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“Alright, have you said all of your goodbyes?” I asked, sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the car. It roared to life, humming loudly and vibrating the whole frame.
“Yep,” Nadia said, sliding into the passenger’s seat next to me.
“Then, let’s go,” I cheered, putting the car in drive and slowly making my way down the driveway.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw four sets of eyes, one from each of our parents in the window. I didn’t dare turn to look because I knew that my mother was probably crying. She held in her tears when we said our goodbyes, and then she went off to her room, where I could hear her sobbing uncontrollably.
After a few minutes, I put my mom and our old lives behind us. We were off to start a new mission. And the fact that we were going to get to do it together was an added bonus. I looked over at Nadia and smiled. She smiled back.
A small part of me wanted to reach over and grab her hand, but I didn’t. We weren’t exactly romantically involved. Sure, we’d slept together a few times, but it was never anything serious. And we never ever talked about it.
We had been friends forever, it felt like. We couldn’t mess that up. I needed Nadia in my life, and no way was that happening if we got together. I always managed to screw up relationships somehow.
The first fifty miles on the highway were filled with loud rock music and us screaming at the top of our lungs. We rolled down the windows and let the slight fall chill fill the car. There would be no relief from the heat once we got to the desert, so we might as well enjoy it now.
With her window down, Nadia put her arm out, letting her small hand ride the air current. I kept glancing at her as we sang together, admiring how she bobbed her head to the music and how her sunglasses always seemed to give her an air of authority. The girl had some fierceness to her. She had to, to be able to serve alongside us brutes.
We skipped lunch, opting to grab some burritos at an off-highway fast food place. It was on this second leg of the journey that I noticed that my best friend had stopped singing along with the music. Something was on her mind, and just by the look on her face, I could tell that that something wasn’t good.
After a few minutes, Nadia scooted closer to me. She turned down the radio and put a hand on my shoulder. “You know, I’ve always wondered why we’ve never been more than friends, especially after Prom.”
My heart leaped in my chest as I almost swerved the car. It was something that I had often thought about myself, but I never expected her to bring it up. We had an unwritten rule about not talking about being in a relationship. That Nadia had broken that rule was weird. It made me uncomfortable.
Prom night was the first night that everything could have changed for us. Nadia and I had met at the punch bowl. She looked absolutely gorgeous in a fluffy grey dress with sparkles all over the bust. I was wearing my dad’s black James Bond tuxedo (as he called it), and it fit me just right. I asked her if she was having a good time. She said that she was.
“Where’s Marc?” I asked, craning my neck around the gym, trying to see where her date was.
“I’m not sure,” Nadia answered, holding two cups of punch in her hands. “He was standing against the wall over there, but…”
Her voice trailed off as she spotted Marc from across the large open gym. He was leaning against the wall kissing someone. I looked closer and noticed that it was my date, Sarah, that he had been kissing. My heart sank. I really liked Sarah and had hoped that she would agree to be my girlfriend. But, after seeing her kissing Marc as if I didn’t exist, I was quickly having a change of heart.
Nadia and I marched across the dance floor towards the corner where they were making out. I pulled Marc off of Sarah, spinning him around to face me.
“What the hell, Marc?” asked Nadia, trying to yell over the blaring music coming from the DJ booth.
Her arms were folded, and she looked so angry that I thought that steam would start pouring from her ears at any second. Marc just grinned and shrugged. Sarah rolled her eyes at me, her arms crossed as if I were the one doing something that I shouldn’t have been doing.
“Sarah?” I asked, looking to her sheepishly for an answer.
She just shrugged and looked off in the distance. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” said Sarah. “I mean, he’s hot, and we kissed. That’s it. If you two knew what was good for you, you two would be going out. I mean, you guys seem close enough to be dating already. Why not?”
