Catch My Fall | ✔

02. Best Non Blood Related Friend

Indy did not know the definition of small. The entire junior class of Valle Vista High was stuffed inside Aunt Brandy's house. My sister was at the center of all.

She and a few members of the dance team were doing their routine to a remixed version of some popular song. Everyone hyped them up. Especially the guys. Indy was feeding off the attention. She was made for the spotlight.

"Why aren't you out there with them?"

I turned to find Romeo. Technically, his name was Jerome, which was shortened to Rome by most people. I called him Romeo. Only me. He hated it. And I loved that he hated it.

"Rom--" He shoved a donut hole in my mouth before I could finish. "Rude," I said as a chewed the sugary goodness.

"Says the girl talking with her mouth full." He had a napkin of tiny glazed donut holes in his hand and crumbs on his yellow sweater. The color complimented his dark-brown skin nicely. His tight curly hair looked freshly cut.

I narrowed my eyes up at him and he simply smirked down at me.

"Really, though, isn't that the dance you were helping Indy with last month?" he asked, eyes glued to the girls moving their bodies for the crowd.

Indy wanted to move up the ranks of the dance team. She wanted to help come up with the dances and pick the music. She was determined to prove herself to the dance coach. Last month, she started choreographing her own dance to show Coach Winters. I helped, if it could even be called that. The dance was all her.

"Help is a generous word," I said as I stole another one of his donut holes. Not that he noticed. He was hypnotized by the dancers. "And you know I don't dance in public."

Romeo was my best-non-blood-related-friend. (Indy insisted I called him that because she was my best friend).We meet in sixth grade when I found him trying to get his shoe from the top of the vending machine. He used to be a lot shorter back the--even I was taller than hi--and that made him a prime target for cowardly bullies.

After returning his sneaker in some gender-swapped version of Cinderella, we were inseparable. It was just us two trying to survive middle school.

And when Indy transferred to Valle Vista freshman year, it became the three of us.

Now, nearly six years and a major growth spurt later, we were still the best-non-blood-related-friends and trying to make it out of Valle Vista High unscathed.

The song ended and Romeo finally took his eyes off the dancers. The girls bowed and thanked their admirers as the crowd whooped and hollered.

Indy glistened with sweat as she came over to us. Her face split into a wide grin when she saw me.

"This is not a small party."

She ignored what I said and stole Romeo's last donut hole. "I thought I was gonna have to come drag you out the house. What took you so long?"

I held back a laugh as Romeo frowned at his empty napkin and turned to my sister. "Well, my mom isn't at a concert and she had a lot of questions about where I was going."

After babysitting, I went home to shower off the sticky strawberry-banana smoothie and get ready for the party. When my mom saw me with my make-up bag, she wanted to know who, what, when and where.

Indy's eyes flew open wide and she gripped my shoulders. "Daya, what did you tell her?"

"Nothing!" I told her. "Now get your talons out of me before you draw blood."

She loosened her grip, but didn't let go. "Seriously, Day, if your mom comes here--"

"I told her we were going to the movies." It was the only thing I could think of that would require make-up. I didn't wear it often and my mom always got suspicious when I left the house looking a little too put together. Especially on a Friday night.