The Two of Us

Scuba Gear

It was a Monday. I was awoken by my alarm vibrating on my wrist, which was a literal miracle. I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't instead been woken up by my brother doing something stupid. Or Bidy and Babs trying to put an end to me.

Evidently, though, Eddie did plan on attempting to do something stupid because my door opened ten seconds later and he was standing there with a box of Capri Suns.

Knowing him, he was probably going to see how many pouches he could stack on top of me before I woke up. He said something, but I couldn't hear him and I couldn't read his lips because it was fucking dark.

"The hell did you just say?" I turned my alarm off and tossed it onto my desk, grabbing my hearing aids.

"Dang it, you're awake already!"

"Oh, yeah, sorry to disappoint."

"It's okay. I'll just play Capri Sun Jenga with Dad instead." Eddie pulled one of the pouches out of the box, jammed the straw into it, and inhaled the entire thing in one sip before walking away.

I hate to say I was slightly impressed by that, but...

Well, I was slightly impressed by that.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my phone vibrate and light up. Either I got another email from that newsletter that I definitely didn't sign up for, or somebody had texted me. I figured it was probably the latter because I had started waking up every morning to a text from Blair like, around a week ago.

Ballora: "Good morning :)"

And would you look at that, I was right. She deadass got up at like, 5:15 a.m., which was impressive for a person that didn't like getting up early.

"Mornin."

"Judging by the fact that you texted me, I'm going to assume that your sisters were unsuccessful in taking you down while babysitting."

"Unless you're a ghost."

"And despite being dead, you still decided to pick up your phone and text me."

It appeared that Frex had texted me too.

T-Frex: "OH MY GOD"

T-Frex: "I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT TO ASK HOW YOUR LAST BAND PRACTICE WENT"

T-FREX: "AND IT WAS ON FRIDAY"

T-Frex: "I'm such a bad best friend"

T-Frex: "Forgive me"

"Cool your jets, Freddy. It literally isn't that big of a deal."

I didn't even expect him to remember and ask about the first fucking time I went to practice.

"And how DARE you call yourself a bad best friend."

"But yeah, it went pretty much the same as last time. Conversation was kinda painful because I'm still an awkward bitch, but I didn't manage to fuck up any of the songs so that was cool."

He messaged back right as I was about to put my phone down.

T-Frex: "Oh good!"

T-Frex: "And you're really not that awkward you know"

"You only think that because you've known me for years and are therefore no longer exposed to the worst of it. Do you not remember how it was a literal struggle for you to hold conversations with me when we first met?"

"Like, I was genuinely trying and I still managed to repeatedly steer things into a fucking brick wall."

"And you know, I still don't get why you didn't just give up like everybody else did but I won't complain because you are a pretty good best friend."