by Rebel Hart
It was actually closer to ten when Aria finally came walking out of work, and she was dragging like she was totally exhausted. She had an armful of files and looked like an actual career woman in a skirt suit, but none of that was going to stop me from why I came.
“Aria!” I bellowed.
Aria was halfway to her car and looked over and saw me standing there. She got a huge smile on her face that almost convinced me to drop it—she looked so happy to see me—but as flattered as I was, I was twice that angry.
“Give me a sec,” Aria said. She unlocked her car and put her files in the back seat, then she shut and locked the door and walked over to me. “Hi! This is such a nice surprise.” She opened her arms and tried to take a hug, but I yanked backwards. She frowned instantly, seeming thrown off by my cold reception. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is you thinking that it’s okay to determine what I do with my life,” I said.
Aria tilted her head. “Huh? Do you mean because I picked the complicated design?”
“No!” I said. “You called Codie and asked him to get my ID taken away.”
Immediately, Aria frowned at me. “Did you go to The Undersound after you promised me you wouldn’t?”
That accusation annoyed the hell out of me, mostly because of the guilt that I felt. Yes, I had gone to The Undersound after Aria asked me not to, but that wasn’t the point. “Don’t change the subject!”
“That is the subject,” Aria snapped. “Did you go there?”
“Y-yeah! I wasn’t planning on drinking or doing anything bad, I just wanted to relax because I’m stressed out a little bit. Imagine my shock and embarrassment when I get there and have my ID revoked in front of everyone. Codie had to cuddle up to the security guard, then he took my ID and won’t give it back!”
“Not your real ID,” Aria hissed. “Just the fake one that enables you to do illegal shit. Besides, you should be happy it was a controlled setup and not someone just actually figuring out that ID was fake. You could have been arrested for real, or worse. What if you lose your chance at Y.I.I.P. over something like that?”
“I don’t need you to guilt trip me, Aria. Not all of us have all of our shit figured out like you!” I barked.
Aria went quiet for a minute at that and her expression got even more severe. “Don’t make this about me. This isn’t about the fact that I don’t like it there or that you’re underage or stressed or any of that. This is about the fact that you promised me as a friend that you wouldn’t go back there and you didn’t listen!”
I was so infuriated I could have spit fire. How did I show up at Aria’s in order to lecture her and end up getting lectured myself instead? This wasn’t fair. “Everyone has been making decisions for me my entire goddamn life. My parents, the people at church, the kids at school.” Then I stabbed a finger out at her. “You know what this is? You’re just fucking like Hannah. You think that you can act all concerned for me and—” I didn’t get to get the rest of the sentence out.
Aria turned her back to me and started storming off, which only made me angrier. “Hey! I’m in the middle of talking to you!” I rushed off after her, running past her and turning to stand in between her and her car door. When I did so, however, all the rage in me was knocked right out. Aria’s eyes were filled with tears. “Aria…”
“Move,” she ordered through gritted teeth.
“No,” I said. “We need to talk about this.”
“We don’t need to talk about anything anymore. Move out of the way.”
What had made her that angry that quickly? “No, I’m not moving. You felt fine interjecting yourself into my life, so now we’re going to talk about it.”
“I’ll call Codie when I get home and tell him to give you your ID back,” she said. “Now get out of the way.”
That froze me in place. With how Aria felt about The Undersound and me going there even though I was underage, why would she ever agree to just let me have my ID back? “Really?”
“Yep,” she said. “But don’t speak to me again.” With that, she stepped forward and shoved me out of the way. I tripped a little, almost toppling over, but stayed on my feet as Aria opened her car door and climbed in. Enraged all over again, I ran forward and grabbed her car door before she could shut it. “Let go!” she demanded.
“What do you mean don’t speak to you again? Is that how flimsy our friendship is that I can’t even do one thing that you don’t agree with?”
Aria looked up at me like she was ready to slice me open with a chainsaw. In one swift, aggressive motion she climbed back out of the driver’s seat of her car, slammed the car door shut, and stomped me back a few feet. “Don’t talk to me about a flimsy friendship when you just compared me to your shitty ex-girlfriend.” My heart slammed one time in my chest. Reeling backwards to what I’d spewed in anger, I reheard myself telling her she was just like Hannah.
“After everything I’ve done for you and all of this shit we’ve been through, that you would compare me to her is heartbreaking. If that’s honestly what you think about me, then I severely overestimated the strength of this friendship. If I’m just like her, then you must think I’m just gonna up and leave you too, huh? Why waste time? I’ll do it now and save myself the stress of staying up all night wondering if I’m gonna get a call that you’ve died of a drug overdose from your fucking pedo girlfriend!”
Embarrassed, guilty, and stupid weren’t strong enough words to cover how I felt. For the first time in my entire life someone had bent over backwards loving me and I thanked her by bringing her nothing but stress and anguish.
I was a pretty shitty friend.
“Aria—”
“Don’t!” she snapped. “I’m sorry that I brought Hannah back into your life, but I really thought I’d done a better job distinguishing myself from her. Yeah, I asked Codie to step in and take your ID, but that was because I anticipated that you would break your promise to me, and you proved me right. I was hoping I’d be wrong, but I wasn’t. Clearly I’m in the wrong here, so my bad. Get your ID back and do what you want. I’m done.”
She turned around and started storming back towards her car, and I panicked. Aria was the only person who had ever extended everything in her being to take care of me. She loved me without barriers and helped me through all of the bullshit in my life. Not since Hannah had I opened myself up so much to someone, and even Hannah left me eventually. It was wrong for me to place that burden on Aria’s shoulders.
I bolted forward and wrapped my arms around Aria and held her in place. “Let me go.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, dropping my head against her shoulder. Tears were filling my eyes even though I swore myself I wouldn’t cry about this shit anymore. “You’re right. You’re a hundred percent right. I let you down. It was wrong of me to compare you to Hannah. You’re obviously not her.” Aria was so angry she was shaking in my hold, but I didn’t let her go. “Please. I’m sorry, just don’t give up on me. Everyone leaves… please…” I started crying against her back, hating myself for looking so weak, but I was about to ruin a good thing in my life.
Again.
“Arden, let me go.” Aria’s voice was calmer, albeit still tense.
“I don’t wanna,” I whined.
“I’m not gonna leave. Let me go so I can face you.” Sniffling in, I released Aria and she turned around to look at me. Her eyes were red too, and it was the first time I saw that Aria was an angry crier. “Don’t disrespect me like that again.”
I nodded vigorously. “I won’t.”
“Next to my mom, you are the person I love most in my life. You’re my best friend. I grappled with whether or not to even give you the Y.I.I.P. stuff because I know you’re gonna get it and I know that means you’ll be moving to New York. You’re gonna love it there and you won’t come back here. But that’s okay, because I want you to be happy, and healthy, and safe. I don’t think Hannah’s a bad person. I think she’s confused, but not bad, but either
way, I am not her. I would never hurt you the way she did and I do not appreciate the insinuation that I would.”
“You obviously wouldn’t,” I said. “That was so unfair of me, I was just angry, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry for interfering in your life to the degree that I did, but I felt backed against a wall. Honestly when I did it I was praying it would never come up because you’d never go back there like you promised you wouldn’t.” Aria looked so disappointed in me that I couldn’t meet her gaze. “But I won’t overstep like that anymore.”
“No, please, overstep. I clearly can’t be trusted with my own life, you said so yourself.” I dropped my head low. “I got so upset because I’m so used to everyone around me forcing me in one direction or another without my consent, but you… You were just trying to keep me on the path that I already chose. You’re my little guardian angel.” She punched me in the arm. “Ow!”
“Stop making your guardian angel cry, you dick!”
I laughed at her and she cracked a smile. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Arden, The Undersound isn’t good for you. It’s a vice that you’ve sought out when you’re sad, upset, or frustrated. Even if you go there with the best of intentions, exposing yourself to things that help you run away from your problems will eventually lead you to indulging in those things. I don’t know how I feel about Suli, but I know she’s allowed you to regularly engage in things that are unhealthy for you. In fact, she’s openly encouraged them. I know that she’s this comfort for you while you try and get over Hannah, but anything that just helps you avoid your problems instead of facing them, isn’t good, at least not unless you’re also dealing with those problems.”
“I really just have the one problem,” I replied.
“Yeah,” Aria said. “From what I hear, that’s a bit of a mutual problem right now.”
“Where’d you hear that?” I asked.
“Tristan. He won’t tell me the details because he doesn’t wanna betray Hannah’s trust but… you two are causing major self-destruction in one another’s lives right now.” She lifted her hands and put them on my arms. “I need you to be honest with me right now, are you going to go back to The Undersound?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I promise. I’m done with that place.”
“Don’t promise me if you’re just lying. My dad used to do that all the time, it kills me. If you can’t keep the promise, don’t make it.”
“Aria, I promise you, I will not go back there,” I said. “My ID’s gone anyway. I could only get in on days when Suli opens, I mean she usually opens but…” I noticed the look of irritation on Aria’s face and stopped. “It doesn’t matter because I’m not going back.”
“Good. Have you eaten?”
I lowered my head again in shame. “No.”
She threw her head back. “Ugh! Fine, come to my house. I’m meeting Tristan there. I’ll make you some food.”
“I don’t wanna interfere.”
“Oh you aren’t,” she said. “Hopefully you can eat while hearing strange noises.”
I scrunched up my nose in disgust at first, but then joked, “Hot.”
She just shook her head. “Come on.” She turned around to head to her car, muttering under her breath, “Stupid ass brat. Stressing me out right after work.”
“Aria!” I called out and she looked back over her shoulder. “I don’t deserve you.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t.”
14
Hannah
By the beginning of May, it was officially senior spring around school. Most teachers offered their class periods for studying for state finals or ACT prep, while a select few awful teachers insisted upon leading their courses right up to the very last day of school. When seniors weren’t in those classes, they could pretty much be seen wandering about school, heading to guidance counselor meetings, specialized study halls, or just into one of the designated areas to relax and work on anything that needed working on, the most popular of which was the lunch room. Other than the couple of hours a day when the seniors had to make themselves scarce so that the other grades could come in for lunch, depending on schedules, a senior could camp out in the lunchroom all day long.
That was what Tristan and I intended to do.
“So check this out,” Tristan said as he sat down across from me at the corner table I’d picked out. “I’ve got…” He reached into a paper bag he had and started pulling out items one by one. “Egg white and turkey bacon sandwiches for breakfast.” He slid one over to me and kept one in front of himself and then fished back into the bag. “Those cool, bento things my step-mom has been into making ever since her and my dad got back from Japan, for lunch.” He stacked the two containers on top of one another next to the bag. “And…” He started unloading an entire convenience store’s worth of drinks—coffee, juice, tea, milk, water, and soda. “Uh, I wasn’t sure what we would want to drink.”
“So you got all of the drinks?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I figured this way we don’t have any trouble choosing, and whatever we don’t drink, we can save for Aria and Ardennnnnnn… but fuck Arden!” He did a fist bump in solidarity and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You don’t have to do that, you know? I know you two get along,” I said. “Whenever I’m not around, you two are buddy-buddy like there’s not a care in the world.”
“Well, yeah. I’m not gonna lie, I think Arden’s pretty great. She’s Aria’s best friend after all, plus she’s super chill and down to earth. There aren’t many people like th—” Tristan must have caught the expression on my face, because he stopped mid-sentence. “But fuck her anyway.”
I unwrapped my breakfast sandwich and bit into it, surprised at how delicious it tasted for the fact that it was turkey, or in my opinion fake bacon. “Wow! It tastes real.” I had a terrible tendency to eat my feelings, but if I gained even a pound of weight, my mom went on about it non-stop, so I was on a diet until I’d lost enough weight to gain some without hearing her gripe. “It’s so good. Did you buy it?”
“Aria made them,” Tristan replied, and suddenly the sandwich tasted awful.
“Oh.” I set the sandwich down, but tried not to let on too heavily that knowing that she’d made it ruined them for me. “How did she come to cook us breakfast?”
“Her mom had to work last night, so I was at her place. I told her we were planning on being in here pretty much all day and that I wanted to pack us enough resources to get through the whole day. She offered to help by making us breakfast.”
“Quite the cook, Aria?” I asked with a crinkled nose.
“Oh my gosh. She’s incredible. Her dad used to do all the cooking around their house before he left, and then she had to take up the mantle because her mom’s horrible at it.”
I leered at Tristan. “Is there anything she can’t do?”
“Well…” He started with a laugh, but then his face went stone serious as he looked up towards the ceiling, deep in thought. “Uh, no… I don’t think so actually.”
I forced out a fake laugh. “That was a rhetorical question, but thanks for confirming.”
“In that vein, and if it makes you feel any better, it sounds like Arden won’t be going back to The Undersound ever,” Tristan said. “Aria managed to get her fake ID revoked.”
“Arden didn’t flip out?” I asked.
“She did at first, but her and Aria are so solid, they got through it. Arden agrees that it’s bad for her there and promised Aria she won’t be going back,” Tristan explained, “but also fuck her?”
“Thanks for telling me,” I said, but inside, I was seething. Why did Aria have so much more success with Arden than I did?
Though I had been more open with Tristan about my love life as of late, my growing loathing for his girlfriend hadn’t come up yet. In truth, I was terrified to broach the subject because I honestly believed if Tristan had to choose between Aria and me, he’d choose her no question. Eventually,
I was probably going to have to admit that she wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but maybe that was a conversation best had later.
Like in a week or two years from now.
“Anyway,” I said, desperate to shift the conversation elsewhere. “Can you look over my powerpoint for me? I’ve been staring at it nonstop and need a fresh set of eyes to make sure I’m not missing anything.”
“Oh sure.” He stood up and walked around to my side of the table and braced his arms on either side and looked over my shoulder. On reflex, I folded against his arm, snuggling into his embrace and comforting smell, and he set his head on top of mine. “Alright, go ahead.”
I started to flip through the slides one by one, making note of anything Tristan pointed out and just generally enjoying our closeness. It had been so long since we were allowed to just properly snuggle that I forgot how much I missed it. I was skin-starved in the worst way, and even though Tristan and I weren’t romantically involved, the intimacy was welcome.
“I miss this,” I said.
“Powerpoints?” Tristan replied.
“No,” I said with a laugh. “Snuggling.”
He nuzzled his head against the top of mine. “You don’t have to miss it, you know. I’m always up for a good snuggle.”
I just ignored it. He knew how I felt about it. Even as I thought about the fact that Aria would walk in and see us there made me want to unwrap us. It was just weird, and no matter what she said, there was no way she was just okay with him cuddling with me.
“This is good, Hannah,” Tristan said. “It seems really professional, you know? Not like a high school student did it, but like something you’d see at a board meeting or something. In a good way though, not like it’s boring. I like it.”
“Nothing else stands out apart from this stuff you already mentioned?” I asked.
