"So...If we get arrested I'm blaming you."
Mallory and I sat awkwardly in the bank poking the fire like five year olds, Edwyn and Jana took the van to the store, saying something about food.
"Haha! Well let's hope we don't get caught!" She laughed, scooting closer to the fire. I pulled at my flannel, both of us trying to escape the cold that crept it's way into our bones.
It was getting dark, the only people left at the beach included us and some drunk frat boys, who thankfully minded their own business. I guess Mallory was the "new kid" in our little group, Parker had dragged her along on one of our little Wal-Mart raids sometime in the fall and she just kinda stuck around.
"I'm sorry about what happened, you're brother was amazing and-" she kept on going, not stopping her little rant about him. I managed to blank out what was being said; It took everything that I had in me not to snap, not to punch her in the face with words, but to be honest. I didn't know what to say, It's not exactly the standard social skills you were taught in kindergarten, and sadly: "How To Avoid Conversations About Your Dead Brother." wasn't at my local library. So after a solid five minutes of her practically talking to herself, I cut her off.
"Look I know, this is all some desperate attempt to get me to feel better, but I'm fine. I don't need anyone telling me how great he was, I know." I was starting to cry as I'd managed the last "know."
"I know more than anyone else. It's sweet what you're trying to do ok? It really is, but I don't want to remember right now." She nodded in response, probably not knowing what to say. We both turned back to the fire, no longer saying anything.
After what seem like an eternity of uncomfortable silence and sniffing, my phone started to go off. And before I knew it there was yelling, screaming, and tackling, from every direction.
Mallory managed to jump over me while grabbing my phone, Edwyn and Jana materialized out of thin air, and while he lunged at me, Jana just stood there screaming.
Needless to say we got a lot of weird looks from the poor college boys who probably thought someone was dying.
"No phones Rori, I thought we talked about this!?" Jana stood over me shaking her finger at me. I didn't know whether to scream or laugh. One, she never said anything about a phone. Two, because she somehow managed to look exactly like my grandmother; crinkled nose, furrowed eyebrows, and rigged posture; the only difference was the age.
The conversation ended shortly after Edwyn busted out laughing about God knows what. "So are we going to eat or what?" I was practically starving at this point, apparently avoiding heart to heart conversations took more energy than I originally thought.
"Um about that," Edwyn carefully stated, about that same time Mallory rolled her eyes and I let out a groan that probably could have woken up sleeping beauty.
"Well, we didn't know what you guys wanted!" He yelled in his defense.
"So we came back to get you!" Jana stated trying to cover for him. We all climbed back into the van - moaning, groaning, and everything In-between.
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Short Story- I slammed my head down on my keyboard, fed up with looking at an empty screen, this stupid short story was due in a week and I barely had a story line. Of course I wanted to write, I just couldn't; I physically couldn't make my fingers move, it...
