Connor slams open the door, shouting "One! Twenty one guns!"

I am the only one jump scared. "Welcome back. How was grocery shopping?" Phoenix asks as Connor wraps me in a hug; Markea does the same to Phoenix. "Aye, shut up, Alexa!" Alexa listens. I felt a little bad. If the robots were to attack, Phoenix's Alexa would probably kill everyone in this room.

"I wanted to shoot myself. Connor picked up a jalapeno thinking it was a bell pepper," Markea complains, flailing her arms dramatically around Phoenix. 

Connor flushes. "A rookie mistake."

"Not everyone is a master chef like you, babe," Phoenix says.

I snort. "Literally, have you ever eaten a bell pepper before?" I ask, eyeing Connor as we pull apart. I eye him curiously.

He sighs. "Okay, not just a plain bell pepper. My mom put bell peppers in our meat loaf when I was a kid though. Which is what we're going to make for dinner tonight!" I smile, happy that everyone is so excited for living on our own. 

"Asterisk, me, you mean," Markea butts in, and Connor nods.

"Sure sure." Markea heads to the kitchen, begining to fix our dinner with Phoenix's help, and Connor looks about our bedroom to see if everything is to his satisfaction. My diploma hangs right beside Connor's, both in black frames. We have fairy lights that have clips between each two light bulbs where selfies and other photos with me and all my friends hang. 

"It is to my satisfaction," Connor says. With that, we go to the living room to watch TV. Phoenix and Markea already put on some anime show, so we all watch the unrealistic boys play volleyball. There's one kid who is hella short but can jump hella high and has a really good spike. He's paired with an emo, angsty kid. I used to play volleyball, so I knew some of the things they did, but overall, it just majorly glorified the sport. Not that it isn't fun. I'm rambling, sorry.

Connor ends up dozing off to the show, but he jolts awake when Phoenix yells that the meat loaf is hot and ready to be devoured. We eat in the living room, changing the TV to a lifetime movie for everyone to enjoy. By enjoy, I mean to make fun of their dumb decisions and yell at pedophiles. A fun pass time, really. 

Phoenix and Markea head to their room after eating, calling it a night. I yawn, leaning into Connor. "Maybe we should go to bed too," I say, and Connor yawns.

"Hm, I guess." We head upstairs to get to sleep, laying under the warmth of the blankets. We barely glazed over my work on the wall, and instead we ducked right into bed. I lay on Connor's chest, content. It felt like hell going through school, my family, my mental health, but here I was. Laying with Connor in our bed, in our apartment, wrapped up like a bandage, healing old wounds.

I smile as I fall asleep, wishing this would never end.

...

The next morning, I woke up with the sun. Then, I immediately put my head back on the pillow to get back to sleep. I hated waking up so early since I had trouble falling back to sleep with the sun blaring into my eyes. I turned over and dug my face into Connors side. He groans lightly, but he doesn't wake up. Eventually, I'm back to sleep in no time.