I Fake That Smile

Chapter Three

Chapter 3

The next morning I was extremely tired, grumpy, and I had a killer headache, however, I knew I still had to go to school. The day passed in a blur, but somewhere in-between there I managed to fix things with Joey, or rather he fixed them with me.

During lunch he had strolled up to me (I was actually sleeping and had my head down on the table as embarrassing as that is) he tapped me on the shoulder and scared the shit out of me. Then he took a seat and I looked up at him which made him laugh because I had drool on the side of my mouth.

And then he proceeded to tell me how sorry he was, and to make it up to me we would go see a movie tomorrow. I agreed (partly because I like movies and snacks, especially when they’re free). The only thing was though… When Joey suggested a movie I thought we would end up watching a cool action movie or a horror movie, something like that.

But instead I found myself standing at the movie theatres buying tickets for Dolphin Tail 2, never in my life had I expected Joey to want to go to this movie, but here we were. When Joey asked for the tickets the chick just stared at him before kind of glancing around to check if we had a kid with us. I shrugged from behind Joey and she snickered.

The next two hours were pretty interesting, Joey was getting emotional which made me laugh a lot, and then he flicked me on the arm because I was ‘being mean’. When the movie was over Joey dropped me off at my apartment and I made a final joke about seeing the movie before heading inside. Joey flipped me off before I left.

My sister and her roommate were sat in front of the TV playing Nintendo 64, don’t ask me why they were playing such an old video game but they forced me to play Mario Kart with them. At first I didn’t want to because I knew it would remind me of all the good times I’ve had with Aaron and I wasn’t ready for that. Unfortunately I loved the game too much to say no though.

Aaron paused the game and I looked over at my nine year old twin brother. “Why’d you do that?” I asked him.

He got up from the couch and grabbed his blue bean bag from off to the side. “I’m grabbing my bean bag chair so that I can be more level with the TV, this way I have a better chance of winning.”

“That’s stupid,” I commented.

Aaron only frowned at me. He dropped the bean bag chair down on the ground and sat down wiggling around to get comfy before unpausing the game. We continued to play, and at the very end we were racing to get to the finish line first, I was right behind Aaron and he was trying to make it so I wouldn’t pass him.

Both of us shifted our whole bodies trying to turn around the last corner even though it probably didn’t make much of a difference. And then I got around Aaron’s Mario character with my Peach one and passed him I got to the finish line and through my controller in the air screaming, “HA! I told you it wouldn’t matter!”

Aaron only smiled evilly and I looked over at the TV. I had thrown the controller in the air making Peach stop right before the finish line, and then Aaron passed me and won the game.

“I win!” he grinned, and I just about strangled him.

“I’m going to bed,” I announced after that memory bounced around in my head. I stood up kind of shaking before I headed for my room. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Logan and Melissa exchange a look before I was gone.

That night all I could think about was Aaron, how he was back in Washington with no one there to take care of him. My parents were dead, thanks to reasons I would rather not talk about and my brother was in a mental institute, and I prayed to god that he stay in there so I wouldn’t ever have to talk to him again.