"I need you to stay, need you to stay, hey."
....

"So he's like your best friend?” she asks as we stroll through the city, cones of ice creams in our hands one cloudy afternoon.

It's a Saturday, fortunately, so I get a few hours away from all the giggling, psychopathic girls and my very loving teammates. But more importantly, I get to spend a lot of time with Star.

I guess having ice creams and strolling through the city has become a thing between us now. I don't mind it at all, although the weather today is unusually cold. Still, I'm a fan of cold so I don't mind at all.

“Nah…more like the only person I had left, until I met you.”

She glances at me briefly as we keep walking. I don't look back at her, instead I focus on the bubblegum flavoured ice cream in my hands.

“What?” I murmur in the middle of a bite. Yes, I bite my ice cream. You have permission to come shoot me.

“I just…cannot fathom how someone like you doesn't have like a million friends…why don't you?”

I take another bite of the ice cream and suddenly regret it a second later because I get a brain freeze.

She laughs at my frozen expression. “That is a really cute brain freeze face.”

The hotness in my face helps me come out of the brain freeze.

“Stop mocking me.”

Up ahead I can see the familiar layout of the city park and I smile as we near it.

“You didn't answer my question.”

“Ugh!! What is it with you and your questions?!” I scream accidentally and she's visibly started by my outburst because she abruptly halts just as we get arrive at the park.

“I'm sorry…”

“No…I didn't mean to yell like–hey where are you going?”

She starts walking forward towards the first bench I can spot.

I jog after her because damn she walks like an olympic speed walker.

“Star?”

She doesn't look back at me and when she gets to the bench she was heading towards, she changes her mind and starts to walk further down the park.

“Star!”

Why is she being so dramatic?

I can see that she's not turning around anytime soon and fortunately there are barely any people hanging around the park so I take one last bite of my ice cream and toss it into a nearby trashcan before running off after her.

Since I'm like a celebrity basketball player, it shouldn't be surprising that I'm a really fast runner so I easily out run her and halt right in front of her.
As expected, she crashes into me, the half eaten ice cream in her hands spilling over me and ruining my green bomber jacket in the process.

She pushes herself back and wipes off the little portion that fell on her t-shirt. When she's done she looks up at me with a glare. I shrug of my stained jacket and hang it over my shoulder.

“What the fuck?”

My eyes widen and my heart begins to pound in my chest. Star has never really gotten mad at me before and her expression right now is a bit scary. It really took everything in me to not step out of her way but I wasn't going to let her stay mad at me and walk away for something so unserious. At least I hope it was.

“Star I'm sorry. Why are you so mad?” I ask, my face scrunching up in confusion.

“Why I'm so mad? You claim to be friends with me but you never want to tell me anything about yourself. I barely know anything about you and it's frustrating. I don't know what to do with you. Would we just keep being friends and practically know nothing about eachother?”

I swallow roughly and blink back the tears that want to cloud my vision.
She has no idea how much I tell her compared to literally anyone in the world. She knows more about me than my parents probably do…

“Star, it's not easy for me to open up okay?” I begin with a crack in my voice that I hope wasn't noticeable. “And the things you want to know…I don't like talking about them. They're–”

“You've got to learn how to talk about yourself with people you're willing to get close to,” she says, her voice hard as steel. I won't lie, she's scaring me. “If you're not ready to do that, then don't act like you want to be friends with me.”

With that she begins to storm off, but like I said, I'm not letting her stay mad at me for this.
I grab her wrist before she can go any farther and although she tries to pull away from my grip, it's stronger.

“Let go of me.”

“Star, I need you to list–’

“I said let go of me!”

Silence.

“He used to be my one of my best friends.”

Her arm goes limp and she turns around to look at me with wide, puzzled eyes.

“Albert. Back in my old school, we were in this group of friends. And we were all really close.”

“Jordan, I really got to go.”

I scrunch up my brow and I feel a little bubble of anger sizzling in me.

“You don't want to know anymore?” There's an unmistakable mix of anger and hurt in my voice. Does she know how difficult it is to talk about my past? And after throwing a tantrum because I refuse to tell her about it, she starts taking it for granted once I start telling her. That's not fair.

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, looking at me straight in the eye balls.

“I do…I really do. But…I've already lost interest today okay? My best friends…they're annoyed at me because I've been spending less time with them…because of well, you, but they don't know that. And I don't want them to get even madder.”

My heart sinks. But she wasn't going to leave if I didn't act like that earlier.

“Why now? You can just say you're mad at me too. I'll understand.” I try not to look at her so she won't see my droopy eyes and feel a little guilty.

“Well, yes I am. But I really have to go. We'll talk later, okay?”

I bite my bottom lip, the heavy feeling in my chest getting worse as I realise she really wants to leave. She wants to spend less time with me now. I should've seen it coming. No one was patient enough to be with me and I don't think anyone should be.

“Okay,” I say and a beat later she walks off without a goodbye.

Why do I feel like crying?

***

I really don't want her to have a problem with her best friends who she's known for a long time. If they find out she's hanging out with me…a lot of things I don't want to think about would go wrong. And then I'll know the curse is still on and strong. I don't want her to lose them because of me. And I feel that'll be difficult because then I'd have to spend less and less time with her.

Speaking of friends and best friends, I was supposed to meet Albert later today but he texted me last minute that he had this event he was forced into. His parents are these wealthy business people and they always force him to go to all these formal and terribly boring events so he can get used to the environment because they want to force the career on him. Unlike me…Albert can tell them straight up, like he usually does, that he wants to do something else with his life and they won't lock him up in his basement. And that's nothing compared to what mine would do if I told them I didn't want to play basketball.

“Good evening, mom, dad,” I greet as I walk in and see them sitting on the couch, their eyes trained on the TV in front of them.

They're watching an old basketball match on ESPN. My gut clenches involuntarily. God…why are they so obsessed with this sport?

“Welcome darling,” my mom says with a warm smile. “Have you practiced today?”

I try not to roll my eyes. They don't even ask how I am. The first thing they can think of is basketball practice. It really hurts.

“No…but I will in a few minutes. I just need to eat first.”

“Alright. You better have been practicing. I heard your school's players are really good. Even better than the ones in your last school. You have to be the best player in the team,” my dad rambles and I nod while walking to the kitchen.

“I am. And I know, they're really good and I'm grateful to be able to play amongst them.”

“You're grateful?!” my mom cries and I visibly cringe. “You should be focused on being better than all of them. If the coach notices someone else is doing better than you, the school's going to think you're not as good as you claim to be and might withdraw your contract. It will affect all of us.”

I try not to throw up at how wrong it all sounds and feels so I just nod with a short yes mom, grab some snacks and cans of soda and dash to my room before this day gets any worse.

I shut my door and drop the snacks on my table before slumping on my bed and letting out a sigh.

After taking my meds, eating and scrolling through social media for a while, I change into my training outfit, grab my bag of basketballs and sneak my customized green cargo print Leica camera before walking out to the backyard where my miniature court stays.

I grab a ball and bounce it around noisily to make sure my parents know I'm practicing then I have a little fun by taking free throws from different angles and positions, even backwards too. I get bored very soon.

I hate that I'm so good at basketball. Yet…if I wasn't so good, it'll have been worse.

Ugh, I hate my life.

This is until I rummage around the bag of basketballs and take out my camera, slinging it over my neck.

There's a beautiful sunset in the sky and I'm definitely taking a picture of it.
At least I have photography with me at the end of the day. It won't ever leave me.

Not like the others, not like my ex best friends did, not like Albert did, not like Eliza did, not like how Star would, eventually.

After I take several shots of the sky feeling pleased with the results and take a seat on a nearby bench, my eyes cloud with the tears that have been threatening to spill throughout the day. My heart clenches for the millionth time.

I really don't want her to leave.

Please God, could she stay?