°°°
"Some people have lives; some people have music." Jane, Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green

[10] clarity's absence

I didn't see her for a while. She never came to my house, and I never saw her at her house. She might be with friends, or family. Possibly. But we hadn't hung out - if you'd even call it hanging out - since the day she let my dog off of his leash. I kinda wish she'd do it again so I could talk to her more. I didn't even know who her friends were - I only knew her name and a few other thing about her, that's it. It was okay, I needed time to study for next year anyways. Plus, I doubted that she would even want to hang with me anytime soon again.

My dad came in my room, making my daydream of Clarity and I hanging out fade away. "Hey buddy," he stood in the doorway, "tomorrow I'll need you to work with Claire. Your mom and I are going out of town to get some things."

"Things?"

"Yes, Nolan, just a few errands. Go to sleep, you'll need the rest. You'll need it for tomorrow." My dad, pulling the glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose, told me sternly.

"Sure, dad." I gave him a smile and turned off my light as he shut the door. I didn't go to bed just yet. I mostly thought, obviously, about my summer so far. So far the best - the most interesting - thing would be when I met Clarity and she got in my car. Pretty pathetic, actually. But I didn't have the most exciting and interesting life.

It took me a while to fall asleep that night.

°°°

Claire came in early, carrying a purse and holding a Starbucks coffee, she smiled up at me, "Hey Nolan!"

"Hello, how are you?" I wiped the nearest table clean, looking at her with a smile.

"Oh, I'm okay. Just tired." Claire answered, sitting down her stuff and taking a sip of her Starbucks. She had light bags under her eyes and she wasn't wearing as much as makeup as usual.

"Yeah, me too. My parents won't be here, so it'll just be us two waiting tables."

"Okay," she nods her head, "we can handle it."

"Most definitely." I give her a friendly smile and began putting the chairs back on the floor.

We all filled in with multiple friends or family or just one person. It was nothing we couldn't handle. Claire seemed to enjoy working - as did I - but we barely talked. When we actually got the time to exchange a few sentences or two, customers came strolling in before we could engage into deeper conversation.

"Nolan?" I turned to see Flynn grinning at me, he had just entered the diner. "Hey. How have you been?" I haven't talked to him since he had come over and we played video games.

"Oh, I've been great. You?" I asked him as we faced each other.

Flynn was an average height with big curly hair and big brown eyes with freckles sprinkled over his face. "I've been good. Anyways, wanna hang later? I'll be in town and I figured Mia and you and I all could..." Flynn trailed off, waiting for an answer.

"Oh, yeah. Sure, I'll call you when I'm done, okay?"

"Alright. See you then." He nodded. "Well, I gotta go pick up Granny some chicken pot pie. You know how she loves that kinda stuff. Later!"

A few hours later, I was waiting at the mall for Flynn and Mia. I was informed that they would be here at exactly 5:30. It was 5:22 right now. I rocked back and forth on my shoes, looking around. A older woman and what seemed to be her daughter were eating a small serving of ice cream together. The mother's face was in her phone, scrolling through some social media app. I couldn't see that far, so I couldn't tell you what specific app. The daughter, looking quite bored, was looking around aimlessly, like me. She looked like she was maybe thirteen or fourteen years old.

"Nolan! NOLAN!" both Flynn and Mia were yelling at me, making my attention move away from the mother and daughter. They were both waving at me happily.

I waved back, though not as quickly or excitedly as them, but still grinned as we walked up to one another.

"Ready to get our shopping on?" joked Mia. She knew how Flynn and I despised shopping -especially with her. She'd take fifteen minutes trying just to find herself a t-shirt. She'd say, "Hmm, does this look good with my one light colored skinny jeans? What about my dark ones?", or " Oh! This would look good on me, but I don't like the texture," and so on...

Let's not even get started on shoe shopping for her.

"You're funny," Flynn shot her a absurd look as we entered the mall. Immediately, we walked straight to the food court. Mia smacked the back of his head, scowling.

"Ow! What was that for, Mia!?"

"That was for not wanting to go shopping with me," she grumbled. "We are literally at a mall where shopping is involved. What else are we gonna do?"

"Walk around," he suggested in an obvious tone as he rubbed his head with a pained expression.

"Or eat," I intervened, stopping Mia from playfully hitting him again - but her hits weren't so soft though. "Where do you guys wanna eat at?"

"Chinese!" She piped up happily. The thing about Mia is that she always craved Chinese. For some unknown reason, too. Because she rarely even ate Chinese, but when she had a chance to eat it, she took it and she loved it.

"How about pizza?" suggested Flynn.

"Well," Mia said sassily. "You go ahead and go get some pizza. I'll go get some Chinese!" And then she ran off to order her food.

Flynn walked away to get pizza. I looked around. I was in the mood for a sub sandwich, honestly. I ended up ordering a meatball sub and a fountain drink. Flynn, Mia, and I met up at a table not far away from the trash cans.

"Ooh," said Flynn, eyeing Mia's egg roll. "That looks good. Gimme a piece!" He thrusted his hand towards her tray which resulted in her smacking his hand away.

"Go get your own," she told him sternly while he cradled his hurt hand to his chest.

"But I got pizza," he whined, his lower lip sticking out.

"Then eat your pizza." I told him amusedly.

"But I wanna bite of Mia's egg roll," he argued.

Mia chewed her egg roll, eyes level with his. "Go cry somewhere else, buddy, I wanna enjoy my food and not hear your fake sobs."

Flynn gasped, a hand flying to his heart like he had been hurt, but he really wasn't. "You're so mean, babe."

Mia dropped the rest of her egg roll, surprised and wide eyed. "Babe?" If she didn't have such dark skin, you'd be able to her how bad she was blushing. Unfortunately, you couldn't. Flynn hurriedly snatched up the half eaten egg roll and popped it in his mouth before Mia or I could blink.

Flynn seemed oblivious how flustered she really was said casually, "yeah, babe." He laughs loudly at her still shocked expression. "I was only kidding, a lil ole pet name for ya."

She held up a slim finger. "First of all, never call me babe again. Second, you little sneaky cow, you owe me another egg roll!"

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

"Oh, I'll whatever you," she mumbled before reaching across the table, grabbing his pizza where he let out a surprised sound, and took a huge bite out it.

I laughed. Flynn narrowed his eyes at her. "I'll get you back, babe."

"I'd like to see you try." She replied after she swallowed the huge bite of pizza, her eyes narrowed just like his was.

"Oh, babe, you will."

°°°

Flynn kept his word. We walked into a store and followed Mia to the perfume section. She was looking at all the different sizes, colors, and fragrances of perfumes. She was too absorbed in the perfumes they displayed to notice us.

Flynn turned to look at me, a mischievous smile dancing on his lips. All too soon, I realized what he was up to and began to protest. But Flynn was quicker.

He grabbed two big bottle of perfume that read TRY ME in bold letters. Mia didn't notice that Flynn was walking closer and closer to her until he was only three steps away from touching her body with his own. Then as fast as lightening, Flynn began to press down repeatedly on the bottles, making the perfume squirt out and spray her. Mia, who let out a yelp, tried to scurry away as he attacked her, the perfume soaking her clothes, both of them stopped dead in her tracks when she knocked over a glass bottle of perfume and it broke. It made a loud sound, drawing attention to us.

Flynn's face went red. You could see a faint redness under Mia's chocolate colored skin.

A worker walked up to us, looking furious with us. "You break it," he told her rather calmly but a vein on his forehead twitched and his nostrils were flared, "you buy it."

"I'm so sorry, sir," said Mia, coughing from all of the perfume in the air. "My friend here...kinda, you know, doesn't know how to act right in public."

Flynn scoffed. "I'm more mature than the both of you!" He looked in between Mia and I.

She rolled her eyes. "If anyone is the most mature, it would be Nolan." She put her hands on her hips.

I nodded in agreement, smiling "That is true."

"Ahem," cleared the man's throat impatiently. "Come to the register... You need to pay for the perfume." Then he turned on his heel and stalked away.

"Okay," she said and walked away but not before she shot us a murderous look.

"She's so going to kill you," I laughed, poking him in the ribs.

He made a disbelieving face. "I doubt it. I told her I'd get her back. It was her fault she knocked that off herself," he said as he carefully straightened the perfumes he had drowned her in before she broke the glass one.

Once we left the shop and turned the corner, she rounded on him. "I cannot believe you!" She exclaimed. Flynn leaned back away from her, Mia was getting closer to his face. She got so close, their noses almost bumped together. "How dare you do such a thing, Flynn?!?"

Two girls, holding hands, shot us curious looks. I smiled weakly at the couple and they kept walking.

Flynn, looking like he didn't quite care, shrugged. "It wasn't my fault that you knocked over the perfume. My intention wasn't to make you break anything, just drown you in cheap fragrances for women."

Her eyes narrowed into little slits. "They weren't that cheap!" She jabbed a finger in his chest. "I'll get you back, Flynn, just you wait."

"You know..." Flynn didn't seem to fazed by her threat, "the whole front of your shirt is soaked in perfume."

She looked down, then back up at him. "Hey! Don't look at my boobs."

"I wasn't," lied Flynn. "I was only staring at your chest."

"Mhm, sure." She said, staring at him closely.

It was Flynn's turn to be embarrassed, and due to his white skin, it was obvious to see the deep red blush creep along his cheeks and neck.

Hope you all enjoyed the update. Sorry I've been really busy so you haven't gotten a quicker update. But I'm back :)

Anyone liking Flynn's and Mia's relationship?