Summer: Day 8

Mack's POV:

I love my bed.

In fact, I think I'll marry it.

I mean, we are soulmates.

It's a memory foam, king size bed that has the softest duvet cover on the planet. The silk pillow cases that lie under me cocoon my head, and the fuzzy throw blankets caressing my skin feel like a cloud. I wonder if this is what heaven feels like.

I groan when my phone goes off, waking me up. I rub the sleep out of my eyes and reach for the stupid device (that I can't live without), and squint to check the time. Ugh, nine in the morning.

"Yes?"

"Mack."

"Let me sleep some more. You woke me up, you bastard."

Kylar laughs. "Never too tired to insult me though."

"Shut up." I roll over so I lay on my back. "Why'd you call?"

"Where were you last night?"

I freeze for a second. Crap. "Why?"

"I thought we were gonna have a Star Wars marathon," he whines and I can almost see the pout on his face.

"When did we plan that?"

"We planned it on the last day of school, pooper. Since when did you forget about Anakin Skywalker?"

I drag a hand over my cheek. "He's still my husband, for your information."

"Well last time I checked, my macaroni doesn't ditch her husband and her best friend in one night."

I sigh. "I was with my mom, okay? I went to her work last night and came home late." Lie. Lie. Lie.

"Oh, okay." I hear him let out a sigh of relief. "I thought you were like ditching me to hangout with some guy or whatever. Anyhoots, wanna come over tonight to get our geek on?"

"Liking Star Wars doesn't make us geeks, Ky."

"Is that a yes?"

"You better have a carton of birthday cake—"

"Done."

"Then it's a deal."

"Cool," he says, letting out a yawn. "Well, I gotta go. I have to work at ten and I gotta be there to open up shop. See you tonight."

"Mmkay," I whisper, already shutting my eyes again. "Love you."

"And I love you," he says, a smile in his voice. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

I shut my phone off and snuggle into my blankets more. I really feel like Bruno Mars when he said, "Today I don't feel like doing anything, I just wanna lay in my bed." Though, I did pick up the phone call.

Anyways, today I am gonna sleep in—

"Mackenzie!" a feminine voice shouts from across the hallway.

I grab a pillow and pull it over my head. Not today lady. I am sleeping the heck in.

"Mack!" The woman comes bursting into my room. Geez, privacy here. "You need to get up, I don't want you sleeping the day away."

"But mother."

"But nothing," she says, taking the pillow from me and opening the blinds.

I blink my eyes shut as the light cascades uninvitedly into my room. "I hate it when you do that. What are you trying to do, blind me?"

"I'd like for my daughter to do something with her life, you know, instead of sleeping all day and eating food." She gives me a pointed look with a hand on her hip. "Go outside, find a job, get in trouble, get a boyfriend. Hell, I don't care. I just hate to see you ruin your childhood."

The nerve this woman has.

She ruined my childhood. My dad ruined my childhood. Be glad I'm still alive, woman.

"What's wrong with eating and sleeping?" I ask, avoiding her jabs to my self-confidence. "I think those are two very normal things for humans to do, unless—wait, are you an alien, Mom?" Yup, she's definitely an alien.

She rolls her eyes at me. "Get up, I don't have all day. I have to leave for work soon."

Her stare burns into my own gaze. Janet Lemay. My mother is a born beauty; she was gifted with natural curves, my same brown hair, and gorgeous hazel eyes. She is tall for a woman—five-foot-nine to be exact—and sometimes I wish her genetics would kick in and give me a few more inches of height. Her lips habitually resembled a pout, her cupid's bow firm and upright while her bottom lip puckered out. And she always looked confident in her own skin.

I miss her, the way things used to be. Now there's a weird air that looms over us, like an unspoken secret that she knows I know but convinces herself I am totally oblivious to it.

Shaking myself from my thoughts, I hook my legs over the bed. "Can I bake a cake?"

She nods, a small smile on her face though it doesn't reach her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."

******

I LIKE TO bake. I enjoy it. But I don't do it often.

I love the smell, and the therapeutic mindless creativity, the distraction from life, and the finished product of combining a bunch of ingredients together. However, it's strenuous to my brain and I feel like my feet are about to fall off once everything is finished. I seriously have a hard time believing pastry chefs aren't supernatural beings. How can you get up before the crack of dawn to do something that makes your whole body ache?

My favorite cake to make is a carrot cake. I know this type of cake is controversial—you either love it or hate it. There's no gray area. And me? Well, I love it. It just has to be done right.

I am greatly opposed to putting raisins in dessert—or food in general. For example, raisins do not go well in cake, or muffins, or cereal, or oatmeal cookies, or salads, and we all know we pick around them in trail mix. So who thought it was a good idea to dry up perfectly juicy grapes and eat them? Because honestly, it's just plain disgusting.

Back to this world famous carrot cake of mine. It's a recipe my grandmother taught me when I was little, and I might have memory loss, but this is one thing that has always stuck with me. I'd tell you all the recipe, but that, my friend, is classified.

I start pulling out the different ingredients needed to make the heavenly dessert, picking out a song to play for background music. Do you ever feel like you're doing one of those montage scenes in a movie? I'd kill to be the main character.

Bopping my head to the beat of the tune and swaying my hips side to side, I start sifting and mixing all the dry ingredients together. The oven is in the process of slowly preheating, and I make it a game to try and complete the batter before it hits 350 degrees. Am I the only one who does that?

By the time I have the batter made, the doorbell rings and I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand. I shrug, turning the music down a pitch before walking over to answer it. On my tippy toes, I take a glance through the peephole.

His brown hair glistening in the morning sunlight, his blue irises full of life, and the small crinkles at the corner of his eyes showed as a smile radiated off of his face. He's so beautiful I could stare at him for hours—quite literally. The way his nose is slanted just a little bit to give him an edge, his sculpted cheekbones, and his—okay, now I'm staring too much.

I fall back on my heels before turning the doorknob. Opening the door just a crack, I say, "Yes sir, how may I help you?"

He takes a minute to answer my question, his eyes judging my appearance with a smirk on his face. "I wanna know if my sweetheart is now the Pillsbury Doughboy."

Shut up, hot stuff.

"So you think I'm hot then?" he asks, pushing the door open a little more so he can come inside. "Don't worry, I always knew you thought that about me."

I turn a beet red, stumbling back a bit. "Did I seriously say that out loud?"

He smirks again. "Yes you did."

"Kill me now," I mumble, turning around to walk back into the kitchen.

Zachariah shuts the door behind him, following suit behind me. "So what's your favorite feature of mine? Is it my hair? Or my eyes? Sometimes I get complimented on my jawline, but I think my abs are definitely my favorite of the mix." He plops down on one of the island stools.

I pull my hair in front of my face to hide my red cheeks as I pour the cake batter into the pans, putting them in the oven. "I find you extremely unattractive. You are nowhere near my type."

He quirks an inquisitive eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Sure is," I say, turning around to face him. He's gotten so familiar to me and it's only been a week. This is not good. "So why are you here?"

"I was bored."

I glare at him. "Why do I feel like you have an ulterior motive?"

"This time," he says, smiling at me. "I actually don't."

I roll my eyes, stuffing my chin in the palm of my hands as my elbows rest on the counter across from him. "You know, when you said I was gonna help you out with this situation of yours, I don't remember hanging out every day being part of the contract."

"We didn't write a contract," he replies, leaning back in his chair. "Besides, you're a convenience. We are neighbors after all."

I hum. "So that's what I am, then? A convenience?"

"To the plain eye, yes. But I also like having you in my company." Zachariah looks at me with confusion etched on his face. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Not necessarily," I mumble. "I'm just trying to figure out your intentions."

"My intentions?"

I nod, looking away at the ground. "Yeah, like why now? After everything, why decide to try building a friendship now?"

He knits his eyebrows together and thinks for a moment. "Because," he starts. "I realized when you're away from someone who's been a constant in your life—despite the fact that we never really talked—you learn to miss them. And so, I guess I missed you?" Zachariah finishes his thought with a smile. "And I hope you missed me too."

I did, Zachariah. More than you know.

******

KYLAR THROWS A popcorn kernel at me. "You're gawking at him again."

"I just don't understand how the one person who's hot decides to turn to the dark side," I explain, cuddling deeper into him as I let out a grumble. "No matter how many times I watch these movies, I'll never get over it."

He laughs. "But he changes in the end."

"Yeah, right before he dies," I say, still frustrated. "I hate how all the bad boys are the hot ones. It's not fair."

"I'm not a bad boy."

"And you're not hot," I deadpan.

He clutches a hand to his heart dramatically. "I literally look exactly like Anakin."

"But there's a difference," I say, pointing at the screen. "One of you is a Skywalker, and the other is a dweeb I grew up around. I love both of them, but Anakin takes the cake."

"It's nice to know my best friend loves me so much," he says sarcastically.

"Shut up, Ky." I shift in my position a little. "No need to be jealous of a fictional character that will never be real."

"Yeah, yeah." He rolls his eyes and averts his attention back to the television.

Out of the corner of my eye, Zachariah comes into view. I see him leaning against the wall, watching us with a clenched jaw and stormy eyes. "You guys are such losers," he observes, looking directly at me.

"Just because you don't like me doesn't mean you have to pull Mackenzie into everything," Kylar says, pausing the movie. Here we go again.

"I didn't come in here to start a fight," Zachariah clarifies, ruffling his hair up a tad. "I was wondering if you guys wanted to order a pizza?"

Kylar looks at me before saying, "No, we're good—"

"Yes," I interrupt, smiling at Zachariah. "Pizza sounds so good right now."

"Okay." Zachariah returns my smile before smirking at Kylar. "I'll put an order in then."

"Sounds good," I reply, reaching over to start the movie again.

Kylar tenses under me and grabs my wrist. "What was that?"

"What?"

He tilts my face so he can look me in the eyes. "You tell me, Mack. Since when did you side with Zachariah?"

"I wanted pizza and you spoke up for the both of us, buddy." I tweak his nose. "Nobody gets in the way of me and my food."

"But he smiled at you, macaroni." Kylar brushes the hair out of my eyes. "He's been acting... different since he came home."

"Nope," I say forwardly, shaking my head. "He's still the same old Zachariah from a century ago."

"You're right," he dismisses. "Maybe I'm overanalyzing."

"You are," I mutter. "Smiling is a natural thing for humans to do—just like eating and sleeping are."

"Where'd that come from?"

I laugh, crossing my eyes. "My mom. Don't ask."

******

Zach's POV:

When the delivery guy knocks on the door, I emerge from my room and stalk down the hallway. I open the door, hand him a twenty dollar bill, and wave him off.

I don't know, I just can't stand pizza delivery guys.

"The pizza is here." I walk over to the living room where Kylar and Mackenzie are sprawled out on the sofa. I don't know why, but seeing them so close together had my guts in a twist. I didn't like the feeling. Was it jealousy, or the fact that I'm starving and in dire need of calories? Hopefully the latter.

As soon as Mackenzie sees me, she perks up and claps her hands. "Food!" she exclaims, eyeing the box hungrily. "Thanks, Zach."

"Yeah," I shrug, sitting down on the other couch across from them.

My brother pulls Mackenzie closer to him as he sits up, glaring at me. He whispers something in her ear and she frowns, moving away from him to grab a slice of pizza.

"So how's the movie?" I ask, trying to start a conversation to break the awkward silence. I hate this. There's too much tension.

"It was fine until you showed up," Kylar grumbles.

Mackenzie gives me a faint smile. "Actually, it gets better and better every time I rewatch it. I still can't decide if I like Anakin or Luke better, though Anakin is the better looking one."

I clench my jaw. Kylar looks like Anakin, everybody knows that. "Luke is cool," I say, glancing in between her and Kylar.

She looks at me with her evergreen eyes, smiling and nodding in agreement. The way she looks at me, like I'm so important; it's the way my mom looks at me. And it's weird to think that within the few feet of distance between us, there's so much history we don't talk about. That I've avoided even thinking about.

When she brought up everything that happened that night yesterday, I'd be lying if I said I didn't shut down. It hurt to think about the look on her face when she walked in on me. I was both shocked and torn on what to do back then, but I followed my heart and ran after her—because girls come and go, but there's only ever gonna be one Mackenzie. The girl I grew up with, the girl who taught me how to be okay.

"What are you staring at?" Kylar asks all of a sudden.

I roll my eyes and scoff. He doesn't need to know. "Your ugly face."

"I'll take that as a much needed complement," he says sarcastically, hooking his arm around Mackenzie tighter.

My eyes follow his actions before they flicker to his eyes. When I grit my teeth together and clench my jaw, he smirks. I hate feeling like I can't do anything about this.

Mackenzie's eyes soften at me as she says, "You should stay for the next movie. We're gonna start Rey's trilogy."

I nod. "Sure, I'll stay."

"What—Mackenzie!" Kylar practically shouts, grabbing the remote from her hands. "This is supposed to be our time. Zachariah isn't a part of us."

She looks at him with a small pout. "But—"

He cuts her off, "But nothing, pooper. I don't care, he's not watching the damn movie with us."

"Don't raise your voice at me," she says, her voice engraved with sadness. "You know I don't like yelling."

"I'm not yelling, Mack," he whispers, cupping her face with his hands as I sit here watching him. "I just don't see why you're trying to be all nice to him when he doesn't give a crap about you." Bullshit. "He can't just walk into your life after forever has passed—because I have always been here for you. Me, macaroni. I hate how he thinks he can show up unannounced and ruin everything we had going for us. I mean, look at where you and your stupid feelings have gotten you—us."

I didn't know she started crying until she stood up, wiping her face. "My feelings aren't stupid, Kylar. I'm a human, and therefore I have feelings. Even if they don't make sense to me, I still feel them. I'm sorry if you don't support me, but I've always supported you. I'm just—I'm gonna go home."

And before Kylar can say anything, she walks out the front door looking like a broken mess.

He glares at me. "God, I hate you."

I smirk. "The feeling is mutual." I stand up to go to my room, glancing back at him to see his dejected face. "It was a long time coming, bro. She's more fragile than you think."

"Says the guy who ditched her when you knew she cared," he mutters, almost incoherent.

I shake my head. "You don't know her like I do."

"I know her a lot better than you do," he replies, challenging me with his eyes.

"Clearly you don't," I say before turning on my heels and into my room.

I lock the door behind me, falling onto my bed. Her feelings. I mean, I know she cared about me—I'm not too sure like is in the picture though. She's one of the few girls who doesn't automatically fall at my feet. Sure, I can make her blush and I can get under her skin at times, but she is a tough nut to crack. Every time I think I have a handle on who she is, she shakes me in a different way and I'm left confused. She was one big mystery left to be solved.

My phone rings on the nightstand next to me after a few minutes pass. "Hello?"

"Zachariah," she breathes, sniffing her tears back. Mackenzie.

I scrunch my face up. "What is it?"

"C—Can I come over? My parents, they're—"

I smile to myself. "My window is open."

"Thank you," she whispers over the line.

"See you soon, sweetheart."

God, I'm so cheesy.

Author's Note:

Mackenzie is finally finding her voice! But like, AH I hate writing drama haha... jk I love it.

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