The Framing

The gathering

December 31st 2015 11:00pm
I heard a knock on the door, I told Jeremy to be here an hour ago. It really made me upset that he was an hour late and didn't even call me.

I went to the door, slowly, and opened it. I saw Jeremy standing in front of Kevin on my porch. To be honest, I kind of forgot that Kevin was coming over.

"Well you guys can come inside." I said. They followed me to my living room.

"Is anyone else home?" Kevin asked.

"Oh no, everyone else is at my aunt's house in Alabama."

"Well why didn't you go with them?" Jeremy asked.

"Because I said that I didn't want to. And my parents pretty much let me do whatever I want, now that everything has changed."

The three of us stood here in awkward silence before I went over and grabbed my phone. "So... do you guys want to listen to music?" I asked.

"Ally, we love you and all, but we hate the music you pick out." Jeremy said.

"Fine then, we'll all take turns playing songs." I hit shuffle and a Blink 182 song played.

"No fuckin' way Ally, we love Blink." Jeremy said. I actually had never heard this song in my life, it must be my brothers. It probably downloaded when I plugged my phone into the computer.

I quickly looked at the song title so I knew something about it. "Yeah uh, 'First Date' is like, one of my favorite songs." I lied.

We all sat on the couch for a while, the TV wasn't even turned on. I kept looking at the clock to make sure of the time.

I noticed that Kevin had been staring at me a lot. I felt bad because I forgot he was coming. I really only said yes that he could come over to Jeremy out of sympathy.

After a few songs had played through, Jeremy got up to select another song. He plugged his phone into the speaker, and as I expected, some screaming mess of a song filled my living room. I didn't really want my neighbors to call the police on us. Even though we're so low profile, and it is New Year's Eve.

I rolled my eyes as Jeremy sat back down. "I really don't want to go back to school." Kevin sighed.

I really don't either, but if we're all there, then nothing too bad can happen to us. I mean, everything that goes wrong in my life usually goes on outside of school. With the exception of the knife incident, which I really have forgotten about. What was once my main concern, now means nothing to me. Even my best friend stabbing me in the back.

I could also tell that Jeremy didn't want to go back there either. He would eventually have to face Neil. I really hope that they aren't mad at each other, Neil never visited him in the hospital. Which really made me mad, a lot more mad than Jeremy.

"Well we have like, six more months." I said. It ended up sounding a lot more worse than I intended.

"Wow that doesn't make me feel any better." Jeremy said. All Kevin did was sit there.

"Well if you look at it like this, next year we'll all be seniors. And after that, we'll be in the free world." I said.

I tired to make everyone feel better. I know that school sucks, because it does for everyone. School makes no exceptions, not even to the valedictorians, and the salutatorians. They all hated high school, probably a lot more than us. They have reasons to be mad, they try the hardest and no one pays them any attention. But in a way, don't we all try hard? I mean, Jeremy had to try hard to stay alive. And I don't see anyone giving him an award for it.

I looked at my phone for a fast second, just to be aware of the time. It was 11:50 now. So I turned the TV on and set it to channel 4.

"Hey Ally, can you hand me my phone?" Jeremy asked. I reached over to the table and handed it back to him.

"Can you guys believe that it's almost the new year?" I asked.

"I guess not." Kevin said, trying to agree with me.

I waited on my end of the couch, just to get it over with. I wanted them to leave, and I know that that's really mean. And to be honest, I don't care.

The clock started to count down the last minute. I remember last year, after the ball dropped, Logan, Julia and I just watched South Park for the next three hours. It was his first time ever watching it, and I made him promise me not to tell mom and dad.

It was finally the last 10 seconds, it counted down, and that was it. 2015 was over, and would never happen again.

I looked up and Jeremy and Kevin, Kevin smiled at me. Jeremy's face turned red all of a sudden.

"Jeremy what's wrong?" I asked.

"I'm just a little upset that Neil isn't here. I kind of wanted to do the thing where you kiss someone as the year changed."

"I kind of want to do that too." Kevin said.

I raised my eyebrow and looked at Kevin.

"No Ally, I didn't mean that I want to kiss Jeremy."

"That wasn't what I was implying, but I'm glad you clarified that for me. Thanks Kevin." I said.

"Kevin, you should want to kiss me. I'm all that." Jeremy said. He could be very savage when he wanted to.

"No Jeremy, I wanted to kiss Ally." He said. Which I knew all along. He was the only one of Jeremy's friends who asked to come to my house.

"Okay, come here." I said.

His faced lit up. "Really?" He asked.

"I'm not gonna say it again."

He scooted over to my side of the couch, pecked me on the lips for like a second and then stopped. I was honestly prepared for a lot more than that, but I'm satisfied with what I got.

"Oh get a room you two." Jeremy said as Kevin went back to his seat. I laughed, and everything suddenly went back to normal.