🐞MTOABB🐞

"Thanks for coming." Chloe drops a kiss on his cheek and gives him a side hug.

He smiles at her and whispers something in her ear that turns her frown upside down. Sometimes I envy their friendship, how it's so different to ours. They are never consistently fighting, which makes me assume that maybe I'm the problem.

I slowly walk to where they are standing. The sky now littered with stars as the wind whistles calmly across my skin.

"So what are you two whispering about?" I ask. I use my hair tie to pin my hair to the back.

"Does she know of her already?" Chloe asks, turning to face him and he nods. This is about the baby - and why does it not surprise me that Chloe knew about this before me.

"Are you talking about this child?" I ask her.

"Don't say it like that." She says, opening her eyes a bit wider than usual which causes her eyebrows to rise.

If that was her way of sending me a message then she failed miserably - is that even sign language? Ugh, Chloe. She and I need to create some sort of language that only we can decode.

"Like how? It's his child, is it not?" I raise my eyebrow.

"I should get going. Cassandra is waiting for me." He places his hands in his pocket and turns to leave.

"So I don't get to give you a kiss on the cheek?" I place my hand on his shoulder and he tense up.

Chloe chooses then to turn around and make her way back into the house.

"What is it?" I pull his arm so he can face me.

"I'm just annoyed."

"About?" He takes a deep breath, already knowing how this will end if he continues.

"Rossita..." He pulls me in by the waist and our chests are touching and I can feel his heartbeat against mine.

"You are allowed to tell me if you don't want to anymore - if it scares you then you should back out."

"I'm all in." I focus my stare on his lips. "Can I kiss you now?"

He leans in and drops a kiss on my lip. I move my hands to cup his cheeks as I move in to deepen the kiss. He sucks onto my bottom lip and I squirm - Zack never kissed me like that.

Wait -- I didn't just let my mind go there right now. Rossita, seriously!

"I should go." He drops another kiss on my lip and this time I don't try to demand for more.

"Can't you stay for another few minutes?" I wrap my arms around his neck.

"I can't."

"It's always 'I can't' with you where I'm concerned," I whine - and I had every right to be. "If Chloe asked you, I doubt you would be telling her no." I fold my arms in frustration.

"That's not entirely true." His arms move to circle my back.

"So it's somewhat true?"

"Oh, Rossita Jenkins."

"Fine, then when are you and I going to do the deed?" I press my index finger up against his chest.

"By deed you mean sleep together?"

"Well... don't say it like that," I tell him and he lightly chuckles, but the kind where his shoulders shake up and down.

Cassandra chooses then to honk the car horn.

"I'll come over tomorrow," he whispers in my ear after pulling me in for a hug.

"No, you shouldn't. My dad will be visiting and he's not big on his daughters dating yet. I'm still very much the little eight year old girl he left behind when he decided to relocate to New York and open his own little shop."

"Okay then, maybe another day," he says or maybe he asks but I nod either way.

I watch as he climbs into his sister's car and they drive off.

~~

"Do you want to eat ice-cream before we go to bed?" I ask, popping my head into her room. It has always been a ritual to have ice-cream on the day of each other's birthday. We've never skipped it and I wasn't about to have it be our first. It was always a date - she and I - sisters only.

"Yes." She grabs a tissue from the tissue box that's lying on her bed.

"Chloe, what's with the tears?" I move to sit on her bed, staying clear of all the cluster of tissues full of snot.

"Who breaks up with someone on their birthday?" She cries out and I do what a younger sister does best. I embrace her in a hug and I hold her like that. She starts sobbing, burying her face in my shoulder. Her breathing now becomes heavy and my heart sinks, knowing that a boy could hold so much power over one's emotions.

"You could ask dad to fire him as your birthday gift?" I suggest.

She sighs before throwing out a light laugh. "Maybe I could fly off to New York with dad when he goes back." She places her head on my lap and we stay like that for a few seconds while I play around with the idea.

Is it okay to change your whole world for a boy that has already broken your heart? It's no longer "there's potential that he could break my heart", he already has so how does one make an emotionless decision after that. I can't blame her for not thinking, I'm barely using my brain most of the time when I make most of my 'boy' decisions. Usually she's the wise one, so maybe she's making the right decision. I'm unsure of what to say so I bite my tongue to keep me from speaking.

"You're meant to call me crazy, Rossita," she whispers.

"Right. You're crazy, Chloe." That was terrible, but at least now she knows to take her own advice.

"You can go fetch us ice-cream now."

"Right." I climb off the bed and rush downstairs to the kitchen. There was only the chocolate flavor left. I remember locking it into my noggin to buy her favourite but with everything that had happened at Gomes's place, I had completely forgotten.

"We are out of vanilla." I climb into her bed with the ice-cream tub and two teaspoons.

I take a spoonful and am welcomed with a rich and creamy taste as it melts into my mouth. The coldness of the ice-cream kisses my tongue as I let it sit there for a quick second. "Yum."

"Umm... I was meant to take the first spoon," Chloe says, narrowing her eyes at me.

"Shit. Sorry." I smile - the one that you give someone when you know you're guilty.

"Don't leave me alone tonight. I need company," she tells me and I nod. From the day that I finally said her name right when I was four years old on her birthday, I knew that she was my best friend. It has always been me and her against the world and I wouldn't have it any other way.