imperfect scars|stavo acosta

three; friends ✔️

"Where are you going?" My mum questions as she sees me seconds away from leaving the house.

"Out." I say with a small huff.

"That's nice. Is he a friend from work?"

"There's food in the fridge." I inform her, knowing deep down, she can hear me. She can care for herself while I'm at Emma's.

"Enjoy your night."

"It's the afternoon."

Ever since my mum found out about the death of my father a couple months ago, she's never been able to have a normal conservation with me. When I leave the house she always asks the same questions that she once said to my dad the same night he disappeared. When I enter the house, she asks what she asked my dad the morning he disappeared.

I don't know when she'll stop asking me these questions or when she'll come back to me, but I miss her. I miss having parents.

I turn around and leave my mum to stand there as she watches me pick up my bag and exit the golden bricked house.

__

"Room cleaning. Fun." Brooke groans and sits on Emma's bed.

"Yeah, Em. When you invited us over, I was expecting us to just chill..." I say to my friend as I look at a colourful teddy bear.

Why on earth does she have this?

"You know you can admit you miss Jake, right?" Emma places a white snow globe into a box. "And besides, this is chilling."

"We have different definitions of chilling." I joke, making Emma laugh and Brooke smirk.

"I'm pissed that he turned into kind of gig that made me care. He's been MIA all day," Brooke sighs and throws one of Emma's small comfort pillows to the ground.

"He really made you care?" Emma questions.

"He changed, Em. He stepped up." Brooke stands up to pick up the pillow and places it back on the bed.

Emma turns to look at me with a face, as if she doesn't quite believe Jake; the biggest fuckboy has changed.

"Honestly, it's true. I was surprised myself when Jake would come over to talk and not try and get me into bed with him." I shrug and play with the ears of the colourful bear.

"You were gone, Em. My dad was going through all this legal crap. Mia was way too psychotic to hang with me," Brooke winks at me and I roll my eyes before showing her my middle finger. "Jake was... kind of my rock."

"Hey, I was only psychotic because Piper made me psychotic. Besides, Noah was there for me more than you ever were."

It was true. The first month after Piper's death, I couldn't breathe without feeling as if Piper was alive and watching me. I couldn't walk outside without feeling Piper was about to come back any second and attack me. I couldn't keep any secrets because I thought that Piper would know about them... hence, why I didn't hang out with Brooke as much.

Noah was going through something similar, we both just spoke about it and suddenly, two people who didn't know much about each other, became best friends.

After that first month, Brooke and Jake hung out more everyday, which left me out most of the times considering they'd just constantly have sex. I then bumped into Gustavo Acosta... we spoke here and there, but we weren't the closest of friends. I wouldn't even consider calling us friends, but we were close acquaintances.

"It's hard to imagine Jake being anybody's rock." Emma quickly says before Brooke is able to argue back to me.

"A lot changed since you were away. Life went limping on," Brooke takes the colourful teddy bear out of my hands and throws it into the box sitting on Emma's bed. "You should be glad you have Kieran."

"He missed you, a lot." I informed my friend as I recall the constant talks we had together just talking about how much he missed her.

"Yeah, I think my freak-out really freaked him out. He's been dodging me all day and... last night, it was like he thought I was going to break or... something." Emma closes up a full box and writes ATTIC on the front of it.

"I don't know. Maybe he just sees me as the broken girl, and he's just not up for it." Emma continues.

My heart breaks for the poor girl. Emma experienced the most terrible things from Piper and now she can't even hang out with her boyfriend because Kieran wants to be a dickhead.

"We're all breakable, Emma. At lease you had therapy—" Brooke starts.

"Lord knows we all need it." I finish off for my friend. The two girls let out a small laugh from their mouth and shake their heads.

"The rest of us just partied the crazy way," Brooke says with a roll of her eyes. "You're probably the strongest one of us all."

"Probably?" I scoff and shake my head. "She is."

"No, not Kieran," Emma says referring to him not need therapy, and him being 100% fine. "He's granite."

"Trust us, he's breakable."

"Kieran doesn't go into his dad's room. That's how breakable he is. He just hides all of that stuff. You both do. You're both a mess." Brooke says packing away the thousands of teddy bears, Emma has stored away in a little chest.

"I tell you what I don't understand," After a couple minutes of silence and cleaning Emma's room, Brooke is the first to break it. "that creepy dude who kissed Mia... how'd he know to do that?"

"Has this really been on your mind?" I ask with a small laugh.

"Yes!" Brooke exclaims.

"I don't know. He probably read it online or something—"

"Or maybe, he wants a little taste of the Mia Roberts." Brooke smirks and I shake my head. I look over at Emma who seems like she's in a daze.

"Hey, you good, Em?" I ask and Emma puts on a smile on her face and nods.

"I'm fine," she says. "I don't know, but... I ship them."

"Okay, relax Juliet." Brooke remarks.

"Emma! You can't ship us, we know nothing about each other." I say as I throw one of Emma's old t-shirts in a trash bag.

"Oh, bullshit! He knows you. We were on the news, we had newspapers and tv things about us. He knows you... you just don't know him."