I would tell you everything that followed, truly I would. I say I would because I don’t feel like boring you with the obviously boring details, so I’ll just summarize.
The whimpering noise came from a stray dog, an Australian Sheperd mix that Mike and I decided to christen Milady. I took her home and after much begging and pleading, I got to adopt her. She looks like [insert picture] and is the sweetest thing ever. Even though Asher is older than her she mothers him like nobody’s business.
Mike and I became a couple, if you haven’t noticed by now. I told the girls as soon as I got home and they squealed and giggled and demanded a sleepover, which I of course gave them. I’m the first out of the NBK Club, and pretty proud of it. Will fell off the bandwagon a month ago, in April and now we’ve been pushing Jackie and Kat as hard as we can. Jackie shows promise (she and Damien have a little thing going on that I fully intend to exploit) and Kat has gotten close to Jameson Troy, a guy we just initiated into the group. His skin is light brown (like cinnamon, actually) and he has the lightest blue eyes you’d ever seen and curly black hair that rivals Mike’s own, but don’t tell him I said that. Mikes a bit too jealous for his own good, but I can’t help but think it’s adorable. *sigh*
It’s a few weeks before the last day of school. I’ve been mega stressing over the midterms and with the approaching date I’ve done nothing but study my heart out. One depressing point in life-we’ve had a tough past week. Tyler Chez, a kid we used to know, died of unknown causes (as far as we know, anyway) about six days before his sixteenth birthday, which we we’re all looking forward to, for him. He lives kind of far away, but everyone who had ninth with him would understand.
He was a great guy, with a real gift for listening, and is probably sweeter than any guy I’ve ever known (Mike’s had his moments). For some reason I’d always had this thing with his hands, which were pretty awesome. I like big hands, call me weird, by now we’ve all realized that I don’t care. Needless to say, we don’t do much now-all of our gathering have consisted of comforting each other. When Mike comes over, he just holds me in his arms and we sit together, in silence. Adam isn’t one to mourn for the dead, taking the meaning that Tyler’s in a better place now to heart, but he’s mourning too, in his own little way. The girls and I call each other constantly, just offering words of encouragement to help each of us through our day to make it just a tiny bit better.
I’m perched at the kitchen bar right now, wearing casual clothes, dark flared jeans and a white tank top with thick straps. I have on no shoes (which I’m enjoying very much now) and my hair is in a ponytail; currently I’m staring down at my math homework, trying to work, but daydreaming about Tyler instead. A hollow feeling that’s been in the pit of my stomach since the news reached me roils quietly, and the corners of my eyes begin to sting with oncoming tears.
The sound of the front door opening set me back to work and I hear hints of who it is from my brothers conversation with him.
“…twerp…”
“Rennie…”
“Yeah…you’re a…jerk face…”
“Jealous…?”
“She’s…sister…love her…about…you?”
“Of course…how’s…coping?”
“…usual…needs…now…twerp.”
Someone’s socked feet thump up the stairs to the kitchen landing. Lips drop a kiss on the back of my neck and arms wrap around my waist, making me smile, sadly, but still a smile. Mike didn’t know Tyler like most of us-but he gets what I’m going through and everything. Just a teddy bear, I tell you.
“Birdie,” he whispered, face burying itself in my hair. “Cuddle?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, leaning back and closing my eyes. “A cuddle would feel really good right now. He helps me down from the tall bar stool and we head up to my room, and on the way I get a good look at him.
Hat off, just the way I like it…black jeans and a worn grey button up shirt over a white wife-beater. Today is a casual day for both of us. Mike lets go of my hand and curls up on the bed first, then motions for me to join, head propped on elbow. I jump on the bed with a sigh and crawl up to him, snuggling close. Mindlessly I play with the buttons on his shirt, not looking up to his face while his hand pulls me a teeny bit closer.
[Have you ever had a friend die? No? Well consider yourself lucky. Very lucky. Do not question how quiet and calm and simple the next few chapters might be, because writing is the way I cope and I just can’t write witty dialogues and things to pull people in. This is my emotion I’m playing out here, so don’t. Get. Annoyed with me.]
The light in my blue painted room is a dim glow from the bedside light, and I might as well take the time to tell you about my room. It’s shaped like someone started to make it a square but ended up leaning towards more circular at the end and the walls are painted deep peacock blue. The ceiling is painted black but is divided into four sections by four clusters of lights-each one a mixture of yellow-warm bulbs and white-cold ones. Pushed up against the far wall is my four poster canopied bed with the pictures hanging from the ceiling a good three feet above the head board, flanked by two short identical wicker nightstands, each decorated, I think, fittingly.
Both stands have sconces above them with the yellow-warmth bulbs, as well as both having the same black and white vine thing painted on that matches the pattern on the wall. The left one is family, the right friends. The left one sports a framed picture of my curly auburn haired mom and black haired dad laughing together on the Hoover Dam, along with a great picture of Damien I took at the beach that one time. Closest to the bed is my favorite picture, when Mike accompanied me to the Picture People when I took my seventeenth birthday pictures, on June 1st. I insisted, laughing, that he take a couple pictures, which ended up being two by himself and four with me. My two most-liked of each category are number one the picture when Mike’s sitting on the ground and I have my arms wrapped around his neck, hanging over him from behind. We’re both looking at the camera, and Mike had that insufferable grin on his face and I’m just full out smiling. The second is a close up of his face, when he’s looking at you from the corner of his eye with a ‘can you believe this?’ look on his face. I know for a fact that I’m making a ridiculous face just off camera. In the pictures my hair is in two curling ponytails on either side of my face with a frothy white sundress that used to be my mom’s, and Mike is wearing a white v-neck (that was conveniently under the purple one he’d been wearing). The stand on my right has framed photos of these in no particular order; The Group at the mall, the NBK Club and I at the park together, a picture of me with all the guys, and then separate photos of me with Will, Kat, Jackie, McKay, and Adam. The separates of McKay and Adam and The Group at the mall is I actually taped to my drawers.
The rest of my room is pretty simple, with the glass-door closet, huge bookcase, loveseat in the corner, and that butter-leather circular chair I love to read in. Perhaps the only other thing worth noting (ignoring the other various knick knacks and ect.) is my three windows, the middle of which having a small, like teeny, balcony.
I almost forgot about the room surrounding me when Mike finally spoke.
“Rennie, is there anything I can do? It’s almost been two weeks…I can’t stand seeing you like this.” I stopped playing with his buttons and looked deeply into his chocolaty eyes. I can’t tell him no, I will never truly be ‘okay’, or tell him yes, because that would be lying…thankfully, a barking Milady chose that moment to awake from her nap and launch herself from the purple dog bed in the corner of my room into us.
“Mike…yeah. I’ll be fine. But thanks for being there, all those days, you know. It means a lot.” He kissed the tip of my nose and I smiled, really smiled, for the first time in a while. “Okay then.” I sat up straight. “Two more members of NBK Club left…”
Mike smiled and yanked softly on one of my curls happy that I was back to normal-ish while I plotted two of my best friends romantic demise.
YOU ARE READING
Never Been Kissed: Sophomore Year
Teen FictionSugar induced highs, Coldstones, and Starbucks, added to four best friends and some very unsuspecting guys make up my world. See, first Will, Jackie, and Kat came to Winterhaven and then the whole place was spruced up, then I met Bumblebee, who then...
