More Than This

***

A bottle of food dye, hundreds of post-its, a death metal c.d, a bag of sugar, 5 garbage bags full of popcorn and one roll of serene warp later, and we’re standing, admiring our masterpiece, laughing to ourselves.

To the outside world, we’re just a group of crazy kids, playing an i

“How much do I owe you guys? I mean… money… this couldn’t have been cheap… and it’s… I mean, I’m the reason we’re here, right?”

Logan looks to Jake, who clears his throat, “It’s nothing, Mikayla. We have a Mayhem fund. We all put in and do stupid shit like this. It just happens that this time it’s not happening to someone we know. These assholes love this shit, don’t even worry about it.”

I look to Logan and he just smiles and nods enthusiastically. I feel Jake bending down to place his mouth near my ear, “All good, Mikayla?” he asks.

I nod once and smile up at him.

And then I make the mistake of looking next door. To the single light that’s on in the bedroom window, with the silhouette of a girl watching us. To the bedroom where my boyfriend, or ex boyfriend, has probably had sex with my ex best friend hundreds of times. I feel a sob coming but I cover my mouth, I know tears will fall the second I close my eyes. Jake notices and follows my eyes to the girl in the window. Logan must too, because he asks, “Is she going to be a problem?”

I shake my head no, “That’s Megan.”

“Fuck.” I hear Jake mutter under his breath. A sob takes over, and his arms are around me as he envelopes my body with his and I bury my head in his chest. He holds me.

“Umm guys,” it’s Heidi. I don’t look up from Jake’s chest, “they’re a

Chapter 5

*Mikayla*

***

Megan and I were not at all what you would imagine best friends to be. We were polar opposites in almost every way. She was the head cheerleader with the smokin’ hot body, shiny long blond hair and sparkly blue eyes. She played boys, and boys were all for it. Megan knew who she was, and she used it to her advantage. People tended not to take her seriously, she played the airhead role to perfection but she was so much more than that, and I was one of the lucky few to see that side of her.

I met her when we were in fifth grade. She had just moved here for her mom’s job. I remember sitting in front of her in class while she chatted with everyone around us. All I could hear was her talking about her stationary. Girls love stationary. I was facing the front of the class trying to concentrate on the puzzles we were meant to be doing while she was giggling along, talking to whoever would listen about how she had two of everything. Emergency things she called them, emergency ruler, emergency eraser, emergency sharpener , etc. By that point I had lost focus and turned in my seat to glare at her. She just looked at me and smiled, a full teeth baring smile. I huffed and turned back to face the front fishing through my pencil case for a ruler to mark the margins of my next page, only to find that I didn’t have one, I must have left it in the book I was reading during lunch. I raised my hand, “Miss Spencer?” The teacher looked at me from her desk, over the frames of her glasses. “I uh… I don’t have my ruler… Can I um… May I please go to my locker to get it?” Before she could answer, there was a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see a ruler inches from my face. I looked at Megan questioningly, she just smiled back. “For emergencies,” she shrugged.

We became best friends.

***

The summer before freshman year, we were hanging out eating popsicles on Megan’s roof, that lead to her bedroom window. We were working on our tans, apparently that’s what high school girls did.

“Do you think people will make fun of us because we don’t have boyfriends?” she asked out of nowhere.

I hadn’t even thought about boys that way, I guess I was a late developer. I shrugged.

“I’m going to have a boyfriend within a month,” she declared, more to herself that anyone else. Then nodded once as if agreeing to it.

“Ok Meg, just don’t go dragging me into any of that, I’m happy with the way things are,” I said, rolling my eyes at her.

She snickered, “As if I’d even consider it. Do you think I don’t know you at all?” she mocked hurt in her voice and held her hand to her heart.

“I just don’t want to be one of those girls that has serious relationships through all of high school. It’s so not my thing, and when it’s over, I don’t want to do that whole… ‘where are you going to college? Should we go to college together? Who’s hopes and dreams are more important?’ blah yatta blah.”

She looked at me for a second then shook her hand, standing up, she started prancing around the roof dreamily, “Well, Miss ’15 going to 50’… I want to fall in love…LOTS… and I want to break hearts… LOTS, I want to have so many awkward first dates and first kisses at my front door, with lots and LOTS of boys. I want to chase and be chased. I want to hold hands down the hall with some amazingly gorgeous guy and have girls jealous because that guy only has eyes for me. I want to live high school. And I want to love in high school. And I want to have sex. Oh my god, like… so much sex!”

I stared at her, my mouth open in shock. She looked at me and broke out in a fit of laughter. It was a joyous sound that to this day still has me cracking up whenever I hear it. We sat on that roof and giggled like the i

“Oh, god,” Megan sighed, “The house has finally sold. I hope they’re not sucky neighbors. I couldn’t think of anything worse! Like old people that collect random shit to hoard, and they have to call the fire department to clear the house, only to find like,” she looks to the sky as if thinking “…a 5 billion pound woman stuck under a pile of empty snack sized chocolate pudding tubs, and then a crane has to come to lift her body out of the house like on ‘Gilbert Grape’, and they take her to a hospital so they can pump all the fat out of her body. Then 3 years later, some random kid emerges from that house, knocks on our door and asks, ‘have you seen my baseball?’”

I look at her for a second, then burst out laughing. Uncontrollable laughter that has the sides of body aching. I laugh so hard I’m pretty sure colored snot from my popsicle is oozing out of my nose. Hot right? I hear her quietly laughing with me, and then, “Holy shit, Mick… what the hell is that?”

I stop laughing abruptly and follow her eyes to see what the heck she’s talking about, and then I see him, and I think, “What the hell is that?”

It’s a boy. A boy better than any other boy I’ve ever seen before. He could be our age but he’s built bigger. Like, not an “I work out, I’m a jock” big, but like, I work… lifting heavy shit, kinda big. Farm boy big? I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about boys and big before.

“Let’s go introduce ourselves,” Megan states, already climbing through the window back into her room.

I sit frozen staring at him, as he slowly makes his way up to the front door, taking in his surroundings, like he hasn’t seen the house before. Maybe he hasn’t. Dark blond hair hidden under a baseball cap, dark jeans and plain grey shirt. I find myself wondering what color his eyes are, when he looks up suddenly and catches me mid stare. Kill me. Kill me now. I’m sure the blush has crept up to my face and I’m even more sure that he can see it. A slow smile lifts at the corner of his mouth and he raises his right hand in a small wave. I force a smile, which I'm sure looks more like I’m constipated than an actual smile. I start to lift my hand to wave back…