Mina

The Three of Us

"It's almost like old times." Max mused from where he was slumped over the counter in his kitchen.

"You mean Mina and I doing all the work and you just sitting there complaining?" Chelsea asked, eyebrow raised.

I laughed, agreeing quietly as I pulled two plates down from the cabinet.

"No I mean like our old morning after a movie night." Max explained even though we all knew what he was talking about. "You should have just came over last night Mina."

"I told you, I couldn't." I glanced at him over my shoulder.

I probably could have, but I had stayed late at the hospital with Penny, driving home nearly comatose just to stay up and work on some homework. My schedule had definitely eased up slightly now that high school was over but I had added an extra class for the summer. In hindsight I maybe shouldn't have but I was trying to get through college as fast as I could.

Max grumbled, Chelsea shooting me a sympathetic smile. I held a plate out for her as she let a pancake slide onto the plate. We repeated the process before she asked, "you sure you don't want one?"

"Positive."

I had already pulled out a yogurt and some fresh fruit.

"When are you going to break your weird rules?" Max asked.

Neither of my friends understood why I refused to eat junk food or why I was vegetarian. In their defensive they also didn't know how bad Penny had gotten. I stopped inviting them over years ago, long before Penny became the nearly immobile mass that she was. I was embarrassed. I didn't want them to know.

"One day when we're old and you have a beer belly, no hair and wrinkles you'll understand." I told him.

He scrunched his face up, repulsed at the idea. "I will not be bald."

"Oh but your fine being fat and wrinkly?" Chelsea asked.

"No but..."

"I can see it now, the belly hanging over his tight jeans." I mused.

"Right? Still trying to be all perfectly dressed but having to stuff his gut in." Chelsea added.

"I will not be fat!" Max yelled.

"Thank god we're girls and we can hide our wrinkles by contouring the shit out of her faces." Chelsea continued. "Poor Max will be left to deal with it. Unless of course you want to learn how to contour with us." She tossed over her shoulder.

She dropped another pancake onto each plate, both of us taking a seat at the snack bar alongside Max who was muttering under his breath.

"It's okay Max." I placed my hand on his arm. "We'll still love when your old and fat."

His eyes met mine and he narrowed them, sticking his tongue out. "Neither of you are nice."

"Tough love." Chelsea grabbed the syrup and doused her pancakes in it.

I plucked a strawberry out of the bowl in front of me, popping it in my mouth.

Max shook his head, pulling his phone from his pocket.

"What're you doing?" Chelsea asked, fixing up Max's pancakes for him as he focused on his phone.

"Texting Owen." He glanced at me for the slightest of seconds before back at his phone. "I've decided to hang out with someone who's actually nice to me."

"Aw come on, we're way better than Owen." I said, rolling my eyes.

He shook his head. "No, you're not."

"Sure we are." Chelsea said. "Who else makes you pancakes in the morning? Not Owen, I can say that much."

"I bet you he would." Max defended.

Chelsea and I both snorted. "Yeah okay."

"I'll ask him."

We shared a look as Max typed away on his phone. I peeled open my yogurt, stirring the contents before dropping a few berries in it.

I was trying to squash out the warmth that ignited in my body at the mention of Owen's name. All the memories and moments that we had shared privately. The ones that Max and Chelsea didn't know about. The ones that made me want to open up to him. Even though I knew it was bad to let them linger in my mind, I did. I allowed myself to dream just slightly. But only ever when I was alone. The last thing I needed was to think about Owen's smile because it never failed to tug the corners of my mouth upward and I didn't need Chelsea or Max noticing.

"Well what'd he say?" Chelsea asked, her mouth full of pancake as Max's phone vibrated.

"He said, 'Thanks for the invite asshole'." Max frowned.

Sounded about right.

Chelsea barked out some laughter. "What'd you say we were all hanging out without him?"

"I said you and Mina were over making me pancakes and being mean." He said weakly. "Why is everyone so damn rude in the morning?"

"Oh because you aren't?" I nudged him. "Please this is probably the first time you've been awake before noon since we graduated."

A smile cracked onto Max's face as he licked syrup off the tip of his finger that he had dragged through the sticky mess on his plate.

"You know me so well." He cooed, dropping his head to my shoulder for a moment.

I tapped the tip of his nose with my spoon full, leaving a glob of white yogurt behind. He reached his tongue out of his mouth, stretching it as far as he could but he couldn't quite reach it. Chelsea and I both laughed as his eye crossed and he continued to focus on reaching it. He looked ridiculous.

But I wanted to freeze this moment. I hoped it was one of those memories I'd take with me forever. It'd stay vivid and bright and so real in my mind that when I thought back to it, it was more like hitting the play button on a tape. Always there, the exact same, never changing, on repeat. Max and his dramatics. Chelsea and her sass.

The three of us together.

                                 ———————

My parents are selling their house. The house I grew up in. And I never felt like I had any attachment to the house until now. They need to move and I would never want to buy the house, but I'm a little sad, I won't lie.