just pretend

.15

"I'm getting pretty fucking good." Leo smirks as he walks Poppy through the stable doors. I follow behind, grinning to myself at his cockiness.

"Yeah, sure," I snort sarcastically and I pull my phone from my pocket. "Did Mia mention something about the drive in or was that tomorrow?"

"I think she was able to borrow her uncles truck for tonight. Is it just us three?"

"I don't know. What about Liv?"

"I can't think of anything she'd be doing so I can imagine she's going."

As Leo untacks Poppy I text Mia.

"She says Liv is with Aleks," I say.

I find it interesting how our friend groups have kind of merged. We don't hang out all together but we've become friends.

"Okay when I'm done this we'll head to mine?"

"Yeah but don't tell Kea because I told her I was busy tonight and she'll wanna drag her ass along," I say. "I'll be in the house grabbing my keys. You good with Poppy?"

"Yeah," he calls out.

I'm surprised I trust him alone with a horse. I'm not gone very long though.

Once I make it back to the stables he's ready to drive back to his. The drive isn't as long because we chat and I wait in the kitchen as he showers.

I get bored and walk to the garage. I make sure to be quick because I know he hates people in here.

Pencils and sketchbooks litter the place. It's a chaotic mess of art supplies and I can't imagine he ever finds things easily.

I recognize one of the sketchbooks. The cover has the year written on it.

I pick up the sketchbook and flip through the pages. A lot of them are faces of people I don't know and random sketches of people on buses or somewhere random.

I keep going till I stop at one I feel I recognize, when I look at the date at the bottom corner I know what it's from.

Me laying on the dock with my feet in the water while we waited for the others. I flip the the next page which is me floating in the water at night.

I flip back to the first one remembering one thing I was thinking.

Just pretend we never have to go back.

Figuring he would never notice I write really small, Just Pretend. In the corner before snapping the book shut and heading back to the kitchen.

I just read on my phone for a bit.

"You brought a hoodie right?" I hear Leo's voice before I see him.

"No?"

He stands in khakis and a T-shirt, his wet mop of hair dripping on his shirt. "It's going to be chilly. Let me grab you one before we go. Mia will be here in a minute."

He leaves the room and I don't notice when he's back till I feel a hoodie being thrown at my head.

I go to call him a shitbag or something but someone knocks on the door.

"That would be Mia," Leo says moving towards the other room.

I pick the piece of clothing off my head to look at it. It's a grey hoodie with paint and marker stains all over it. It's also appears to have charcoal stains and is literally just a mess.

"That was my only clean sweater," he says when he returns with Mia.

"Clean?"

"Oh shut up it's clean."