Exotic

~ wet season ~

"Just leave him."

Aaron was spinning his car keys around his index finger, chewing on his lip. "It's not that simple."

"Sure it is. Put your keys in the ignition, drive away, and ignore his phone calls."

We were slumped in the front seats of Aaron's car in the deserted parking lot. The library had closed twenty minutes ago, and Max was yet to grace us with his presence. Outside, the wrath of god pelted down on us, a storm of biblical proportions hammering down on Aaron's windscreen. Lightning crackled above us like a warning. The heater was on blast. We were tuned into some Christian pop station. I had to admit, the tunes were catchy.

Aaron slapped the steering wheel, glaring through the foggy windshield and pouring rain. "He's probably waiting the rain out."

I pulled out my phone. My string of messages remained unseen.

We're out in the lot.

:/

Ur late.

Hey dickhead.

!!!

We're leaving now.

Hurry up.

???

"We should circle around," Aaron dug his keys into the ignition. "Get closer to the field. He can probably use the shower."

He indicated out of the parking lot, even though there wasn't a soul on the roads. I texted Max - we're coming 2 u, b outside - and Aaron kicked up the windscreen wipers a notch as the weather bombarded the car.

"You'd never wait twenty minutes for me," I insisted.

"Don't go down that road," he warned. "Remember Sean's seventeenth? I waited an hour for you to come out only to find you'd got an Uber."

I paused. "Well, I was very apologetic about that."

Aaron huffed out a laugh. "You and Max are as bad as each other. Neither of you deserve me."

"And we never will," I hummed in agreement. Aaron pulled up behind the bleachers, and I cupped my eyes against the windshield to see if anyone was on the field. Our school's gaudy orange soccer jerseys were hard to miss, and the pitch was empty save a few lingering soccer balls, forgotten in the mud.

"He's not here," I scoffed.

Aaron sighed his famously world-weary sigh and killed the engine. He slouched back in his chair, and jerked his thumb at me. "Right. Go and get him then."

I stared, mind at a complete loss. "Excuse me?"

"He'll be chatting to one on the track girls in the locker rooms," Aaron predicted, probably correctly, but the changing rooms seemed miles away, and the rain was unforgiving. "Go and get him."

I let my mouth hang agape, looking between him and the roaring monsoon outside. "You've got to be kidding me. What did I do?"

"You left me sitting outside Sean Wallace's house for an hour."

"A year ago!"

"And now you're finally facing the consequences," he pressed his hands against the heater and looked across at me, smug as anything. "Go, or you can both walk home."

I open my mouth to argue but thought better of it. Aaron was rarely one to follow through on a threat, but at the risk of ending up at the bus station soaked to the bone, I decided it was best not to push him. Grumbling, I pulled my hood over my head and slipped out of the car into the wild rain, flipping him off before I slammed the passenger door. With my hand dug deep in my pockets and my head down, I sprinted for the locker rooms.