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We Are The Rebellious Youth

Chapter Twenty-three: A Little Less Conversation

Mickey’s POV:

I walked up towards the swings and sat down on the one furthest to my right. As I put my backpack, which I brought with me everywhere, on the ground, I let my shoes dig into the wood chips used to break any possible falls. It wasn’t like I could get any worse, but I wasn’t going to risk falling… as long as I could prevent it. If somebody was going to push me off, there was nothing I could do, but I could make sure I didn’t actually start swinging and do that stupid jump off thing all kids did.

Alex sat down on the swing which was now to my right due to me having changed directions. Just like me, he only swayed a little, using the swing more like a porch chair. He held onto the left chain with both hands and lightly pressed his head against them as he looked at me.

“So…” He cleared his throat, making the first noise over the distant cars. “What were you planning on doing here? I’m actually kinda surprised none of your friends are here to party with you… or are they hiding behind a bush?”

“Yes, they are all watching us.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head a little. “Of course they aren’t. They were Devon’s friends, not mine. Well, they acted like mine and I acted like theirs, but as soon as Devon and I ended, so did all the friendships.”

“That sucks.” He frowned and kicked some wood chips as he stared out in front of him.

I shrugged and opened my bag. “I’m kinda used to it. Only, usually, we move soon after it happens or just before it does. By then, though, I often find a new group. It’s not that difficult.”

“Still, it sucks… but why have you moved so often? Your parents’ jobs? I don’t even know where you’re originally from.”

“Cause I’m a shitty person,” I snorted, pulling out the notebook I had gotten earlier that day, “obviously.”

“No,” he denied immediately after the words had left my mouth, “don’t say that about yourself.”

“I’m kidding,” I grinned smugly, nearly laughing at him trying to make sure I didn’t talk myself down. “I’m obviously great.”

“Obviously…” He muttered, briefly glancing at me.

“But, seriously, though, we do move around because of me. My mom always freaks out when she thinks I’ve done something wrong and makes us move, but I honestly don’t think whatever I’ve done is so bad. I don’t really mind though… My dad’s job is all over the states, so he can work practically from wherever. My mom’s a nurse, so we just go to the place that can get her a job soonest. As for where I’m originally from… I was born in Texas, we moved here when I was a few months old. Lived here for thirteen years, went back to Texas to live with my mom, and then the moving started.”

He looked satisfied with the answer I had given. It probably was the most I had ever told about myself to anyone. I wasn’t exactly sure why I was doing it, because I didn’t really see the point in anybody knowing useless information about me. But it didn’t really matter. According to what was the norm, my mom would find something to freak out over soon and we’d leave again. I could leave everything behind and me telling all this stuff to Alex wouldn’t even matter.

You’re probably thinking ‘why is Mickey so closed off?’ Well, I’m not really. I could easily talk about my entire past, there was nothing to hide, I just didn’t think it was necessary. It only really mattered who I was at the moment, right? Although, I did like to think the first thirteen years of my life did not exist. I liked to call it ‘The Dark Ages’, just because of the person I was. The cringe was real.

“You mind me asking what that notebook is for?” Alex asked, breaking off my thoughts, and pointing at what I was holding in my hands. “Or would that cause me to be walked away from and possibly give me a slap across the face?”

“Depends on which you prefer,” I teased with a wink, confusing me immediately. Was I... flirting with him? The hell!? Breaking up with Devon really got me going to the lowest of low.

“I actually like you talking to me more than you freaking out on me,” he replied, not taking any note of the tone I believed my words had given off.

I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat. I barely wanted to open my mouth again out of fear that I would do it again and embarrass myself without even consciously doing it. But, I just unwillingly started giving him information. “This is the great and magical shared diary eleven-year-old me and my best friend started. It’s probably the funniest yet most sentimental thing I have in my possession right now.”

I proceeded to open it to the first page where a load of glitter started covering my hands. I tried to dust them off, but it only spread out the glitter over my skin and onto my clothes. “Damn, I’m still going to be finding this everywhere in a year.”

“One thing you’d definitely tell your past self is to stop using glitter.” Alex laughed, causing me to reach out and try to transfer some of the glitter onto him. He, however, stepped to the side, still sitting on the swing, so that he was just out of reach. I stuck my tongue out at him and stopped my attempt.

I quickly went to the next page and stared down at what I had claimed to be my signature when I was eleven years old. Right above it was a poorly written agreement in green felt-tip pen. “This was us making sure we handed it over to each other every Wednesday so we could write in it. It was so fucking silly, we even went as far as to mail it to each other when she went on vacation. We never missed a day. And guess what, today happens to be a Wednesday as well. Seems like she kept her promise…”

“That either is a really fucking great best friend or just a complete coincidence.” He tried to look along, but with the few feet distance between us and it getting darker by the second, it was quite difficult. “Speaking of which, who is this best friend exactly?”

“Her name’s Olivia and we met through her older brother. I went to elementary school with him and her parents tried to set up a ‘play date’, but you know, cooties and stuff, so I just hung out with her the entire time despite her being two years younger.” I pulled out the photo I knew he already had taken a look at before, and handed it to him. I could still remember what she looked like, I didn’t need a reference.

“Well, that’s super long…” Alex studied the photograph, trying not to wonder at how much I had changed since it was taken. “Longer than Jack and I have been best friends.”

“Yeah, well, as soon as I moved, the friendship was over.”

“What happened?”

“... I moved…”

“Yeah, but you guys could have kept contact, right? She probably knew your address, why didn’t you guys keep mailing each other the diary? It shouldn’t have been that difficult. Worst case scenario, there were some delays.”

I scoffed, “I don’t know. How did I manage to turn from that curly brown-haired middle schooler that wore flowery dressed into this?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” He held up the photograph, flickering his eyes between twelve-year-old me and the real me.

I snatched the photo back from him and stuck it between the last page and back cover. That was enough. Although I had nothing to hide, I didn’t need him investigating me. And here I thought we were, strangely enough, having a normal conversation. Of course, there was some ulterior motive behind it.

“I’m sorry… Did I go too far?” Alex apologized, seeming to understand that we were not near close enough for him to do anything like that.

Instead of replying, I decided to open a random page by letting my fingers push through a gap between the wrinkly pages. My bad mood entirely washed away when I saw what was written down. I could still remember lying down on her carpeted bedroom floor on our stomachs, pens and pencils surrounding us, as we wrote down another pact together that we had to sign to make official.

I nearly forgot what had happened before and informed Alex, “we made a promise to each other to never kiss a boy. Well, isn’t that stereotypical.” For the first time, I handed the notebook over to him so he could take a look at how hilarious all these memories actually were. They probably were funnier to me, but I was willing to share some of the joy.

“I, Olivia Westfield and Monica Barker, solemnly swear to never ever ever ever kiss a boy. They are annoying and disgusting and yucky and gross and stupid. We will never ever like them.” Alex quoted the passage that still had my old surname with a chuckle. “Well, that didn’t exactly work out for you, did it?”

He handed the open book back to me. I shook my head, agreeing with what he was saying. “Well, to be fair, she did break the promise first. And since she was two years younger than me, I felt like I was behind, so I went and kissed the first boy I could find who had a crush on me. Kinda surprised she never got mad that my middle school boyfriend was her brother…”

“Oh, damn, drama! Should I know this kid as well?”

“Probably not,” I answered, but then remember he sort of did. “Actually, remember that guy who I nearly ran over driving to the bonfire? That was him.”

“No way!” Alex gasped, enjoying all this gossip way too much for a teenage boy. “Kinda weird that he was banging on the window to try and get your attention…”

“I guess. Hopefully, that crush from seven years ago isn’t what caused it… that would be awkward.” I bit my lip, really praying that that wasn’t the case. Not only was it very unrealistic, but I also didn’t feel like dealing with that drama.

“Maybe he was just surprised at how much you’ve changed.”

I nodded and flicked through the next few pages. “We only have four more entries, after this I moved.”

“Sad ending to a happy story.” Alex gave me a dramatized sad face, nearly resembling one of those masks.

“Not necessarily,” I contradicted and closed the book before storing it back in my backpack. “I’m not saying I’m suddenly going to be friends with her again, or if a friendship would even ever happen again, but I don’t really think it’s a sad ending. We both turned out alright without each other. And if I really wanted to change things, I could always fill the rest of the pages with my own thoughts. Most likely won’t, though.”

“I mean, if you did want to be friends with her again, this definitely is her giving the sign that she’s cool with it. She might even have taken the first step already.”

“And next thing you know I’ll start dressing differently and be living with Michael again, yeah right.” I shook my head and stood up, hanging my bag from my shoulder once again. “Anyway, it’s time to get back before my dad thinks I’m out doing drugs again.”

Alex stood up as well and started following me. “Well, I am a drug. You just keep coming back for more!”

“Umm, excuse me,” I wiggled my finger at him in a disapproving way, “I don’t do drugs, we don’t do that in this neighborhood. Plus, if anybody here was a drug, it would be me. You’re the one that keeps coming up to me!”

“I’ll have you know you haven’t pushed me away yet, though.”

I lightly shoved him by knocking our shoulders together, making sure not to do it too hard and possibly make him fall onto the road. “There we go, I pushed you away.”

“Oh, it that how we’re going to play this now?” He raised an eyebrow and I could tell from his eyes that he was planning on doing something back.

“Yes, it is.” I laughed back, trying to cross my arms as best as I could with my cast getting in the way.

He took two steps closer to me very quickly and started poking my sides to tickle me. I let out a yelp that echoed from the houses and ran away from him as fast as I could. Occasionally, he would catch up just enough to poke me again, causing me to bend my body at weird angles to try and get him to stop. The walk back to my house was way quicker than going to the park.

He stopped trying to attack me as soon as we were on the sidewalk right in front of the driveway of my house. His car was parked across the road, occupying the street by Rian’s house. We were both out of breath from running the entire way as I still let out some occasional giggles from the leftover jitters in my body.

“Ok, well… I think I can smell food, so I’m going to go inside and see what my dad has made,” I said and jerked my thumb in the direction of the front door, which was behind me.

“This wasn’t too bad, was it?” Alex smiled genuinely, looking at me to see my true reaction.

I gave him a half-smile. “No, I guess not.”

We stood there in silence for a short while longer. I wasn’t sure how things would have gone if we had just continued to stand there doing nothing for even longer. Although neither of us was saying an actual goodbye yet, something in the corner of my eye caught my attention, taking away any focus I had on the weird moment Alex and I were having.

“Don’t look,” I said as I glanced up at the window on the other side of the street, “but Rian’s watching us.”

“What?” Alex furrowed his eyebrows and was about to turn around and look anyway.

I quickly grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him back so that he wouldn’t show Rian that I knew what he was doing. “Yeah, he thinks he’s being sneaky hiding behind the curtains in his bedroom, but I can see him peeking out.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I dunno…” I kept my gaze towards the window, where Rian’s curly hair was showing me his position, “but something in me just wants to kiss you to shock him.”

When I looked back at Alex to see what he thought of my horrible plan, I already saw him staring at my lips, just like he had done in the hallway a while before. I knew exactly what it meant, but I wasn’t going to freak out on him this time. It didn’t feel right.

So, instead I smiled one last time and said “Goodnight, Alex,” before turning around to go inside my house.

“Goodnight, Mickey,” I heard him mumble back before his footsteps went in the other direction.

Notes


I tried to show Mickey becoming more open with her sentences getting longer as the chapter progresses, but I feel like many people are going to over look that... oh well. I just don't want you guys thinking she was already super open at the beginning, there's definitely a change.

I can't stop writing for this story. I'm completely ignoring all my others ones just to keep updating this one xD Once I have fully planned out ideas, I can't stop!

I wrote this after I failed my driving theory test, but lucky I wasn't upset about it, or else this might have panned out differently. I only had two too many mistakes! And I could have easily passed since there were at least two mistakes that were soooo stupid! Goddammit. When I finished writing thing, though, it was 1 am, so I decided it was better to post it in the morning instead of forcing myself to proof read.

Now I gotta get back to working on my essays for school!

Comments

@Daydreamers
A little cliffhanger here and there never hurt anybody....
Also, update. The epilogue is at 6679 words. Motivation and inspiration are low so it's taking me so long to even start writing. I know what needs to happen, I want to write it, but words aren't working.

i’ve been left with too many cliffhangers in the past to trust you lol

Daydreamers Daydreamers
7/13/20

@Daydreamers
There's nothing to be scared of....

i’m excited but scared at the same time

Daydreamers Daydreamers
6/16/20

@Daydreamers
It's probably because it went downhill so suddenly a quickly. There's no closure. The epilogue will end quite open...