Favorite Friend

A World Alone

With the afternoon sun pouring through the window, I can make out every scratch and dent in the floorboards in my room. There's a few lines by my desk where my chair scratched over the wood every time I got up. There's the stain where Elena knocked over a bottle of nail polish when we were twelve. There's the spot where Aaron dropped one of his track trophies in freshman year—he stormed in waving it around and dropped it when I crashed into him to hug him.

It's all there, my entire childhood ingrained in the wood and the longer I look, the more I can find, memories marking every square inch of my room.

The reason why they're visible now is that I finally cleaned my room last week. I did the laundry, vacuumed the floor, opened the windows as wide as I could. I got rid of all my old school books. Aaron offered to help me, but I felt like I needed to do it alone.

Now, lying on my back in the middle of the room, surrounded by cardboard boxes labelled by mom's neat handwriting and with my breaths echoing slightly from the walls now that the room is nearly empty, the air tastes like the beginning of something new. For once, that thought doesn't scare me as much.

I only sit up slightly when I hear a familiar pair of steps racing up the stairs, light-footed and sounding not exactly like they're late to something, but like they can't wait to get there. A moment later, Aaron pokes his head through the door.

"Hey." He grins as he slouches to the floor next to me.

"Hey," I echo, eyes fluttering shut when he pulls me into a soft kiss. When I open them again, Aaron is leaning back on his elbows, glancing around the naked room.

"Damn," he murmurs. "It's getting real."

"Your stuff is already on the way to L.A.," I point out with a chuckle. "I think it's been getting real for a few days now."

He laughs, shaking his head. "Dude, I don't think it'll sink in until I'm crying myself to sleep in my dorm room tomorrow."

"It's okay. We'll be on FaceTime together, then it's not as pathetic."

"Are those the rules?" he snorts. "When you cry alone it's pathetic, but when you sob in front of your boyfriend it's cool?"

The word boyfriend from his mouth is enough to make me feel a little bit dizzy. With a stupid grin, I respond, "When your boyfriend is doing the same, then yes."

Aaron laughs again, all dimples and teeth. Then, he nods at the door and asks, "Do you want to stall some more or are you ready to go downstairs?"

"Yeah," I say. "I'm ready."

Aaron clasps my hand and pulls me to my feet. He only stops in the doorway one more time, glancing at the empty shelfs and the lonely mattress lying in the centre of the room without a bedframe. Just by looking at his face, I can tell that he sees the memories carved into the floor as well, can probably name almost as many as I can.

But Aaron never broods or wallows; he takes a good look at the carboard boxes, gives a little knock to the doorframe that sounds like well then, and then his excited-to-get-to-the-next-place-feet carry him out into the hallway, leaving me no choice but to follow.

Our hands stay intertwined as we make our way downstairs, the soft chatter I could faintly hear in my room growing louder. The entire first floor is bustling with people; most of them are in the living room, but there's also a few of Elena's friends standing in the hallway. They smile as we pass them, but Aaron is heading straight for the kitchen, where the table has been turned into a buffet, almost cracking under the mountain of bowls and pots piled on it.