“Is this what being friends with a girl is like? I’m exhausted already, and I need a nap.”
It was my turn to laugh. “I think it’s what being friends with me is like. So, are you in or what?”
He shifted in his seat and ended up leaning closer to mine. “What’s expected of me in this ‘friendship’?” He used air quotes around the word.
“I-I don’t know,” I stuttered because I hadn’t thought that far ahead, and I didn’t usually have to plan out requirements for people I wanted to be friends with. You just decided to be friends, and then you were. “Normal stuff, I guess?”
“Like what? Braiding hair and shit?”
I jerked my head back and gave him a look. “Chance Carter, do you know how to braid?”
His cheeks started to color, and all I wanted to do was tease him more about it, but I stopped myself when he answered, “I told you, I have a sister.”
“That’s actually kind of adorable.” I felt myself softening. All of this internal melting was happening too quickly; it was too unexpected and far too unlike me. I cleared my throat and sat up straighter. “I think being friends for us means that we can talk about things other than math.”
“Like baseball?” he asked, and I wasn’t sure if he was being a smart-ass or being serious.
I shrugged. “I mean, sure. Yeah. If you want to talk about baseball, we can. Or girls. Or guys on the team pissing you off. Whatever.”
“And in return, you’ll talk to me about what? Your boyfriend and how romantic he is?” He sounded unhappy at the mention of Jared.
And that shouldn’t have excited me. It shouldn’t have made me feel any type of way, but here I was, sitting in this small tutor cubicle, next to Fullton State’s living god, feeling all kinds of ways.
“I guess sometimes. But just for the record”—I held up a single finger—“girls usually talk about their relationships when they’re upset. So, if I did talk to you about Jared, it would most likely be because I was mad at him, not because I was happy with him.”
“Is that true? You’d only talk about your boyfriend if you were pissed at him?”
“Most likely,” I said with a slight laugh. “Girls need to vent. Venting is like breathing for us. We do it to stay alive and to stop ourselves from killing the people who make us mad.”
He leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs. “Kinda fucked up, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“That you’d only talk about the bad things and not the good.” His chair came down with a slam.
“It’s not that.” I tried to figure out exactly how to explain this to him. “It’s just that we need to talk out the bad stuff. We want to feel validated in our feelings. We’re not usually looking for a solution as much as we like someone to tell us that they get it. That they understand. And that they’d feel the same way too.”
Chance nodded his head slowly, like the words were sinking into his skin and becoming a part of him. “I guess that makes sense. Totally reminds me of my parents.”
“How?” I perked up because this—this—was what friends did.
“Whenever my mom gets riled up and is about to tell some story, my dad always asks her if she wants him to fix it or just listen. Then, he reacts accordingly.”
Clapping my hands together, I couldn’t stop grinning. “Brilliant. Your dad’s literally a genius. Do you know how many fights that question alone probably stops them from having?”
“I didn’t before, but I kind of get it now.”
“So then”—I extended my hand one last time—“friends?”
“What the hell?” He relented before shaking on it, and I pretended, once again, that I felt nothing when he touched me.
I was officially Chance Carter’s first female friend. This was going to be interesting, to say the least.
The Boyfriend
Danika
Chance and I called it a day shortly after our friend agreement. There wasn’t much to do until his class met a few more times and we had actual problems to work on. With both of our proverbial walls bearing cracks, we parted ways without exchanging any additional information to get in contact. I decided that was for the best as I pulled out my phone to text my boyfriend that I was on my way over when I noticed that I’d missed a few calls from him.
Thankfully, Jared lived only a few blocks from campus, so I started walking. Being from New York, neither one of us had a car. I didn’t even have my driver’s license. I never needed it in the city. It was weird, being in a place where not having a car meant that you struggled to get almost anywhere. Ride-sharing was one thing, but if I wanted to go more than an hour away, I could forget about it.
Los Angeles was so different from Manhattan. LA was spread out, wide and vast, where Manhattan was compact, everything stuffed incredibly close together. But that was also what made it so exciting. There was more life packed into Manhattan than most other states had in their entirety.
The energy in the air here was different too. New York buzzed with life that you could feel when you walked the streets, but California didn’t buzz in the same way. It zinged underneath the surface … a constant fizzle of energy waiting to explode at just the right time. New York was always exploding.
When I rounded the corner of Jared’s street, I spotted his fraternity house immediately, the expansive lawn all brown and dead, trash littered on top of it. I knew the neighbors hated having a frat house so close by, and looking at it in the blaring light of day, I couldn’t say I blamed them. I reached the front door and turned the knob, knowing it would be unlocked. The guys never locked their door, which seemed absolutely insane to me.
Unlocked front doors in New York? No. Just no.
“Where have you been?” Jared’s voice hit me the second I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
The living room was dark, the curtains closed to keep out the light as a group of guys sat on couches, playing video games. All of them mumbled their hellos to me without breaking eye contact with the giant screen, and I said hi back as I maneuvered around them, not wanting to interrupt their combat play. Heaven forbid I was the reason one of them died during their mission.
“Hello to you too,” I said as I reached Jared.
He leaned down and planted a quick peck on my lips. The kiss was over as soon as it had begun. Long gone were the days of passionate, tongue-filled greetings that neither one of us could seem to get enough of. What had replaced them were now routine, almost-obligatory actions. Sunny had said that we acted like an old married couple before reminding me that she hadn’t meant it as a compliment. She said we’d lost our spark, not that she was convinced we’d ever had one in the first place. I’d tried to reassure her that we did—or at least, we used to—but she never believed me.
Jared reached for my hand and pulled me down the long hallway toward his bedroom. He opened his door before closing and locking it behind us. “Where were you?” he asked again, sounding either irritated or worried—I couldn’t tell which.
“Tutoring,” I answered with a little bit of attitude because I wasn’t sure I liked his tone.