Goodnight Moon

13- I'll Be Over Everything

“Today will be beautiful,” I mumble into my mirror even though my face is set in an ever present frown of nerves and worry right now. “Right, Max?”

I look over at my Tibetan spaniel for reassurance but he’s not even in the room, he’s still sleeping in his own bedroom. I sigh loudly and then brush my teeth like I always do before school before brushing my hair as well and then applying deodorant and basic makeup like eyeliner and mascara. I’m wearing a white shirt with a city scape and in front of the picture are the words “New York” with light wash jeans and black boots because I feel like I should look presentable today since it’s the first time that I’ve been back to school since Adan’s disappearance and his name has been on the news a lot so I’ll probably be getting a few weird glances over at me in the hallways and stuff. I was only gone for a day but I’m sure that’s enough time for people to start wondering things.

Not to mention the fact that I haven’t spoken to Lake since the fateful events of yesterday after the Great Battle of Whipped Cream. An event that I will not be mentioning by name, but when I go downstairs this morning, I don’t even know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if he’s going to talk about it or if he’s going to pretend like it didn’t even happen or maybe he’ll tease me about it. I don’t know what Lake will do but I’m sincerely hoping that he’s just going to ignore it because that’s what I plan to do. Maybe if I just pretend like it didn’t happen, the memory will finally fade from existence.

I grab my school bag and call for Max so that he wakes up and pads along behind me to go downstairs for his breakfast. I just grab an apple from the bowl of fruit on the island thing and fill Max’s bowl with food and his other bowl with water. While I wait for him to eat, I eat my apple and go through my phone and find a game to play to pass the time and if Lake walks into the room, I’ll look busy so maybe he won’t talk to me. I play music from my phone as well so I bob my head a little bit and sing along to the songs as they play softly from my phone and I defeat level after level of the game that I’m playing.

“Good morning, Ari,” Lake chimes as he comes into the room just as I finish my apple.

I want nothing more than to leave that room and get as far away from this infuriating person so I look over at Max and want to yell at him to hurry up because he’s not done eating yet. “Morning,” I say awkwardly, continuing to play the dumb game on my phone, staring intently on the phone. All I can really think about is that thing that happened yesterday when we fell and then our lips were together. It’s eating my brain like the plague.

“So are we talking or…” Lake trails off as he leans against the counter beside me.

“No,” I say, locking my phone and putting in my pocket before I toss the core of my eaten apple into the trashcan beside me and then I leave the room when I see that Max is done eating so he follows me to the stairs. I put Max in his room and then go back downstairs, hoping that maybe Lake will be gone but I know there’s a fat chance for that happening considering I’m his ride to school. Maybe I’ll slash one of my tires or something that way I can’t give him a ride to school.

However, then I’d have to take Adan’s truck to school and I would still be obliged to give Lake a ride, I would just have to get my tires replaced as well so nobody really wins in that situation except for Lake, who gets a ride to school either way.

Once we are both in my car, I back out of the driveway and shut the garage door, hoping that Lake will let this be an incredibly awkward yet silent ride to school. I even turn the radio up louder than usual to discourage him from talking at all, but I know that he’ll probably talk anyway.

“For what it’s worth,” Lake speaks, proving me right that my efforts to keep him quite were futile. “I think that you’re completely overreacting, Ari.”