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song: unwell - matchbox twenty

Jem

WHEN I REACHED my block, I still couldn’t get the girl from the elevator out of my head. Indigo. Curly brown hair, round face and the biggest caramel eyes on the fuckin’ planet. And the freckles? Jesus H Christ. She was stunning without even trying, without knowing. I smiled to myself.

“Yo, J.” Eli, my roommate, snapped me out of my daze. “What’s with the shit-eating grin?”

“Nothin’,” I said, “What’s for supper?”

“Chinese fried, fatass.”

“Hm.”

Eli handed me a plate and shoved his face right in front of mine so that I had no choice but to meet his gaze. I stared at him flatly. “What.”

“It’s ten,” he sang.

I shovelled rice into my mouth, so I had an excuse not to elaborate. “So?”

“So,” Eli pressed, “Did you get ass or no?”

 “Hm.”

Eli made a face. “What? Is that a yes or no?”

I stopped eating and stared at him. “No.”

“What?” There was a brief pause, as if he was waiting for me to say sike or something. When I didn’t, the fucker started laughing.

I would shoot something right back about how he was also at home on a Friday night at ten, but Eli was still strung up on his ex. Clinically. He hardly ever left the apartment if it wasn’t for work at the garage. He just stayed in and played Call of Duty. And figured out brand new ways to get on my nerves.

Nevertheless, it was an improvement from a few weeks ago, when I had to physically drag him out of bed and force him to take a shower and eat. So I just settled with a low, “Quit it.”

He didn’t.

He just laughed harder.

At this point, I just wanted to finish my Chinese fried rice in peace. “Man. What’s so funny?”

“You never spend Friday at the apartment. It’s always at some shitty sorority or something. What, you couldn’t get it up?”

I spooned rice into my mouth. “She had company.”

Eli grinned. “So? You could’ve asked company if she wanted to join.”

I groaned. “Can we not talk about threesomes when I’m trying to eat, Elijah?”

“Okay, Jeremiah,” he mocked, “But real talk. Why are you here?”

“It’s my place too, asshole.”

I was about to flip him off when I realized he was…right. After the whole Scarlett thing hadn’t worked out, I could’ve easily hit speed dial. Actually, that’s exactly what I should’ve done.

Instead, I found myself no longer in the mood for a quickie.

What changed?

Ah, there it was again—just when I’d managed to successfully pull her out of my mind. Indigo. Indigo happened. I’d stolen her marshmallows like a klepto, and instead of simply returning it and leaving, I’d somehow struck up conversation with her.

I never started conversations. People sometimes thought it was a good idea to talk to me (it wasn’t, most of the time), and I’d come up with the shortest, most clipped reply I could. Conversations were hardly ever worth it. Most people were boring as fuck.

But I’d talked to her first. And although I’d somehow managed to piss her off in the short time we talked, I found I liked it when she got all riled up.

“Not gonna lie, you’re kinda scaring me.”

I snapped out of my mind, raising a brow at Eli, who was leaning against the kitchen counter, draining a beer bottle. “What?”

“You did it again.”

“What.”

“Smile.”

“I don’t normally?”

“Honestly?” Eli said, “No.”

I huffed. “Fuck outta here.”

Eli just grinned. “Now that’s more like the Jem I know.”

I dumped my empty plate into the sink and sat on the couch. “I’m bored.”

A half hour later, Eli and I were halfway through a game of PUBG when our door was opened to reveal all-too-familiar dark hair—a.k.a Ace Moreno, the most chaotic fucker you’d ever meet. Even so, he was also as good as blood to me.

Ace was the youngest at the garage, with a higher body count than all of us combined. He dropped out of college because it was too “boring” for him.

Seriously.

He was a coding genius. Last year he’d gotten scouted more than once, but he’d turned down the jobs because he “liked working at the garage”. He wasn’t the best with the hands-on stuff, but he’d made automotive coding his bitch.

Ace’s hair was messed up in a way it could only be after a sorority visit, and his green eyes were alive. “What is up, motherfuckers?”

He opened the fridge and took out the milk carton, drinking some straight from the carton before taking out a cereal bowl. I rubbed at my temple, ignoring him.

“No offence, Moreno,” Eli said, “but just ... why bro?”

Ace raised a brow. “I ran out of cereal. Y’all want to take a trip to the grocery store with me?”

“It’s half ten.”

Ace frowned with a mouth full of cereal. “So?”

“Who buys cereal at half ten?”

“There’s a reason shops are open 24/7.”

Eli sighed, picking up another beer bottle. “Take Jem.”

I looked up from the couch. “What?”

“Yeah,” Eli nodded, “Didn’t you say your ass was bored?”

Right. Eli was stuck in his post-break-up depression game, where he acted like leaving the apartment was a crime or some shit. Any other day, I’d fight him on it, but now I just sighed, getting up from the couch. “Let’s go.”

Even though it was late, the streetlights lit up the pavement. The city was always alive, and since today was Friday, even more so. I shoved my hands in my pockets. We stopped walking when we reached Logan’s apartment, which was only two blocks away from ours.

Ace knocked twice on his door before Logan answered. When he caught sight of both of us, his eyes widened. “Why are you two not stuck at some sorority?”

Ace smirked. “I was.”

I glanced up at Logan. He was undoubtably the prettiest face in the garage, and in New York probably, and I’d even blurted it on several drunken occasions. That, coupled with his charismatic personality made me wonder why the hell he was still a virgin.

But we’d given him enough grief about it. He would eventually give up on his tenacious expedition, and we’d all made a pact to throw a fucking party the day he did.

Lo’s eyes shifted to me, waiting for my explanation. I just shrugged.

He offered me a disbelieving glance but chose to let go of the topic as he shrugged on a jacket. “Where are we going?”

“I need to buy some shit,” Ace said.

The two started talking about a new model on the market, and when we finally reached the grocery store, it was quiet, save for the hum of refrigerators and the flicker of paper of the cashier who was reading a book at the front.

“Where’s Mason?” I asked as we rounded to the cereal aisle.

Lo’s expression turned sour. “He didn’t leave Charley’s.”

Mason was the last addition to our group at Charley’s—the motor repair we all worked at in Manhattan. And he hadn’t left…because he was avoiding the girl we all knew he loved. I knew Valdez well enough, and the most frustrating thing about him was his stubbornness. He didn’t budge for anyone.  

 “I feel for Mason, man. Dude’s beating himself up for no reason,” Lo said.

“He deserves it.” Ace shrugged, holding up two boxes. “Vanilla or strawberry?”

I raised a brow. Moreno wasn’t as good at evading emotional conversations as he thought he was. Nevertheless, I lifted my eyes to him. “Vanilla.”

Lo frowned. “Strawberry.”

I offered him a dry stare. “Vanilla.”

“Strawberry.”

Ace made a face. “I’m just gonna go with Froot Loops.”

I walked past the candy aisle, catching sight of marshmallows. I didn’t understand my addiction to the stuff. Any other person would be sick after just eating an entire bag earlier—except for me. I forced myself to push past the aisle, but the marshmallows only made my mind reel back the girl from the elevator.

Great. Now every time I thought of marshmallows, I was going to think of her, too.

And I thought about marshmallows a lot.

Lo and I waited while Ace picked out other things and paid. When he walked out, he shoved a Capri-Sun into my hands, and then chucked one to Logan, who had enough foresight to catch it.

We settled at an abandoned park just before Lo’s apartment. We hung around here often, but rarely on Friday nights. Because, well, we were busy doing other things. Ace sat on the tyre-swing, and I lifted my foot to the back of it, kicking it just for fun.

Ace almost fell off, choking on his juice before he turned around to flip me the bird. I just shrugged with a smile. It would’ve been funnier if he’d actually fallen off, but oh well.

I took the swing opposite Ace, and Logan took the one next to me.

“Okay,” Ace said, “I think y’all are going to have to pull me out of this tire when we’re done here.”

Logan snickered. “Your ass isn’t that fat.”

I grinned. “It isn’t.”

Ace rolled his eyes. “Oh so you both admit you’ve been checking it out then?”

“No.”

“Occasionally.”

The late response was Logan. Obviously. He was the only one who toleterated the crackhead energy Ace perpetually exuded. And by crackhead energy I didn’t mean that shit white girls posted on their Snapchat stories. Sometimes I genuinely wondered whether Moreno was on hard drugs.

I lifted a brow, taking a sip from my straw as I considered the two. “Can’t you talk about something serious for once?”

Logan and Ace exchanged a “what the fuck” glance.

“Fine,” Logan said, “Let’s talk about —”

“Sex baby,” Ace sang, “Let’s talk about you and—”

Logan laughed, “Shut the fuck up. I was going to say love. Let’s talk about that shit.”

I made a face. “Like how it’s got two of our friends sulking like little bitches?”

Ace shrugged with a faint smile. “Love doesn’t exist, man.”

Lo aimed for the bin with his empty juice pouch, and got it in. “Mason got it.”

Ace scoffed. “And that worked out so well for him.”

“He still got it.”

“Fine,” Ace said, “Love doesn’t exist for me.”

“I’m going to have to agree with Moreno for once,” I said, kicking into the dirt under my sneaker. “That shit’s a myth. We’re here for a good time, not a long time.”

Lo rolled his eyes. “You should’ve just sat there and drank your Capri-Sun.”

I laughed, and Ace did too.

It was late when I got back to the apartment. I lay back on my bed, taking out my phone. I swiped open my screen, my notifications showing an email from New York-Presbyterian Hospital. I’d gotten it earlier today, and I still hadn’t opened it up. I knew what it was, though.

The balance of the hospital bill.

There was only so much insurance covered. But even with insurance, that balance for this month was three months’ worth of the salary I got from Charley’s. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was in over my head.

I was working on a prototype. I’d loved cars as far as I could remember. Ever since my dad had taken me to the garage back home and we’d fixed his Mustang together. I’d been six, seven max.

Looking back, all I’d done was pass him the tools. But I’d never felt a greater sense of accomplishment. Everything about cars fascinated me. The parts, the way they moved together in such perfect conjunction.

Building my own car had quickly become my dream. But the real world tended to crush dreams quickly.

I knew what I was working on was good—it had real potential—but I also knew it wasn’t a one-man job. The prototype needed finetuning and functional insight. This wasn’t a short-term thing. It would take months, years to come to realisation.

But it was my one chance.

I glanced down at my phone, where the hospital balance stared back at me. I needed to figure a better way around this. And fast. 

a/n:

jeremiah valentine has my heart 🥺💗

until the next chapter,

stay gold,
yuen