𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞, Jalen Green

v. reunions

August 26th, 2019

THE DAY AIRA LEFT FOR NEW YORK, Jalen didn't really know how to feel. Sure, he felt all the feelings you should when devasted with the fact that your best friend is moving across the country: sadness, a hint of anger, and even a sense of bargaining washed upon the boy. But with the plethora of feelings he felt, none of them felt right. There was a tiny part of him that still felt like he'd been missing something; like he'd been feeling that feeling but he couldn't exactly figure out what it was.

And for a while, as his life continued on without his best friend by his side, that feeling always stuck around. He felt the feeling in the morning, where sometimes he'd forget that she was three thousand miles away and not across the street as he waited for essentially nothing while walking to school. He'd feel that feeling in the night when he would sneak off to the beaches of Napa without his best friend, where usually they'd split the trouble between them. Sometimes he'd feel that feeling in a middle of a game, where after a tough bucket, he'd try to find her without realizing she moved away.

He never understood that feeling. Like sure, he had every right to feel every bit of sadness and anger, but he didn't understand why those feelings stuck with that amount of intensity.

"Sounds like to me you're heartbroken," Nadine shrugged over the phone. At that point, the two aren't really friends anymore -- but it had been one of their last conversations as friends.

"What?" his face scrunched up into a look of disbelief, letting a scoff out.

"You heard me, Jalen. Yeah, I miss her too and I'm upset that her mom didn't give her a phone to contact us and shit but everything you told me... sounds like you miss her more than a friend," Nadine answered. Jalen never really thought about her like that.

"You crazy as hell," Jalen mumbled as he rolled his eyes.

"Hey, you asked for my advice," she retorts with sass in her voice. "But I mean, is liking Aira really that bad? The world ain't gonna end if you like her, you know?"

But for some reason it did for him.

He never thought she'd come back, if he were being honest. He thought that she'd be content up north so much so that she'd stay there forever. He thought about her lots; but there would be days where sometimes he'd forget about her. Sometimes he'd forget that it was Jalen Green, Aira Inocencio, and Nadine Murray against the world. But when the smallest reminder of her came around, that same feeling would return tenfold.

Jalen had just gotten out of third period when Breanna showed up at his locker, demanding a little more between them after Kenny's end-of-summer party. Their relationship lasted longer than he would have thought - but love, or so he thought, can make you do the weirdest things. But the flame between him and Breanna Page was long gone and extinguished.

"Jalen," her voice begged. He tried to ignore her, but the girl kept talking as he stuffed newly assigned textbooks in his locker. "You haven't picked up any of my calls or answered my texts since Kenny's party."

"Don't you think there's a reason for that?" he asks her as he closes the locker with a weak slam. "Look, that was a mistake. We both let the alcohol do the talking that night. And you're a great girl, but what he had sophomore and junior year is long dead," he states. Jalen swore he heard her heart break right then and there with the sudden drop in her face. He begins to walk away from her and made his way to the gymnasium.

"You don't get to that... telling me you love me and then do shit like this!" she whispers, trying not to cause a scene. He turns around to face her once again.