Page 8 of Our Forever Starts Tonight

I nodded. “Yep.” As Aria was walking out, I called out, “Aria!”

Hannah side-glanced me. “What are you doing?”

Aria quickly waved goodbye to the people she was walking with and turned around to come over to me. “Hey.”

“Hey!” I said, my heart already fluttering a little harder with her closer to me. “This is my best friend, Hannah. Hannah, this is Aria.”

Aria offered her a bright smile; one of her best features. It could light up even the darkest of rooms. “Hi.”

Hannah put on a significantly less bright, more courteous smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Did you have a chance to decide about that coffee?” I asked.

Aria turned her sweet smile to me. “I’d really love to, but I’m checking out the debate club after school and then I promised a friend I’d meet up after that. What about this weekend?”

“I can’t this weekend, I’m having a birthday party. Although, you could totally come if you wanted.” Hannah shifted weirdly next to me, but I just ignored it.

“Oh, sure! I’ll have to see if someone can swap shifts at work, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”

I dragged my phone out of my pocket, excited that I was already going to get to see Aria outside of class. “Okay. What’s your number? I’ll send you the details.” Aria and I dropped our contact info to one another, and I quickly sent her the time of my party and my brother’s address. “You could also, you know. Text or call, if you need anything or whatever.”

She got a little bashful, but nodded. “Yeah. Same with you.”

“I could walk you to your next class if you want?” I asked.

“Actually,” Hannah cut in. “I was hoping you could walk me to my locker. I don’t want that creep Dre bugging me again.”

I exchanged looks between Hannah and Aria. A guy in our grade named Dre had an unrequited crush on her, but she’d never had trouble dealing with him before. “Uh…”

“It’s okay. You go,” Aria said. “I’ll see you later.”

Disappointment filled my gut, but I smiled nonetheless. “Yeah. Okay. See ya.”

Though I wanted to ask Hannah what her sudden interruption was all about, I didn’t want her to be upset with me, so I didn’t. We didn’t even see the guy on our way to her locker, and all she did when we got there was swap a blue pen for a black one. It seemed she specifically didn’t want me going with Aria, but I knew that Hannah didn’t have feelings for me, so I wasn’t quite sure what that would be about. If it happened much more, I’d have to muster up the courage to ask her about it. For the time being, I let it go.

Unlike most normal kids, lunch was typically my least favorite part of the day. Not for any reason other than the fact that all of the popular kids piled up at the same table and spent the entire lunch period talking trash about other people. It wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed, Hannah either, but we weren’t the targets at least, so we just sat and took it in stride. Teenagers could be ruthless, especially those like Ceradi and Josh, a fact they proved in earnest almost every single day. I was glad to be a friend, not a foe. They weren’t the kind of people you wanted against you.

Ceradi pierced the drone of voices all talking in the lunchroom at once with one of her shrill laughs. It was one of my least favorite sounds. I’d heard Ceradi laugh in earnest. It was much deeper and could turn into a snort if she was amused to that degree, but she wore her witch’s cackle instead when she was in the spotlight.

“So, what do we all think of thenew girl?” she asked.

I eyed her nervously. “Aria?”

“Oh that’s right,” Ceradi said with a pitying tone in her voice. “Wasn’t she an old friend of yours? Is she trying to hang around you like she did when you were kids?”

I hesitated to answer, opening and closing my mouth a few times, then Hannah kicked me under the table before rolling her eyes. “That’s what it seems like to me. I had to make up a lame excuse to take him with me to my locker just to get her to leave him alone earlier.”

Ceradi perched a few of her manicured nails on the end of her chin. “Really? That’s so sad. Who in their right mind thinks that you can just pick up with someone from elementary school? Tragic.”

“Wait,” Josh said. “Is she that whale that I’ve seen swimming around?”

One of the other guys in our group, Milton, nodded vigorously. “Yeah. I had to keep a wide fucking berth from her earlier. I thought she was gonna knock me over the bannister.” The table erupted in laughter.

Not only were they over-exaggerating, but they were being downright cruel to someone they didn’t even know. I opened my mouth to say something, but Hannah stabbed her fork into my mouth with a bit of macaroni and cheese at the end. “Can you try this for me and tell me if it’s any good.”

My nose burned with frustration as I chewed the bland, barely cooked noodles. I swallowed hard, punctuated with a glare at Hannah before I said, “Yeah, it’s delicious.”

She gave me a fake smile. “Thanks.”

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