Long Way Home (Commentary Crew)

The Invite (James)

The sun was warm and the wind was cold as I pushed the school doors open and walked outside. I was alone today, a rare occurrence. I was heading straight home today with no plans for late, something likely to change as it was a Friday night. I enjoyed the smell of the air as I walked. It had been raining earlier, and the smell was still sticking in the air. I'd always loved the smell, even though I hated rain.

My peaceful stroll quickly became less peaceful as I neared the bike rack. Leaned against it was Aria. Her thin brown hair was blowing in the wind as she attempted to keep in out of her face to look at whatever was on her phone. I smiled as she failed miserably, but my smile quickly faltered when I realized I had two options: say hi or walk past and pretend I hadn't seen her. I considered Aria my friend, but I wasn't sure if the feeling was returned. She was in a completely different group than I was and we only seemed to talk when we were alone. Right now, her friend was next to her, chatting her ear off about who knows what.

After I'd finally decided against risking embarrassing one or both of us by involving myself, Aria looked up.

"Hey James!" She said, far too enthusiastically. I smiled nonetheless, waving in the direction of her and her friend.

"Do you two know each other?" the friend asked. Aria and I both made eye contact for a minute before I replied.

"Yeah."

Not exactly a wordsmith, but I figured the answer would do. The friend pulled a weird face a looked between the two of us before shrugging and returning to scrolling on her phone, he acrylic nails occasionally clicking on the screen.

"What you up to tonight?" Aria asked me.

"Nothing, actually. Which is kind of nice if I'm being honest, what with how busy I've been recently."

"Oh," Aria responded, raising her eyebrows. "Would I be impedeing too much on your non-busy weekend to ask you to come to Emily's party tomorow night?"

She gestured to the girl sitting next to her, who didn't even look up from her phone.

"I'll have to get back to you on that," I told her. There was nothing wrong with Aria, and I really liked spending time with her, but her friends were a different story. They were immature in my opinion. They were the kind of people who were in highschool and still thought cussing made you cool, they yelled everything they said, and they were always in some new dating drama. But what really made me hesitant to answer Aria was that everyone in their group smoked something. I didn't want to even be around that stuff, and I especially didn't want to do any of it. I was too focused on moving my life in the right direction.

Aria nodded in understanding. I was relieved to see that she didn't look offended, maybe disappointed at most. She knew what I thought about a lot of her friends and I'm sure she understood why I was hesitant to give a clear answer.

"Well," I said, "See you around I guess."

"Yeah, bye James."

I waved goodbye to both of them and began on my way home, pondering what to do about the invitation. Going meant seeing Aria, something I had been wanting to do a lot recently. But going also meant seeing a lot of people I didn't want to and risking getting in big trouble.

By the time I had walked all the way home I'd decided I would risk it and go, just to see Aria and not feel rude. I just hoped I was making the right decision. 

A/N I hate this chapter but I've rewritten it like three times and none were good so here you go sorry