It’s finally Friday. It’s been almost a week since Joslyn broke up with Aero. He’s about to head home from school when he’s stopped by two absolute morons: his friends, Monty and Tucker. Monty speaks up, “Dude, I just bought the entire Heroic Cliche trilogy on blu ray! We’re getting the boys together tonight at my house to binge the whole thing, you in? You can totally stay the night, I think Zach’s the only one that has to leave early actually.”
“I don’t know… I don’t really feel like strifing with my mom.”
“You sure?”
Tucker chimes in, “Aw come on Aero, even Luke is on board”
Luke is Aero’s absolute best friend in the whole wide world, and he really hasn’t had the chance to hang out with him all week. Honestly, Aero was planning on showing up anyway, but the thought of hanging out with his best bro sweetened the deal so he responds with a simple, “I’ll think about it. What time?”
Monty grins, “Five o’clock, we may decide to spend a decent part of Saturday at my house too so come prepared.”
“Alright whatever, I’ll catch you guys later then.”
The boys part ways. Tucker’s probably giving Monty a ride but Aero is walking home by himself. He doesn’t mind it, it’s only like a 20 minute walk; it’s no big deal. Aero has always enjoyed nature which is completely baffling to his friends and family. He finds it calming, tranquil. He breathes easy in nature like nothing could possibly go— wait, what’s going on?
Something feels off. Different. It feels like I’m being ripped apart at the seams… like me, the narrator… what the—
And that, friends, is my queue. The name’s Aero Larken, and I never liked narrators. I can tell my own damn story, thank you very much. I don’t know why I thought a third person narrator would be a good idea. Regardless, I'm taking over this story. No more garbage narrating that berates and pokes fun at me like I’m some imbecile. Who’s the “embarrassment to society” now, huh?!
Anyways. Where were we? Oh, right, I was walking home. I loved nature, that’s definitely a fact. I enjoyed my walks home because I could choose to listen to some questionable music choices, or I could listen to nature’s sweet sweet song. Either were preferable over my teacher’s boring lessons, my dad’s conspiracy theories, my mom’s nagging, sometimes it was even better than listening to my friends’ brainless babbling. Although, don’t get it twisted, I’d take a bullet for those idiots.
Before I knew it, I was home. Not long after crossing the threshold did I catch a whiff of something absolutely delicious. It smelled like apple pie, my favorite. I tossed my backpack on the couch before sliding into the kitchen to hopefully nab some grub. Turns out the smell was apple pie; there were mini apple pies on the counter, and another batch being taken out of the oven.
And there was my mom. I don’t want anyone to think I hated my mom, I didn’t hate my mom. Our bond was complicated, that’s all. It was all like one big game of wits and attitude. She’d nitpick and pick fights, I’d fight back; it was all in good fun. The reason we simultaneously rubbed each other the wrong way and got along swimmingly was because I was just like her. Two stubborn hotheads with fires in our bellies that matched the vibrance of our soft red curls.
I loved my mom and I’d give anything to be just like her. She was beautiful, her hair far redder than mine, a sort of bright auburn. She said she used to hate it when she was a little girl, said that she would get made fun of for it. Now she makes it even more obvious by getting bright red highlights every time she gets her hair done. She wasn’t very tall; 5’6” in heels and I was still taller than her by like five inches. She was a fiery she-demon when you enraged her, and a warm hearted baker when she was in a good mood.
Apparently she was in a fantastic mood cause I was lucky enough to come home to nearly three dozen mini apple pies. “Oh, Aero! How was school?”
“Same as usual.”
“Do you mind helping me, I want to bake some salted caramel brownie bites for your father.”
Mini apple pies were my favorite, and salted caramel brownie bites were my dad’s favorite. I was starting to get awfully suspicious of my mother. What’s she planning? “What’s the occasion?”
“Oh nothing, I was just in the mood to do some baking, now get over here and help me or you’re not getting any!”
I knew that if I wanted to go to that sleepover I’d have to refrain from pushing any of my mother’s buttons. That being said, I was the absolute king when it came to pissing my mother off, and I wore that title with pride. Although given the fact that I had the pleasure of baking with my mother, leaving my mom’s buttons un-pushed was going to prove to be fairly easy. I loved baking with my mother after all.
After countless brownie bites baked, I calmly asked, “Do you mind if I spend tonight at Monty’s house? We were planning on having a big slumber party of sorts. All the guys are going to be there and even Luke is going, and you know I haven’t gotten to hang out with him in a while. Please?”
With almost zero hesitation she responded with, “Yeah sure, go have fun!”
Wait what? I wasn’t expecting that to go so easy. I didn’t question it. It was better not to. I’d investigate later why my mom was in such a good mood. That could wait, cause I had a party to pack for.
I packed all the essentials and even decided to bring some face wash stuff. I don’t know why though, my skin’s been fairly clear as of late, aside from the mass amount of freckles sprinkled on my nose and cheeks. Yet another physical trait my mom passed down to me. I didn’t mind.
I took a moment to look around my room. I wanted to perhaps bring a fun game or puzzle or movie or something, but I had no idea what I was actually looking for. Of course, even if I had known what I was looking for I doubt I could have found it in my absolute pigsty of a room. I’ll admit I’m not the cleanest person in the world. That’s definitely an understatement. I was fully aware that my room was absolutely disgusting, it even smelled bad. But I would keep saying the same thing over and over again: I’ll do it later. Of course that did nothing but perpetuate the stomach-churning state of my room. Whatever, I didn’t mind living in filth
Glancing at the clock I realized that I had roughly an hour or so before I should get going. That reminded me, how was I getting there again? I doubted that my dad would let me borrow the car overnight and for most of Saturday, plus I couldn’t park on the street overnight. I needed a ride. Guess I’ll just ask my dad, I thought.
So I did. “Hey dad, can you give me a ride to Monty’s house? I’ll be staying the night.”
“Oh of course of course!”
“Sweet, thanks dad.” My dad was the coolest but he was also kind of a pushover. I didn’t mind, it worked in my favor most of the time.
I wasted away an hour doing next to nothing but watching dumb videos and scrolling through memes; it was awesome. I notified my dad that we had to get going and then we were off. He played his weird conspiracy podcast for the entire drive. Luckily it was only five minutes, but those were five whole minutes of cringe and torture. What a nut ball, believing in aliens and monsters and creatures that lurk in the shadows. That kind of stuff can drive a person crazy. Plus it’s not real, so it’s really stupid to spend all of one’s time trying to convince others of countless insane atrocities. I let my dad have his fun though because I think it helps him stay fun and funky fresh. Keep up the good work dad, fight the good fight.
I was dropped off. Now, Monty came from a fairly well-off family, so his house was freaking massive. It was the kind of house you could get lost in if you weren’t careful. That little fact also made it the perfect battle arena. Were most of us legal adults or soon to be legal adults? Yes. Did we still indulge in ridiculous shenanigans and childish games as a means of preserving and/or grasping onto whatever sliver of childhood we still had left? Also yes. In the past month alone we had played hide and seek, ghost in the graveyard, tag, and had a nerf war, so adulthood can shove it.
I wasn’t expecting to be the last one to arrive, but sure enough when I kicked my shoes off at the door and hurried down to the basement the gang was all there. Zach and Philip were playing Bash Brothers while Monty, Tucker, Joshie, Ben, and Luke cheered them on. It was an absolutely insane match where at one point they both stopped, tied towels over their eyes as makeshift blindfolds, and proceeded to button mash until Monty declared Zach the victor.
Luke was the first one to notice me, “hey look who finally decided to show up!”
I forced a small laugh, “thought we were going to binge all of the Heroic Cliche movies.”
“We were kind enough to wait for you,” Monty said, “plus Zach wouldn’t shut up about how he had to ‘reclaim his throne’ or something stupid like that. Now that that’s out of the way though… we can finally get this party hella started!!!”
I hadn’t ever finished the Heroic Cliche trilogy, and I’m sure it would have been amazing… that is if Joshie knew how to shut up during movies. By the time we finished the trilogy it was just past 1:00am. Joshie was the first one to pass out so we all took some revenge for his constant blabbering. Not to worry of course, Joshie became a magnificent art display for lots of sharpie dicks. We were all pretty tired though, so it wasn’t long before we all fell asleep.
-
Whatever all-powerful entity or entities intervened in mortal affairs in order to let us all sleep in instead of being prematurely awoken by Monty, the silver spoon sucking douchebag, they are the real OGs. Praise be to the gods of sleep and the heavens above. Usually at these sleepovers Monty taps into his demonic creativity in order to torture us poor sleeping souls. Luckily I didn’t wake up to screams and sirens, I instead woke up to the wonderful smell of Ms. Niles chocolate chip pancakes. Monty’s mom makes killer chocolate chip pancakes and she knows to make a mile high stack of ‘em. I was the fourth person to wake up, which isn’t too shabby if I do say so myself.
As Ms. Niles was whipping out pancake after pancake after pancake, the rest of the boys started waking up. It was a mad dash to get the most pancakes. I didn’t win, but I didn’t lose either. Poor Joshie had to lock himself in the bathroom and try to scrub the “artwork” off his face so that Monty’s mom didn’t see him covered in phalluses. Part of me regretted participating, but then I shrugged it off because we had all been there before. We had a track record for drawing on each other with sharpies because Philip carried them on his person at all times. Needless to say, Joshie didn’t get that many pancakes.
When we wrapped up breakfast we headed back down to the basement. “Guys we should play truth or dare,” Monty suggested, like the idiot he was.
“Truth or dare? Really dude? What are we middle school girls? That’s such a dumb idea, everyone’s just going to end up drinking toilet water.” I had to agree with Ben, cause in all honesty, we had played truth or dare before. It didn’t end well.
“Then two truths and a lie? Or maybe 20 questions? Paranoia?” Monty was still trying. I wondered, what’s his goal?
“What’s up with you? Why not just play video games, what’s with all these dumb suggestions?” Tucker questioned his best friend.
We were all clearly curious, and we eagerly awaited a good answer. “Well… I don’t know I’ve just been thinking about the fact that a lot of us are graduating this year. I want to make sure we get everything on the table before we… part ways, you know? I know it sounds stupid and cheesy but, I’m going to miss you guys. So I want to make sure that we’re closer than we’ve ever been before. I want to make sure we’re keeping it 100, you feel me?”
There was a silence, but it didn’t exactly feel like an awkward one. “Well I mean, I don’t think anyone’s going to be really hiding anything, but I understand what you’re saying. I’m going to miss you guys too. So… I think we should make plans to stay in touch. I know everyone’s doing their own thing but,” Tucker laughs a bit before continuing, “Saturdays are still for the boys, right?”
Everyone shared a small laugh but the air in the room felt heavy and congested “Actually, I…” Luke spoke up, “I do have… something to share. Now, you guys are my closest friends, and I don’t know what I’ll do when you guys leave. You know I’m pretty much an open book, and I keep real with y’all. However, there’s something I haven’t shared with… well, anybody. But I trust you guys enough to tell you that I’m… gay.” Now the silence was awkward. Luke continued, “was that weird? That felt mad awkward.” Luke forced a small laugh to try and lighten the mood but he looked like he had just shit his pants.
“Um… anyone else?” Monty prompted. Tucker smacked him on the back of the head. I couldn’t really blame Monty for his attempt at changing the subject, the only thing I could think was, my best friend’s gay? I mean what kind of higher level thought process is that? It had been an earthquake of a confession, but I had no idea just how much Luke coming out would shake up absolutely everything.
- End of Chapter 2 -425Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmLEyu6QXmO
