road trip ➳ everlark

One

"Madge, let's go already!" It's been ten minutes of my friend deciding on what flavor of ice cream she wants.

"I'm trying!" She whines as I hear the muffled complaints from three or four other people behind us.

"Look, just get the berry swirl, same as me," I sigh and look to the irritated cashier. "Make that two cups of berry swirl."

A sigh falls from his lips as I pass him a ten dollar bill to pay for our desserts. We get our food and slide into a neon green booth under an air vent.

The heat in June here is practically unbearable, so teenagers like us are always looking for a place to stay cool.

"This looks like shit," she scrunches her face in disgust, "Glad you payed."

"Trust me, it's the best," I assure her before taking a spoonful into my mouth. "Mm."

"How do you like this?" She grimaces, swirling her spoon slowly around the pink, blue, and purple twists.

"It's vanilla ice cream mixed with berries. Besides, you haven't even tried it. Just take a damn bite!" I chuckle. She takes another look at the filled spoon before putting it into her mouth.

Her face doesn't distort into a gremlin like last time's reaction, it just stays the same. Then she takes another bite. And another.

"Haha, you like it," I laugh, "Don't you?"

"Whatever," she lets out a breath and laughs.

"Anyway," I sigh while eating some more, "Glad school's over."

"Ugh, yes!" Madge replies, her eyes widening, "I couldn't take those teachers anymore."

"Same," I nod, "But I don't want to go to college. Too much responsibility."

"Of course," she laughs, "You're such a lazy-ass."

"True," I chuckle, agreeing with her, "But my parents are probably gonna kick me out soon. They want me to go to State, so I have to move on campus."

"Mine want me to go to the Liberty one. They said it's only, like, thirty minutes from State, so we can visit often. And it is a really good university."

"I'm gonna miss you when we do leave for school again next year, though," I sigh, looking out the glass window.

"You've got the crew, anyway," Madge says, "They're all planning on State, except for Thresh, who's going to the UK to study."

"Yeah, and I think he left already." I pause for a minute, going through the info in my mind. "Yeah, he did."

"Must have forgotten, then," she shrugs.

"Well, we should do something this summer. Something big to have a final-not-so-final goodbye."

"Disney!" Madge exclaims, a little too loudly, "We need to go to Disneyland!"

"No, no, no," I shake my head, "Madge, you know what happened the last time I went there."

"I don't recall," she smirks, obviously fibbing.

"You know I almost passed out because of that stupid damn twister!"

"That a bit of an exaggeration, Katniss," she laughs, smoothing her hair down.

"No it's not," I laugh exasperatedly.

"Oh," she mumbles, going through her phone after she receives a text. "We'd better go. My mom wants me to come home and take care of Henry while she goes to a work party or whatever."

Henry is Madge's little brother. He's six years old and really annoying. Every time he's around when I'm at her house, he pulls my hair and calls me "Katpiss", which I don't know where he got from.

"How bout you leave him with Rue and come to my house? I can text everyone to come over," I offer, trying to save her from stress. Rue is her family friend and lives a couple houses up from theirs. She's fifteen, my sister Prim's age. They hang out sometimes.

"Let me call her," she holds up a finger before putting the phone to her ear. "Hey, it's Madge.... I'm good, how are you?.... I was wondering if you could come over and babysit Henry? You can have anything you want in the fridge for 4 hours... Okay, thanks so much... Bye."

"I'm guessing that's a yes?" I ask as Madge starts up the car.

"Yep," she grins, clicking her seatbelt in place.