Backyard Serenade

thirteen - like this by shawn mendes

"You are too fucking obsessed with chocolate ice cream," Lacey comments from the opposite side of the couch.

I shift my spoon in my container of chocolate ice-cream. "What makes you think that?"

Lacey gives me a blank stare as if to say, really? "Autumn, sweetheart, when I gave it to you three hours ago, that container held a gallon of ice cream. There's only about a quarter of it left. I haven't eaten any of it. Are you getting my point, even a little bit?"

Grinning slightly, I wink at her and eat another spoonful of ice-cream. Lacey sighs at my actions. "You know," she says in a tired voice, "the only reason I'm allowing you to eat all of those calories is because of he who must not be named."

"Voldemort?"

Earning another blank stare, I glance down to my container of ice-cream. It's been one week since the incident with Colton, and I haven't tried to talk to him yet. Every time I reach for my phone, I get the urge to call him, to talk to him about what happened. But, immediately after, I feel a surge of emotions. Frustration, sadness, hurt, they all pile up in high stacks inside my brain.

My best friend has helped me through these rough days, taking my mind off of him and focusing it on hot fictional movie men. School has even helped me as I strive to achieve high grades on my finals. Jackson and Michael got a shortened version of what happened according to Brandon, so they helped me immensely when they were still here. The twins left at sundown on Sunday, leaving Brandon and Lacey to deal with me. Both of them said something among the lines of everything will work out in the end, and I hope it does.

Holding grudges is always easy for me, hell, I'm still holding a grudge against my old fifth grade teacher for that B she gave me on a writing assignment (totally should've been an A). It's not like I want to stay mad at Colton forever, but he was so damn infuriating the other night! I wanted to find out what I did wrong and he wouldn't tell me, total bullshit!

"Stop it, Autumn," Lacey commands. She flicks my forehead with her pointer finger, then slaps me on the side of my head.

"Ow!" I whine. "What was that for?"

She gives me a disgruntled look. "You're thinking about him again."

Raising an eyebrow, I ask, "How did you know that?"

"First of all, you completely ignored me calling your name like three times. Second, you had this dazed off look on your face. Finally, your eyebrows drew so close together in anger, I thought you had a unibrow for a second."

Now, it's my turn to hit her upside the head. "Ow!" she exclaims. "It's true you know!"

"Doesn't mean you have to be so blunt about it." I scowl in her direction.

"Boo-hoo. Now, on to more important matters, are you going to be okay here by yourself?"

Brandon and Lacey were going out on a double date tonight with, I can hardly believe it, Mom and Dad. So, all of them are leaving me here completely alone, and I'm fine with it.

"Yes, I'll be fine. I've hardly had time to myself all this past week, it'll be good for me." I grin.

Lacey glares at me. "You're planning to eat the rest of the ice-cream, aren't you?"

"Absolutely."

"Unbelievable," she scoffs. "I got to use the bathroom, be back in a sec."

After she leaves the room, her phone goes off. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't check her text messages for her? Laughing, I pick up her phone and unlock it.