Stay With Me ✔

6.

"You're going to talk to him, right?" Whitley unlocked the door to her house and both Erin and I followed her inside. Whitley's house smells like lemons because her grandmother is constantly dusting with lemon scented pledge. On the rare occasion that it doesn't smell like cleaning product at Whit's, it smells like cookies. 

I didn't know Whitley when she lived with her parents, she's been living with her grandmother since she was eight and we became friends when we were ten. Whitley doesn't talk about her parents much, but I know that they live in the next town over and are drug addicts that used to beg and steal money from Whitley's grandparents. Whitley hasn't seen them in years and doesn't seem to have any desire to. 

"She's obviously going to go talk to him, she's in love with him." Erin says casually as she reaches for a cookie sitting on the counter. I watch as Whitley shrugs her shoulder as if what Erin had said was obviously true and she had just forgotten. 

"I am not in love with him." I reach for my own cookie as I look back and forth between my best friends, failing yet again to get the to believe what I say when it comes to the topic of Rave Matthews. 

"Yeah, okay, whatever you say." Erin rolls her eyes and we all make our way to the living room where we take a seat on the giant sectional couch. 

"I'm not." I cross my arms and watch as Whitley flips through the channels on the television. 

"If you're not in love with him then why are you getting so defensive right now?"

"And why do you stare at him whenever he's around, or get all flustered when he smiles at you?"

"Why do you blush around him so much?"

"Why does your voice get all high pitched and excited when you talk about him?"

"Why did you let him spend the night with you last night?"

"Why do you suddenly hate Lexy so much?"

"Okay, enough!" I throw my hands in the air and they both snap their mouths shut, an amused look on both of their faces. "I am not in love with Rave, but yes, I am going to talk to him later."

"When?" 

"After I have dinner with my mom." 

"Where?"

I roll my eyes, "I'm not telling you that because I don't want you two hiding in the bushes trying to eavesdrop."

Whitley turns to Erin and they both raise their brows before Erin says, "So it's somewhere with bushes." 

-------------------------

"Kylie, is something bothering you?" Mom asks as her eyes watch me push my pasta around on my plate. 

I stop moving my fork around and stare at the plate in front of me as I try to decide if I should confide in my mom about Rave. She already knows everything about last year, but what she doesn't know is that he's been trying to talk to me again and that he spent the night here last night - I'm definitely not telling her that last part. 

"Do you remember Rave?" I ask her, already knowing that she does. How could she forget, he was all I talked about and she adored him when she met him. 

"Of course I remember him." She's giving me her full attention and I push my plate of untouched food away from me before meeting her questioning eyes and taking a breath.

"Well, a few days ago he started talking to me again and then he broke up with his girlfriend. He apologized for how he just dropped our friendship and he wants me to meet him later to talk." There was no need to go into all the details of what, where, and how, she understood what I was saying and asking.