Under Your Umbrella
The cold breeze that leaves goose bumps to my skin is like a constant reminder that summer is nearly over. It didn't feel like summer at all - for me - being the newly elected Student Body President I have to run errands and make sure that everything is organized an in place before the next school year starts. It's not easy though, but I love to do it, plus I get extra credit and privilege that other students don't get. And it's really overwhelming that people trust you enough to put you in that position.
Still, I'm a 17 year old teenage girl and am entitled to have fun and do crazy things during summer though I have one last weekend left that would be enough, so might as well enjoy it.
Jeremy, my best friend of seven years –and also the vice president- practically beg for me to go with him in this party that everyone's talking about, except me I suppose. I didn't give much of a fight, I just can't say no to him, I bet he just wants me to have a nice time before the real shit comes down and a part of me wants to go too.
"Tee, yah ready?" Jeremy asks from across the room. I can feel the excitement radiating from him and I wonder what's with this party that makes him giddy.
"I'm just gonna put on these shoes and we're all set." I say as I crouch down to tie the laces of my low-cut Chucks. I'm wearing a pink t-shirt that's too large for me, but I love the design so much, and a black skinny jeans that I rolled up to my ankles. Jeremy eyes me up and down then smirks.
"You look cute... pretty actually." He says, looking me in the eye.
"Stop pointing out the obvious, Jer, let's go." I giggle and take hold of his hand and lead the way to his truck. His fingers wrap around my hand and grip it, I look over my shoulder and see him smiling at me and, is he blushing?
"Why are you blushing, you weirdo?" I ask, letting go of his hand to let him open the truck.
"What? Um, i-it's probably the uhm, the - the sunset! Look, the color blends with my skin and it's not my fault if I have such nice epidermis, it happens to a pretty boy like me." He rants.
"You don't really have to include the epidermis part, and admit it, I'm just really pretty and that made you do that 50 shades of red." I tease and the moment I said it I regretted it. He just keeps quiet and opens the door of the passenger's seat for me to climb in. He round the car and settled in the driver's seat. I look over him and this time I'm sure that he's blushing. Hard.
I bite my lip and look outside the window as he starts the engine. Why is this awkward? Why is he blushing in the first place?
I look at him again, his attention now on the road. Jeremy is a nice guy, great actually. He can make you feel special in a myriad of ways. Even his looks don't fail him. I'd be a liar if I'd say that I don't find him attractive; his blonde spiky hair, ocean blue eyes, closed mouth and of course his hockey player bod. He looks like a young Ryan Gosling. He's the perfect package, probably every girl's dream guy. But, I'm just not into him. Not into any him actually. I prefer the opposite pronoun. I'm gay and Jeremy knows that and that's why I'm totally confused on why he's acting like this.
"Sooo... who's throwing this party eh?" I ask, ending the silence that's starting to eat the both of us.
"Hesta Prynn. You know the red hair cheerleader." He says pulling into a stop on a red light.
"Oh, I don't know her though." I try to think if I ever encountered the girl but no, she's a slender woman to me.
"It's alright, she's friendly and you're with me, you're fine." He smiles at me and then turn to face the road, he's waiting for the light to change.
"That's what friends are for." I sing the line and he chuckles. We move and he round
a corner, I can tell that we're already close to the destination, I can hear the faint music that can only be from a party.
"Yeah, friends." He softly say.
"And we're more than that." I add as he stops infront of a house, a house that screams party everywhere.
His ears perked up at this and he looks at me, there's something in his eyes that I can't put my finger to and it's bothering me, but my conscience is telling me that it's better for me not to know whatever that is in the confines of his eyes. I may know the answer but I chose not to believe it and definitely don't wanna hear it.
"More than that?" He asks, there's a tone in his voice that can only be hope. Hope for what?
"You're my bestfriend Jer. Where definitely more than friends." I say to him, looking directly in his eyes. I make my point clear but am cautious not to offend him.
"Oh yeah, bestfriends, definitely Tee. But sometimes I really wanna strangle you, you know? You get crazy at times." He says with a chuckle. Thank goodness he chose to end the awkwardness.
"Aww, you definitely don't wanna do that." I say with a pout, "Who will be here with you if you were to strangle me?" I ask. I enjoy times like this with him, just being bestfriends and talking about absolutely nothing. I don't ever want something to change between us even though I can feel it coming.
"Hey, I have other friends besides you! I'ts just that I wanna spend more time with you." He looks at me again. Really Jer? you bringing this up again?
"I appreciate that. Now let's get our lazy ass in there." I say, once again choosing to ignore his sincere spend-more-time-with-you confession. The last thing I want is to ruin our friendship anyway. No, it's not even listed on the things that I want.
I open my side of the truck then get out. I straighten out my shirt that somehow got crippled while sitting on our 15 minute ride. I notice that there are like ten more cars parked in front of the fairly huge house, this party is a blast. I walk up to the porch of the house, the front door is already open, I guess that's to save time from bothering to the door when somebody knocks. I wait for Jeremy, and as I wait, I recognize familiar faces; I guess I have the same circle of friends with that Hesta girl.
I look over to Jeremy again, wondering what's taking him so long. I see him walking towards me with an apologetic smile.
"Sorry, you know my truck; it's that hard to lock." He explains.
"We need to get a new one for you." I say letting myself in and Jeremy followed suit.
Mainstream pop music is blasting from the huge speakers, I recognize the Justin Bieber song.
"'Cause all I need, is a beau-heyy!" A tall red hair that I assume is Hesta bumped on us.
"Jeremy! You made it! Oh and, aren't you Tegan, our new president?" Hesta asks. Now that I'm this close to her, I recognize her, I had a class with her but we didn't become friends, she's hot though.
"Not until Monday. It's my pleasure to meet you Hesta." I say with a smile sticking m hand out for her to shake it.
"Enough with the formality come here!" She ignores my hand and instead pulls me into a bear hug.
"Get your ass drunk Ms. Pres!" She says while letting me go. And I do as I told, but not that much.
I lost track of the time and I find myself talking with some of my closest friends besides Jeremy, they happen to be here too. I ask Lindsey my second-to-Jeremy bestfriend for the time and says that it's already 10:30 and pitty me I have an 11 pm curfew. I say goodbye to them and they ask me if I can stay longer but curfew's a bitch an I don't want to have a scene with my mom.
I get up and start my search for Jeremy, since he's the one that brought me here he's definitely be the one to bring me back. I make my way to the sea of teenagers dancing in one of P!nk's song or maybe not, I don't know, I'm just not into mainstream pop, I prefer the songs from the 90's.
I spot Jeremy on the corner, standing beside the back door. He looks pretty drunk. I make my way to him without stumbling and tripping in my own footing, I'm not that drunk but I'm a bit tipsy. He looks at me with narrowing his eyes and maybe it clicked to him that it was me because he takes me by the hand without a word and drags me to the door. We got outside and boy is it cold. He let go of my hand and turn to face me.
"Tegan..." He starts, I can smell the alcohol on his breath. Okay, I have a bad feeling about this.
"Tegan I lo-" He goes to continue but I cut him off. Did I mention that I don't want to hear this?
"Don't." I say. I knew that is coming, but it's too fucking soon.
"Tegan, please, listen to me, I need to let this out." He grabs my hand again but I take it back.
"No Jeremy. Not now. Not when you're drunk." I say sternly. I want to know why he let this happen but now is not the time.
"I don't have the courage to tell you this without the alcohol numbing me and keeping me standing straight!" He yells, nice use of the irony, last time I check, alcohol doesn't do a good job at keeping you standing straight. It makes you trip and regret the things that you did rather.
"Then man up! Be brave to face the consequences of this thing you're trying to tell me." I put the heel of my palm on my forehead; headache is making itself known both from the situation and the alcohol that's in my body.
"Just, stay the night here Jeremy, don't drive. I'll talk to you when you're sober."
"Tee, please..." He's begging me to listen but I can't bring myself to. There's pain in his voice and apparently, I'm the source.
"Jeremy, just-we'll talk this through. We'll get this through-you'll get this through. Okay?" I look in his eyes, there are tears in them but he's fighting them back. He pauses for a moment, taking deep breaths, he closed his eyes and the gives me a nod.
"I don't wanna lose you, Jeremy." I say hesitantly placing a hand on his shoulder. I don't want to add insult to the injury by touching him physically after indirectly telling him that a rejection is coming soon.
"I'm sorry I can't take you home." He says, it's funny that he thinks of that after what just happened.
"It's alright, I'm just gonna walk, it's not that far though." I say as I give final squeeze on his shoulder. "Sleep Jer, sleep this through."
"Can I atleast have a hug?" He asks. And I did give him a hug because he asked for it. That's the least I can do after breaking his heart.
I start the walk from Hesta's to my house. I'm quite confident that that it's not that far and I'd make it before my curfew. And thank goodness that I didn't drink that much. I think of the things that happened. I don't want to put Jeremy in the friend zone and I didn't notice before that he's harboring feelings towards me, or am I that thickheaded? Is he actually showing me his concealed feelings by being always there for me? I don't have the slightest clue because he is my best friend. I thought this thing only happens in books, movies and all those jazz but Jeremy defied that notion of mine. I'm partially angry at him for letting this happen to him-to us but I also am sorry for him. He doesn't deserve this, he doesn't deserve me, he deserves to be loved. Every person that's brave enough to love deserves to be loved back. He didn't do anything wrong, it's the matter of the heart, he just fell in love, but then again to his best friend, his gay best friend. I must convince him that I'm not the one that will reciprocate his love, oh god, this is harder than I thought.
Halfway through, a thunder snaps me out of my thoughts and it's immediately followed by heavy rain. Just my luck. I curse under my breath and let out a frustrated sigh. I just want to go home and sleep this through and this rain isn't helping me. I covered my head with my hands while frantically looking for shelter and just my luck again there's none so I just stand there hands on my sides, accepting the rain that's now drenching my clothes. I closed my eyes and just stay still. I feel my lips start to quiver because of the cold. Why didn't I bring any jacket, sweater or anything for that matter? This is the reason why forecasts are fucking forecast. I sigh. I wonder when will the rain stop and much to my surprise, it did. I open my eyes when I feel the rain stop pouring onto me, but it's still raining, just not in my space. Now I'm confused.
"Hey." A sweet voice from behind me startles me, I turned around and there I saw an angel holding up an umbrella for me. Her warm hazel orbs that I can barely see thanks to the little amount of light that the light post is giving are staring back at me. I look at her, dumbfounded by her beauty, she has a cute button nose that's red obviously because of the cold and her lips look so soft and…um sweet? Her pale skin glows in the cold night and I find warmth in the faintest of heat that radiates off of her. I didn't know I was holding my breath 'til she speaks again.
"You look lost and cold." She cocks her head on one side. God, angels do descent from heavens, eh?
"I-I..." So what the fuck happened to my tongue?
"Here, hold this for me for a sec." She hands me her umbrella and she goes to remove her scarf. She looks at me and smiles then she drape the scarf around my neck.
"There yah go." She smiles, fixes her coat that now I know is a raincoat –an umbrella and a raincoat? Guess she doesn't want to get wet but then again maybe she knows a poor girl needs her umbrella. What an angel. She smiles at me but then turn to leave.
"W-wait! Your- your umbrella?" I seem to find my voice. And wow, I sound stupid.
"You can take it with you; looks like you need it more than I do." She says, with a giggle, guess I sound really stupid. Okay let me blush.
"I-I, ah, thanks. W-what's your name?" I ask this complete stranger standing before me.
She looks at me then smirks. Must you always smile? I feel my heart skip a beat waiting for her answer.
"I'll tell you someday," she pauses, she steps closer again then place her hand to her scarf that's now on my neck, "when you return this to me." And with that, she's gone. I stand there for another minute, I can't believe I just had an encounter with an angel, well maybe a fallen angel because she doesn't have her wings. I take the end of her scarf, it smells sweet, strawberry I guess, I bet she smells like this and even taste just as…okay, too far. I look at the article of clothing and there are three letters that's embroidered in a fancy lettering.
"SKQ."