Chapter 7

“Aaron!” I yelled, slapping his arm to get him away from me.

He was laughing at my complaints, and trying to get me to agree with him.

“Say that you’ll go and I’ll put you down,” he said.

He was swinging me over a pool, threatening to drop me in the water. Earlier in the day, we’d come to take a walk around his apartment complex. They had two community pools in the middle of the apartments.

We hadn’t planned to take a dip in the water.

Now, he wanted me to agree to go with him to on a small road trip with two of his friends. They were leaving this Friday to a gamer convention- whatever that meant.

One of his friends had been going to another university before transferring here. Every year, they set up game systems to play and also did a show for upcoming video games and game systems. The university funded the entire thing and according to Aaron- loads of people went.

I had said ‘no’, and now he was threatening to drop me in the pool if I didn’t agree to go.

“You’re not being fair!” I yelled, as I continued slapping his back.

Aaron wasn’t even in pain. If anything, he was having more fun with me fighting him back.

“Life isn’t fair,” he said, as he patted my butt.

My face grew crimson, as he did it one more time.

“Hey!” I complained, trying to wriggle out of his arms.

I wasn’t sure how I did it, but all my moving around had accomplished something. Both Aaron and I ended up splashing into the pool.

Aaron kept his word, because all the way to the water, he didn’t let go of me.

We both sunk under water.

Aaron was the first to surface, and he brought me up with him.

“You okay?” He asked, as he moved away the hair that was sticking to my face.

“Jerk,” I said, slapping his chest.

He chuckled at me, and it was impossible not to laugh along with him.

“I see you’re perfectly fine,” he said.

“You owe me a phone,” I told him, remembering that I had been carrying it in my front pocket.

“It was worth it. You finally agreed to come with me,” Aaron said, while shrugging his shoulders.

“I didn’t agree to anything. Dropping me into the water did not help your case.”

“Why? Didn’t you say you wanted to shower before going to the diner?” He asked, teasingly.

I stuck my tongue out at him, as I began swimming back to the edge.

It was already Thursday, and all week Aaron had been trying to convince me to go. There wasn’t any pressure on him before, but now, I had to make up my mind.

I was torn between going or not. I had met his friends, and they were cool with me. I just didn’t know if it was right for me to go with him.

“I won’t try anything, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Aaron said, as we walked back to his apartment.

My clothes were still soaking wet, and it was making it harder to walk with how heavy they felt.

“It’s not that. Do your friends say anything about me?”

Aaron shrugged, looking ahead at the person that was coming our way, with a small puppy on a leash.

“He’s a cute little guy,” Aaron commented about the puppy, which made me smile.

I was still waiting for him to answer my question.

“They think you’re hot,” he said, chuckling, as he ran a hand through his hair- messing it up.

“I’m being serious,” I warned him.

“I know you’re worried of what they’ll think. They know that we’re friends, and that I’m into you,” Aaron finally replied.

I blushed when he said he was into me. He was always subtle with his feelings toward me. When we were together, he didn’t hide that he liked me. I liked that, but at the same time, it made me feel bad.

I liked him back, but I hadn’t been able to close in on our relationship.

I was going home in two weeks for Spring Break. I wanted to do that before I made any decisions with Aaron.

My parents said that Silvia, Matt’s mom, already knew I wanted to talk to her. My mom hadn't told Silvia anything, but Silvia already knew what I wanted to talk about.

I was scared to confront them, but it was something I had to do. The closer it got to Spring Break, the more nervous I felt about going home.

Being around Aaron was helping. He distracted me a lot, and usually kept me busy. I still hadn’t gotten around telling him anything about Matt. It felt wrong to bring it up.

“I need to go get a new phone,” I commented, shoving into his chest the now dead phone, which was still leaking drops of water.

He probably knew I was trying to change the subject, and I was glad he didn’t say anything about it.

“C’mon, I’ll buy you the phone. After all, I did ruin it.” He grinned, and put his arm around my shoulders.

“What gave you the impression that I was giving you the option of paying? It was your fault,” I said. He lightly pinched my shoulder, laughing along with me.

It took us almost two hours to get my new phone. I was completely annoyed by the time we left the place, and Aaron was trying to comfort me.

The girl that was helping me kept telling me I couldn’t get a phone. My plan ended in a year, and I had to wait until then.

I tried explaining that I didn’t want a free phone. I was willing to pay it.

She never understood that, which was where the problem started. When Aaron finally explained that we had messed it up, and we knew the insurance plan didn’t cover it- the girl finally understood.

Then, she kept trying to charge me two phones, which she claimed was the only way for me to get a phone.

If it wasn’t my plan, it was the phone. If it wasn’t the phone, it was the insurance. It wasn’t until the manager came and took care of everything, that I finally got my phone.

He did it in less than ten minutes and only took time because he was trying to program it.

“Don’t let it get to you,” Aaron said, while he drove us to my apartment. We had just left the store and I was still fuming.

“It’ll pass, I’m just- really,” I said, letting the sentence hang.

Aaron reached over to hold my hand, and I let him.

“She was annoying, but on the plus side- we got it half price,” Aaron commented, with a grin on his face.

“On the plus side for you. I wouldn’t mind if you had paid full price,” I added.

He squeezed my hand, but still laughed.

“Annabel, you will be the death of my bank account,” Aaron said, sighing dramatically.

“Right,” I said, because I was well aware that I would have to buy a lot of things to even put a small dent on his bank account.

By the time we made it to my apartment, any annoyance had already disappeared. Aaron had been making jokes about the girl. It was enough to make me smile, and let it go.

I ended up feeling slightly bad for the girl. Despite her terrible service, I knew that she would get in trouble after Aaron and I had left the place.

“Do you want me to help you pack?” Aaron asked.

He was lying down on my bed, playing with a small bouncy ball. I was walking around, trying to gather my books for later on. I was trying to have a homework free weekend, so I warned Aaron he would have to help me.

Aaron didn’t mind- mainly, because he was still trying to push the idea of me going with him on the road trip.

“I’m not going,” I stated.

“You don’t need to bring much. We’re driving on Friday. It’ll take a few hours to get there. We’re staying all of Saturday, and we’ll be back by Sunday afternoon,” he continued, like if I hadn’t said anything.

Aaron was throwing the ball in the air, and catching it. He seemed to be thinking of something.

“I don’t need to know you’re itinerary, since I’m not coming along,” I repeated, while shoving papers in my book bag.

“Ronnie is bringing Jess along, you know, his blonde girlfriend,” Aaron said, while laughing.

I remembered my encounter with Carrie this past weekend, and couldn’t help but frown.

“You’ll like Jess. She’s blonde, like you,” Aaron said, while grinning at me. He was making fun of me over Carrie’s way of thinking.

“Shut up,” I told him, grabbing one of my sandals and chucking it at him.

Aaron easily dodged it, but he looked like he was having too much fun.

“Just for that, now I’m not coming,” I told him, while crossing my arms.

“You weren’t coming either way.”

His serious expression told me he was no longer joking around. He got up from the bed, and left out of the room.

I finished gathering the things for my homework, and followed after him.

“I’m ready,” I told him. He’d been next to the fridge.

He stretched out his hand to take my book bag, while in the other he was holding a Dr. Pepper.

“Let’s go,” he said, holding out his hand for me to take.

Seeing him so serious was really out of character for him.

All the way to the diner, Aaron kept quiet. Whenever I tried striking up a conversation, he would give me one-worded answers.

Once we took a seat in the booth of the diner, I was already feeling guilty.

“Aaron.”

He’d been looking through the menu, something he never did. Aaron always ordered the same thing, and he knew the menu front to back.

Instead of answering, he just looked up at me.

“You’re mad?” I asked.

I’d been telling him ‘no’ all day. I guess I had finally reached the point where I’d made him mad. It was the first time I had to come after him, or try to get him to talk. He was the one who usually asked me if something was wrong.

He shook his head and continued looking through the menu.

“I’ll go,” I told him, about the road trip with his friends.

He stared at me for just a moment, before putting the menu back down.

“I’m not trying to force you to come with me. If you don’t want to come, it’s fine.”

I stayed quiet for a moment. I did want to go. I just didn’t want it to confuse my relationship with Aaron. We had talked about this enough. He knew what I wanted, and he was okay with it.

I didn’t want him to think that going on the road trip meant we were anything more than friends. I didn’t want to take our relationship anywhere until I talked to Silvia.

Matt’s journal hadn’t stopped bothering me, but I knew talking with Silvia would finally put me at peace with everything.

“You are mad,” I stated.

I began taking out my notebook and handout.

When Rose came to take our order, Aaron just asked for some coffee- which had Rose raising an eyebrow.

I ordered a coffee as well, along with some pancakes. We hadn’t eaten all afternoon and I was hungry. I knew Aaron must’ve been hungry too.

Without asking him for help, I began working on my Calculus homework.

I was surprised with myself when I worked problem one without any help. Rose brought our coffees in that moment, promising to bring my pancakes soon.

Aaron was watching me, as I burned through my homework. We weren’t talking, but I felt his gaze on me the entire time.

I was already in problem nine, when his hand stopped my pencil.

“You’re torturing the Math whiz in me.”

I looked up at him with my mouth opened in shock.

“Excuse me?” I asked him, feeling slightly offended with his comment.

He took the papers from me, and began erasing some of my work.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he said.

I watched as he quickly got to work and fixed all of the errors in my equations.

Rose brought my pancakes, as I stared at Aaron in awe. He was fast in catching the mistakes I’d made. I was too distracted with him to pay any attention to the banana nut pancakes on the side.

“Oh wow,” I muttered, looking at the paper when he gave it back to me.

I had gotten about half of the problems wrong. I didn’t miss them by a lot. If I missed a single number, a negative, or an exponent in the beginning- the entire equation would be wrong in the end.

“You weren’t off, so that’s a good thing. You’re just careless in certain parts.”

I smiled at him, thankful that even though he was mad- he still helped me.

“I’m not mad,” he stated out of the blue.

I raised an eyebrow, not really believing him.

“I’m not. I’m sorry I kept bugging you to come with me,” he apologized, giving me a shy smile.

He messed with his hair, before letting out a light chuckle.

“I went last year to the convention. It was awesome. Loads of people go, not only gamers. The University uses the convention to attract new students for the upcoming year. It’s fun,” he explained, shrugging.

I sighed, thinking over his words.

Aaron hadn’t said it would be anything else. He’d made it clear that it was just so we could go and have fun. I was already with him most of my time, so the short trip wouldn’t make a difference.

“I’ll go,” I told him, deciding it in that moment.

“Are you doing it because you think I’m mad?” He asked, not looking too convinced with my decision.

I shook my head at him, while reaching over to grab one of his hands. Mine was smaller than his, and I liked that.

It made me feel safe.

“No, I really do want to come,” I told him.

He gave me a teasing grin after I’d said that.

“Never doubt Aaron’s persuasive ways,” he said.

I narrowed eyes at him, wondering why he’d said that.

He laughed at me. I was surprised when he reached over the table to kiss my cheek.

“I knew I’d convince you one way or another,” was all he said, before stealing one of my pancakes.

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