6 Months Later
The warm early June air lifts my hair off my shoulders. The weather is perfect; just warm enough to fee like summer, but cool enough to not sweat through the last day of finals because of the heat. The sound of the cars and buses driving past mixes with the laughter and talking as Aaron and I walk down the street away from the school towards his house.
“Jeez Ris, why didn’t you empty your locker before?” Aaron complains jokingly, readjusting my heavy orange backpack on his shoulders. Every book from my locker is now in my backpack that Aaron is carrying for me.
“Um…I forgot too?” I reply smiling sweetly up at him. “That and I didn’t want to carry them.”
“So you left them till today so you would have to carry them for the ten block walk to my house instead of the five block walk to your car?”
“Sure?” I say, shrugging my shoulders. He laughs at me and throws his arm around my shoulders pulling me close. I naturally lean into him. We talk the rest of the way to his house before dropping our stuff in his room and heading to the basement, not hungry for lunch since its 10:30 am.
Settling into the oversized bean bag, we both smush around till we get comfortable laying with our feet towards the television. He laughs at my awkward position with my legs curled up under me and head propped up on my arm to see the television. I laugh at myself and fall back into the bean bag.
“Get off,” he instructs. I roll off the bean bag and land on the ground with a thump still laughing. When I stand back up I see Aaron has moved, now laying horizontal. He motions me over, and I climb back onto the huge bean bag. He pulls me close with his arm around my shoulders so my head rests on his chest as I curl up next to him laying on my side with a perfect view of the television. His blue polo is soft under on my face.
The rhythmic movement of his chest, lack of sleep from finals, and his hand rubbing circles on my back lulls me to sleep. In my light sleep, I feel his breathing even out and Aaron drift off too.
A door slams and footsteps pound down the stairs. We are both half awoken by the sudden noise.
“Woah,” we hear. We both jump up out of the bean bag to see his younger sister and her friend standing there.
“Ally, what are you doing home?” Aaron asks his sister. I straighten my tank top and jeans as Aaron fixes his plaid shorts, both of us blushing like we got caught doing more than just falling asleep together. I look at the time and see it’s three in the afternoon. His sister and her friend are too busy whispering and laughing to each other to answer so I show him the time.
“Oh crap,” he states for the both of us. I nod as if to say duh. He grabs my hand, and we dash up the stairs and outside, collapsing into the chairs outside.
“Well that wasn’t awkward,” I comment.
“Not at all.” We let a comfortable silence fall over us.
“I can’t believe sophomore year is over already,” I say starting a conversation I have had countless times with other friends.
“I know. It seems just like yesterday that we met at homecoming,” he says smiling. Thinking back to the great night, I smile.
“That was a great night,” he replies smiling back at me, “I’m glad I let Lucy talk me into going with you guys.”
“I’m glad you did too. I never would have met you if it wasn’t for that night.”
“I wasn’t talking about that, I meant I never would have eaten such good food,” Aaron says joking about the great food we feasted on. He smiles and winks at me which I counter by slapping his arm. We both laugh, but turn serious again.
“I can’t believe high school is half way done,” I comment, “time is going by so fast.”
“I know. College is coming up soon.”
“Ugh please, let’s not talk about that. My parents are already pressuring me about that and it’s only the end of sophomore year,” I say, grimacing at the thought of college. “We still have to get through everything junior year and then senior year.”
“But come on, senior year will rock,” Aaron says, quickly changing the subject. “Being the oldest, not caring, prom, graduation.”
“Yeah I guess,” I trail off, not wanting to think about prom or the day I have to leave behind all of my friends.
“What?” Aaron asks sensing my insecurities. “You don’t have anything to worry about. You’ll get into a great college.”
“I know its just…”
“What paying for it? You’ll get a scholarship for something. You’re smart and if they gave one out for the most beautiful girl you’d get it for sure.” I try my hardest not to blush at the complement, but like the other ones he’s said to me lately I fail. He smiles and continues to try and guess what I don’t like about senior year, “Not looking forward to prom? Come on, I know you’re not the dress up kinda girl, but everyone looks forward to prom. Even I do and I’m a boy.”
“Naw prom will be cool, even without a date. It’s ju” I get out about my main fear before Aaron interrupts me.
“You will have a prom date.”
“Air, I can’t even get a homecoming date. How am I going to get a prom date?” I say wondering how we got to be having this conversation, and why I am suddenly telling Aaron my girl fears about being dateless to prom. Truthfully, and I’d never admit this to my best guy friend, but I don’t care about being dateless to homecoming. But prom is different. It’s the only dance I actually want to have a date too.
I hear Aaron rambling about how I’ll find the right guy, and even if said guy isn’t the right one, he knows someone will ask me. I’m not paying attention as my mind wanders. It’s stupid, but worth a shot. My mind goes through the idea so many times in the short amount of time I have while Aaron is talking to himself that my nerves get the best of me. My stomach is doing flip flops, and my heart rate has spiked.
Just hearing Aaron’s voice calms me down, but I still wonder why I am so nervous to ask Aaron. He is just my best friend…right?
“Aaron,” I interrupt.
“Hm?” I turn to look at him in the eyes. He can tell it’s serious from my look, and focuses his attention on me. His clear blue eyes calm my nerves and make me nervous all at the same time.
“This may sound stupid, and you don’t have to agree. You can laugh even, but I saw on a show and it was cute. I thought it would be cool and ease my nerves about prom even though prom is like two years away. It’s only for like best friends like us, and kinda weird I guess, but like I dunno, I just wanted to ask because the worst you could say is no right? And I mean, not that it would be the worst thing if you said no, but you know what I mean. And don’t feel like you have to say yes,” I pause from my fast speech to take a breath. “This guy and girl made this sort of promise when they were like our age that they would go to prom together if they didn’t have dates, just so they wouldn’t like you know go alone to their senior prom. And it was super cute on the show, which was a reality show by the way. So basically I was wondering if you wanted to do the same? You know like if neither of us are dating anyone, or has anyone to go with that we would go together, as friends?” I finally spit out sounding a lot more girly than I wanted to.
I can’t tell if the slight smirk on Aaron’s face is from the subject or how fast I spoke. I hope it’s from the pace of my speech as I realize I sped through it like I normally do when I’m nervous.
“Marissa,” he starts with a soft smile. I immediately know he’s going to say no from the voice and the smile. My head drops in sadness; I can’t look at him in the eye as he rejects me. “Look at me,” he commands tipping my head back up towards him. His clear blue eyes are now slightly darker. “Of course I’ll make a prom promise with you,” he replies smiling, surprising me. I throw my arms around his neck, smiling big time now. His arms hold me tight. My heart races and warms from the feeling of his arms around me.
“Thank you,” I whisper into his neck. He doesn’t reply, but I swear I can feel him press his lips into the side of my head, kissing my temple.
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Hm...it's been a while since I've been on with school and work, but still no reviews on it. I went back and edited again and changed it around a bit. Drop me a review on it please? I've kinda lost this story as I lose the person who inspired me to write so maybe some reviews would help me write again. Thanks! Shell
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