Home for the Summer // KJ

08

Chapter Eight

all because of some secondhand smoke

Nearing the end of their senior year, Karl started to pull away from Marley and hang out with more of his guy friends. He'd still drive her to and from school, but at that point, that would be the extent of their hangouts. She'd invite him to stargaze, for late night 7/11 runs, to watch movies, at that point, anything, and it would only work ten percent of the time, so she eventually gave up and stopped texting him. Marley decided to wait it out; he wasn't talking to her like their relationship was bumpy, so she figured he just needed space.

In reality, Karl hadn't realized he'd been pulling away from his best friend. In his mind, time worked differently for him and he thought he'd been dedicating just as much to her as he had been previously. So without Marley saying anything, Karl was completely clueless and continued splitting his time between her and his guy friends while she continued to spend her nights alone at home.

It's not like she didn't want to spend time with Karl; that's all she ever wanted to do. Marley knew with graduation and summer approaching, their time together was getting slimmer and slimmer by the second. She didn't want to come off as clingy though so she refused to say anything to Karl which caused her to isolate from him, becoming snappy with any time they did spend together. It'd been months of pent up emotions from her from the countless months they'd spent apart compared to the last four years where they were attached at the hip.

"I'm not feeling good," Marley mumbled to Karl as he kneeled beside her bed in the morning. He noticed she wasn't waiting on the porch when he swung by to pick her up for school nor did she text him, so he let himself into the house with the spare key Marley's mother gave him and made his way to Marley's room.

"I'll stay home with you then," Karl reacted immediately, not wanting her to be alone.

Marley rolled her eyes, "No it's okay, I'll go. Just give me a minute, I'll meet you down in the car."

Karl sat in the same position, stunned for a second at the hostile behavior before bouncing back and nodding his head. He glanced back at her packing her bag and pulling clothes out of her dresser before closing her bedroom door and dawdling out of the house. He tried his best not to overthink the interaction, chalking it up to her not feeling well or possibly being cranky since it is early in the morning. Marley had never been a morning person. That was the first time, though, he'd gotten a negative reaction from the girl and it made his head spin.

Marley found that pushing him away was easiest for her mind to cope with the situation. It'd been several months now that Karl had been hanging out with other friends, not even leaving a single minute of a day open to spend time with her. It was a huge adjustment for her to go from spending the time she woke up to the time she went to bed with him to only seeing him on a ten minute's car ride a day. And sure, she knew talking to him about this could possibly solve the problem, but part of her felt selfish for even thinking about wanting to take him away from his other friends. So she mulled quietly in her feelings.