by Rebel Hart
“It’s okay, Hannah,” Tristan said. “I knew something was wrong. I’ll feel better knowing the truth.”
“It was my hope that I could date you publicly and date Arden secretly. My parents would feel better if they thought I was with you, but Arden wasn’t okay with that.”
“I can imagine,” Tristan said. “I can’t regret that it happened because you and I wouldn’t have met and be friends now, but I wouldn’t be okay with that if I were Arden.”
I nodded. “We tried to remain friends, but… well you know how that went.”
“You never got over her?” Tristan asked.
“She’s the love of my life,” I admitted. “I was able to distract myself for a while, you know? Being in the popular group, being friends with you; we just didn’t cross paths a whole lot.”
“Then Aria and I started dating and now you have to deal with her every day.” There was guilt in Tristan’s voice as he said it, and I wasn’t in any position to console him because that was the problem. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m happy you’re happy, Tris,” I said. “Honestly, I just didn’t anticipate how intense it was going to be. I’ve just slowly been realizing that… I’ve never gotten over her, I just blocked it from my mind.” Tears started to fill my eyes again. “She hates me so much now. I hate it.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t hate you,” Tristan said. “Her way of coping with her feelings is… different. Similarly destructive maybe.” I wiped my eyes. “I mean, I’m not in any place to say for sure how she feels, but based on what Aria says, you being around is a struggle for her too, I’m sure for similar reasons. Maybe you should talk to her.”
“I’ve tried talking to her.” That terrible fight we had in the parking lot came slamming into my mind. “She doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“Have you tried leading with this stuff though? That you still have feelings and regrets and all that?”
I shook my head. “No, because… nothing has really changed. We still can’t be together.”
“Why?”
“My parents. The kids at school. Society.” I frowned. “I’ve worked so hard to be this… I don’t know, this perfect person. I don’t want anyone to be disappointed in me.”
“Except for Arden?” Tristan said.
It stabbed into me and I didn’t have a good retort. “I guess.” My head fell back down to the table. “I just… I can’t do that.”
“Okay.” Tristan’s hand rubbed my head once again. “You don’t have to. I’m glad you told me anyway so that I know what’s going on. Is there anything I can do to help?”
I sniffled. “I’m hungry.”
He laughed. “I can definitely do something with that. I know a diner uptown that opens at five. Come on. My treat.”
I heard the table creak as Tristan climbed off, then I took a deep breath in and got up out of my spot. We walked back over to Tristan’s car and he opened the door for me. Just before I was about to climb in, I stopped and looked at him. All things considered, as shitty as I’d been lately, when I needed him he came running. That meant a lot to me.
“Thank you for always being there for me,” I murmured.
He took my head and pulled it towards his, setting his forehead on mine. “I always will be.”
12
Arden
Three designs had survived my weeks-long, grueling, narrowing process for which one I was planning to submit with my application for Y.I.I.P. I didn’t expect that the actual selection process would take me as long as it did, but before I knew it, it was the middle of April, and the application was due the first of June. I still had to actually build whatever I picked, write the application essay, get my letters of recommendation, and schedule my interview. There was still so much to do. On top of all of that, I was grinding my way through final projects and exams, and preparing for graduation.
So I was feeling a little overwhelmed.
“Ar-den!” A thump against my head snapped me to attention and I looked over to see Aria leaning in my direction from her desk. “What’s going on? I’ve called your name like three times.”
“Sorry,” I replied. “I’ve narrowed my application down to three designs and I can’t decide which one I want to build. The most impressive of the three is going to take forever and it has a lot of electronic parts that could be faulty or get damaged during travel. The simplest and cheapest one to build is a little underwhelming, and the one that strikes right in the middle of those two, I don’t know, I just don’t feel like it really screams Arden.”
“Miss Namon, Miss Montel. Focus please,” the teacher, Miss Eastman, called.
“Sorry,” we resounded.
Aria leaned back in her chair and then a few seconds later a chat request popped up on the L.E.D. screen laid into my desk. It was from Aria so I clicked it.
“Let’s meet after school and pick a design. Eastman’s final is the most difficult in the whole school. We really should be paying attention, especially you because you’re already miserable at history.”
I snorted and replied, “Why do I need to know when a whole bunch of problematic people were born or when countries were founded on the blood, sweat and tears of the same people they now persecute? Unless it’s unpacking and disregarding history, I’m not interested.”
As soon as I hit send, Aria let out a snort and her hands flew up to her mouth. Miss Eastman looked up from her lecture, her eyes narrowed on Aria. “Have I said something funny, Miss Montel?”
Aria shook her head. “No ma’am. Sorry.”
“I expect the disruptions from our resident class clown,” her eyes briefly flicked to me, “but you’re usually much better behaved than this. All of this material will be covered on the final, so please pay attention.”
“Yes ma’am. Sorry.” A few kids giggled and Aria seemed legitimately embarrassed. I felt bad. She wasn’t entirely a goody-two-shoes, but she was pretty damn close, and it was clear she didn’t take well to getting in trouble. If she wasn’t trying to keep me in line, she wouldn’t have any problems.
I opened our chat and typed, “Sorry I got you in hot water. I’ll pay attention. Coffee’s on me after school.”
Aria side-eyed me with a smile and nodded and I was glad I was able to paper over it pretty easily. I would have rather dragged my fingernails over a chalkboard than stopped working on my application to pay attention to history, one of the few classes dragging the lessons all the way out to the end of the year. But it was important for me not to cause any more issues for Aria, so I closed the e-docs with my designs in them and opened a clean document to take notes.
It wasn’t the only time throughout the day that I had to be reminded to focus. In fact, it wasn’t the only time in that week or the next one. Even though Aria was doing the best she could to try and help me get my application completed in time while finishing up everything that was necessary to get done for school, her schedule was getting busier too. She’d already tested early into her college of choice and was taking a couple of classes in the evenings so she could attend part-time and work the other part in the coming years. Between that and balancing her time with Tristan, the time she had to help me was getting thinner and thinner. I didn’t blame her, we were busy.
But it wasn’t a surprise I didn’t handle stress well.
Though she helped me narrow down which specific design I was going to do, I was hoping for more late night building sessions or her help writing the paper because she was awesome with words, but work and school had her swamped. I had to appreciate the effort she was putting forward to try and help keep us both afloat, but one night I found myself all alone with very little attention span.
And all it took was one call to send me off in the wrong direction.
“Hey baby!” Suli greeted me happily when I answered the phone. “How’s it going?”
“Stressful,” I answered honestly. “I’m trying to get this application done for this internship, the last couple of finals at school are
killing me, and Aria’s been really busy lately. All work and no play.”
She groaned. “That’s not good. Relaxing is important too, otherwise you’ll burn out and you’ll never get anything done.”
“You’re not wrong,” I said. The parts and pieces that I’d gathered for the most complex of my designs to complete for the application were scattered around my home desk and I’d been staring at them for the past hour trying to gear myself up to actually start building. “I’m in a massive rut.”
“Well… It’s Friday. You don’t have school tomorrow, and if you’re already not getting anything done tonight anyway, come out to The Undersound. I’m working a double since we’re down a man, and I’ll need someone to keep me company anyway. I’ve started practicing this new drink, The Gentleman, and I need someone to trial run it for me. I’d love to start a sale with it next week.”
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“I’ve been bouncing back and forth between Triple sec and Disaronno; I can’t decide which one tastes better. Then it’s got some bitters, soda, and a salted rim. Kind of a sour, but classier.”
“Thus The Gentleman?” I said.
She laughed. “You get me, Arden.” I laughed along. “Well? Come out? Meet The Gentleman? Maybe a few gentlemen?”
“You know good and damn well I don’t wanna party with any gentlemen.”
Suli let out a barking laugh then. “Come on! You know what I mean. You owe me anyway, remember?”
“Yeah, and I told you like June, remember?”
“I remember, but you’re not doing anything tonight anyway right?”
My promise to Aria not to go back to The Undersound came into my mind. We’d reached a place of understanding on me actually spending time with Suli, but so long as I was underage, me being at The Undersound was going to be an issue, namely for my best friend. I knew that Hannah still had my location saved on her phone. The issue was, no matter how much easier it would make my life, I couldn’t disable my location. I knew Hannah had it, and though it was petty and stupid, it felt like having a small connection with her. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me the tiniest bit happy to know that Hannah was checking up on me, but as happy as it made me, it made me ten times angrier.
Why go through all that when I wasn’t important enough to stick by before?
“Hellooo?” Suli said. “Are you going to ditch me again?”
“I can’t ditch you when we never made plans,” I spat back.
“Is that your way of turning me down?” Suli asked, then scoffed. “Honestly. When did you become so uncool? Maybe Aria’s a bookworm, but you’re not. I can hear it in your voice, you’re stressed.”
“I am.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “But I made a promise.”
“Is it the drinking and drugs and stuff?”
I swayed my head side-to-side. “Kinda. I mean, I think it’s the fact that I’m underage in general, but if I was sneaking in underage to a fucking library, I don’t think people would have as many issues with it.”
She huffed some things under her breath and then said, “Fine, then what if you just came. I won’t give you booze or drugs or anything. Just hang out and drink cola like a dork.”
“Don’t hold back your disdain,” I replied.
“Well, I’ve never been that buttoned up so I don’t get it, but if it’s that important to you to keep this promise to your friend, then I won’t give you any of the bad stuff. I just…” She sighed. “I just wanna see you. I miss you.”
I leaned back in my chair and stretched. “Jeez, when you say it like that, how can I say no?”
Suli let out a little screech. “Yes! Okay! I’m not opening, so I can’t get you in the side, but just come the front way with your ID. I’ll be at the bar, so find me when you get there.”
“You got it.”
“Okay. See you soon!”
The excitement in her voice brought a smile to my face. “See you soon. Bye.”
We ended the call, then I went to change my clothes into something better suited to the night life, and then headed downstairs to leave. My parents saw me headed out and tried to say something to me, but I ignored them entirely. They’d had nothing pleasant to say to me as of late, so I just stopped listening. I wasn’t getting myself all worked up over nothing, and if I went to The Undersound angry from a fight with them, I’d be more inclined to drink or do drugs, and I really wanted to keep at least some of my promise to Aria.
Once again, I weighed the risk of leaving my car at home against taking it with me and battling Friday night traffic downtown, and regretting deciding that the latter was the better option. It took me damn near an hour just to make the twenty minute trip from my home to The Undersound, and because Suli didn’t open, I couldn’t get the V.I.P. parking treatment and had to park close to two blocks away. It was a brisk but not totally unwelcome walk to the front door where I got in line and fished out my fake ID for rapid entry.
“ID?” the security guard said.
I handed it over, keeping my hand outstretched for him to hand it back, but instead he started inspecting the ID closer. My fake wasn’t easily identifiable as one because it was an actual ID card that had my image transposed onto it. Suli knew a guy who would buy real ones from real people in order to make believable fakes, and the original owners would just report their IDs lost and get a new one. It seemed like risky stuff to me, but I never used mine for anything other than to get in and out of The Undersound, so it was low risk to me.
Or so I thought.
“Kiana?” the security guard said—my name according to the ID.
“That’s me,” I said.
“Spell the last name?” he asked.
I let out a sigh as if this was an incredible waste of my time. “Q-U-A-L-I-T-I-C-C-O.”
He looked down at the ID and then back up at me, then down at the ID, then back up at me, then he grabbed the mic on his lapel and said, “Dave. Can I see you up front please?”
My heart started to pound a little faster. Had he seen through the facade somehow? In order to not seem too suspicious, I held my ground, seeming annoyed and even said, “Is there something wrong?”
The guard looked down at me and said, “Probably not, I just need to clear it with my boss.” I hadn’t heard of any changes to the ID or anything lately. The guard nodded, as if he was getting a response via the earpiece in his ear, before he replied, “Yeah. That one we’d been warned about. Kiana Qualiticco.” I narrowed my gaze. Did someone tip the security guard off to my fake ID name? “Okay,” the guard said, “I’ll wait.”
“What’s taking so long?” someone yelled from down the line.
The security guard looked at me and motioned me off to the side. “Can you wait here? My boss will be out in a second and we’ll get this all cleared up.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”
I was tempted to bolt. The last thing I needed in the midst of everything that was going on was to get arrested or something stupid behind a fake ID. It wasn’t just that it could risk Y.I.I.P. for me, but I’d have to listen to Aria, and probably Hannah, say they told me so.
Stepping off to the side, I watched as the security continued to check IDs and pass people into The Undersound until, all of a sudden, someone stepped out the front door. I watched with a dropped jaw as Codie walked over and hung off the security guard’s shoulder and started whispering to him. The guard watched Codie with actual hearts in his eyes, nodding along to whatever he was saying, until finally Codie fished my fake ID out of the security guard’s hand and then turned and walked up to me.
I held out my hand for the ID, but Codie shook his head. “No. This is mine now.”
“What?” I barked. “Give me my ID.”
He took me by the arm and led me away from the line into The Undersound and over into the parking lot. “Go home, Arden.”
“What the hell is going on?” I said. “Give me my ID back.”
“No. I’m not giving it back
to you. Hate me if you want to. This is for your own good.”
I crossed my arms. “You know I hate people telling me that shit. I can make my own decisions.”
“You can, but I talked to Aria. She said you’ve been stressed lately and she thought you may try and come here. She asked me to keep you from coming in here, and I think she’s right. This isn’t good for you. I told security your fake name so that they’d confiscate your ID if you came here.”
“Are you insane?! I could have been arrested!”
“No, because I have a good relationship with the boss, and he swore he’d contact me if the ID got snagged so that either I or Aria could come and get you.” He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “Me and Aria, we’re just doing this because we love you.”
I snatched backwards out of Codie’s grip. “Fuck off! I don’t need a goddamn chaperone.”
Codie just put his hands in the air. “Call me when you cool off and we’ll talk about it. For now, you need to go home.”
Codie walked around me and I tried to grab him and pull him back, but he wiggled free and made his way back to the front. I chased after him, but he batted his eyes at the security guard, jumped in line, and slid his way back inside and out of sight. I tried to call him a couple of times to get him to come back out, but he was ignoring my calls.
I was fuming.
The only thing I could think to do was storm back to my car and make my way to Aria’s job. She was going to get a piece of my mind for thinking she could control me and make my decisions for me.
13
Arden
I knew that Aria was working until nine, so I had about an hour to kill waiting for her to get off of work, but that was just fine because it gave me a chance to determine what I was going to say. Aria and I were close. She was the best friend I’d ever had, but that didn’t give her the right to make decisions for me. To actually call Codie and convince him to have my fake ID confiscated? I didn’t care what her history with her dad was, that was overstepping.
