The Framing

The ice cream

December 30th 2015 7:00pm
"Are you ready to leave?" I asked Jeremy. He had just been signed out, and I was going to drive him to Cold Stone.

"Yeah, I'm ready as I'll ever be." He said.

He followed me to my car and got in the passenger side. We didn't talk on the way there, we preferred the silence.

The last four days haven't been that interesting. I would visit the hospital at 9am every morning and left at 7. Jeremy kept telling me that I was wasting my winter break away, I told him that there was no use in getting me to leave. I wasn't having it.

I pulled into this new shopping center. It had almost everything you needed, there was even a Starbucks next to Cold Stone.

We got out of the car and I followed him in. He ordered a large mint chocolate with all these different toppings on it. I was simple, and went with my usual chocolate with gummy bears.

"That looks disgusting." Jeremy said. He looked at what I ordered.

"It's delicious, and I'm sure it's way better than whatever you're eating. It looks like you're going to go into a sugar coma."

He laughed. "I think going on a sugar rush sounds like fun."

"Well tomorrow is New Year's Eve. You're coming to my house right?" I asked.

"Yeah, and Kevin wanted to know if he can come too."

I didn't say anything, I just nodded. I've had a slight hunch that Kevin might like me. No reason why I guess, maybe it's just his personality.

I got to the bottom of my ice cream, ate the last gummy bear and waited for Jeremy to finish. It had warmed up a lot since Christmas, so an ice cream was really good right now. It's hard to believe that it snowed here a few days ago.

"So how do you think you're going to feel once we get back in school?" I asked.

"Well, I'm sure it's going to be awkward as hell between Neil and I. He's good friends with the people I'm good friends with. So I'm not exactly sure if he's going to hang around with us or not. We were in a band before, but haven't done any rehearsing in months, so I'm not too worried about that."

"Do you think that Neil is mad at you?"

"Probably not. He rarely gets mad at people. Only when you severely screw him over or something, other than that he just sits around and gets high. Which is what I used to be like, until you came along. I never told you this, but I was so high when I first met you."

His comment made me smile. I had an assumption that he was, but I was so naïve back then. I guess you could say we changed each other. For the better, I hoped.

He sighed when he was completely done with his ice cream. "Well I guess we can go home now." He said.

I didn't say anything, all I did was stand up and push my chair in.

We walked out of the store and crossed the street. Jeremy made fun of me because I still looked both ways while crossing the street like five year olds do. I told him that I wasn't in the mood for dying. Given the circumstances, I'm not too sure if that was such a smart thing to say.

Once we got back to my car, I hooked up my phone via Bluetooth and played music through the stereo. I hated it when Jeremy played his music, but it has grown on me. Only a little though.

I bit my lip before asking this question. "Jeremy, have you smoked anything since the last time I was aware you did?" I didn't know how else I could phrase that.

"No." He said. I could tell when he was lying, but he said it in such a way that I couldn't tell. So I just assumed he was telling the truth.

I pulled into my house not thinking about asking him if he wanted to go home. "Is it okay if you stay here for a while?"

He sighed. "Yeah it's not like I'll do anything exhilarating at my own house."

I turned my car off, thankful because I am so tired. I really didn't want to drive people around anymore.

I walked into the house, placed my keys into the bowl and we headed up to my room. No one was home, except for Logan. Even if my parents were home, they wouldn't care if Jeremy was in my room. They know he's not going to do anything to me.

"So now that you're a single pringle like the rest of us, do you have your eye set for anyone?" I asked.

He laughed. "I don't really know, I see a few nice looking guys walking around the halls sometimes. They either don't know me or don't like me, so there really aren't many options."

"I know what you mean, it's just a lot easier being a guy. At least they don't call you out, and tell you that you have nice boobs."

"What?" He asked. "You don't like my boobs?"

"Oh no Jeremy, your boobs are toats on fleek."

He smiled. "Thanks, I'm not wearing a bra."

"Ugh, you don't know that struggle either. I guess I can take mine off right now, what are you going to do?"

I wrapped my hands around my back and unclipped my bra, throwing it on the floor. "Holy shit I didn't know you could take those things off with your shirt on." He said.

"Yeah, literally every girl can do it. It really isn't hard."

"Well you'd be surprised at how many simple tasks I fail to do."

"Jeremy, somehow that really doesn't surprise me."

"I mean earlier in the hospital I was looking for my pill, but I failed to realize that I had already taken it."

"Jeremy, you're dumb. In the good way though." I said. He ended up throwing one of my pillows at me.