Release

ch. 01//how it all started

≫ch. 01//how it all started.
「skylar」
Screams, shouts, and cheers echoed throughout the darkened parking lot of the crowded concert venue. Smiling teenagers and young adults laughed amongst the warm august air creating a perfect and energized night. I looked over at my best friend, Avery, as she giggled and sloppily hung onto the boy beside us. Her sweaty, curled, and red locks still sliding off her shoulders gracefully.

"-Then you let the balloon go," he continued on with his story that I dazed in and out of while he flashed a flirty smile towards Avery, "and kiss your number goodbye."

I continued watching the redheaded girl eye the stranger suspiciously with a drunken aura. I nudged her with a smirk, "Would you do it?"

Instantly a guffaw escaped her lips, "Of course not! I don't want some homeless guy texting me." The boy beside us shifted her in his arms as we approached a picnic table.

"First off, Ave, homeless people don't have phones. Therefore, they can't text you," I pointed out, "and well, I'd do it."

"Well then do it!" He challenged.

So I did.

And that's when this all started.

Avery, the boy, and I picked off a yellow balloon from the front of the venue. I proceeded to scribble my number on an old gum wrapper that was previously shoved into his shorts. And with faltering determination, I watched as the balloon's string slip out of my hands into the starry night as new spectators joined.

"See? Not so bad," I said to the boy warily watching my phone number vanish potentially into the hands of a stranger. I glanced down at Avery slowly drifting to sleep in his arms and chuckled softy to myself. "I think we're gonna get going," I said yanking her up by her forearm as she groaned to her feet.

He smiled and waved goodbye as Avery and I stumbled to my car. Her tripping over herself and me trying to keep us balanced. The feat proving to be a lot more challenging than I originally assumed.

￣
"He was adorable, at least his eyelashes were anyway," I gushed to my best friend sitting at the the breakfast bar with her feet propped up to paint her toes.

"My eyelashes are pretty gosh darn cute too, right babe?" Eric asked me batting his own and leaning forward in an effort to look seductive.

Eric. You could say that him and I were dating. Most people did. But I wasn't so sure I could ever mutter those words. We knew each other too long and knew too much about each other. Something about that just made me shiver: knowing all my secrets were held by some boy. An immature boy. But don't get me wrong, I loved Eric. And we've done stuff. Stuff that could be considered boyfriend-girlfriend stuff or at least friends with benefits stuff.
So maybe it was complicated. Or I was complicated. But that's besides the point.

I leaned over to ruffle his blonde hair and smiled, "Of course, Love"

"And so apparently his name is Paul. Tall Paul," Avery sung, ignoring us as she closed the nail polish and admired her freshly painted toes.

Amidst her drunken stupor last night, Avery slipped her number to the stranger. And even though she was all over him at the concert, she was starting to second guess the whole situation. Especially since she could hardly remember him. It was almost as if she heard the introductions and the rest faded out to a blur of a party, or at least that's how she explained it.

"And Skye did something with a balloon," she droned. That bitch.

Eric looked over at me curiously and I felt a panic rise in my throat. Even though I didn't label us as boyfriend and girlfriend, he did. And he was the jealous type for sure- the paranoid jealous type who unnecessarily imagined the worst scenario of anything. I've come to the understanding that it's best to just- keep information away from him. Like my number being out and open for anyone to grab onto.

I shot her a look before innocently smiling back towards the blonde. A nagging urge to fight itched at my tongue and without hesitation my lips formed words and the truth spilled out, "I wrote my number."

"And gave it to who?"

"No one, I just let it go."

"Why?"

I clenched my fist, "Because Tall Paul challenged me. And I don't back away from challenges, Eric," I said staring him in the eyes while Avery tiptoed out of the kitchen and into her room I presumed. The door slammed and the room succumbed to a tense kind of silence.

Eventually Eric huffed not wanting to fall too far into my tricks and stormed outside flicking a cigarette out of his new pack.

I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed. I found myself walking into Avery's room and collapsing on her bed. She stared at me from her cluttered desk with a smirk. "You have issues." She mumbled.

With my body sprawled across her bed I flipped myself over to get a better look at her freckled face. "You didn't have to tell him, asshole."

"It slipped! You didn't have to pick a fight, darling." She flipped her curly locks and stared at her pink toes some more. But I stayed quiet because she was right. "Where'd he go anyway?"

"I stress him out so he needed a smoke."

"I need a smoke," she said throwing a pillow at me.