The Story In His Picture

Chapter 10

Song – Hey Boy by Sia

…/…

“Peter pan and Tinkerbell,” Van says. Everywhere becomes silent. “Oh! I’m just messing with y’all, The Ghostbusters won” Van says and the crowd goes wild. I’m immediately hoisted up by Henry and Chris. Even Peter Pan and Tinkerbell were clapping for us.

“In your faces,” I yell to Luke and Tami. I really do take competitions very seriously. We play other games before Van announces that the party is over and people start heading to their various destinations.

We (the clique) stay behind and help Van clean the house. We all head to different bathrooms to wash up before cleaning up, at least some of us did. Darian just kept singing and performing to the invisible audience till we came back.

We do the major work before Van says we should call it a night. “There are enough rooms for y’all to choose from, I’m going to bed,” Van says before retiring to her room and Jay following her.

Everyone else goes to find suitable rooms leaving Chris, Henry, Luke, and I behind. Chris and Henry talk about a girl in school, leaving Luke and me to discuss. 

“Hey, it seems like we’ve not really had time to ourselves,” Luke says to me, and to be honest, I’ve been trying to give him and Tami space. “Well, I didn’t want to intrude,” I say to him. That was a partial lie. I had seen The Kissing Booth 2 and I honestly didn’t want what happened to Lee and Elle to happen to Luke and me. I didn’t want Tami to come between us and I didn’t want to ruin Tami and Luke’s relationship in any way.

“You can’t possibly be intruding”. “Luke are you coming?” Tami shouts from the top of the stairs and I raise my eyebrows to show what I meant. He sighs and I say “Just go, I’d be fine. We can go watch a movie next week Saturday or something”

He kisses me on my forehead before saying goodnight. When he gets to the stairs, I sigh. I really did miss him. It used to be just the two of us, with Jay and Jace sometimes but majorly just us, but now, he has Tami and I have, well, Chris and Henry, and Darian.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Chris whispers into my ears. I look at him and say “What would happen if you cut pizza into bits and you put it in ice-cream”. By the time I’m done, Chris’ face looks all scrunched up. “Creep,” He says, looking disgusted.

“Would the cheese melt into the ice-cream?” I go on and Chris just shoves me playfully. I stand up from the floor laughing so hard that I’m crying, his facial expression was just too priceless.

I can handle it when people say disgusting stuff around me, I’m not bothered at all. Chris on the other hand, can stop eating and possibly throw up.

Henry leaves his phone and jumps on the couch where Chris and I are seated. “What are we all laughing about?”. I just roll my eyes; it looks like I’m gonna be just fine.

We turn on the TV and the boys decide they want to watch Never Have I Ever, I had not watched it before and it was short so I considered it binge-worthy.

“Darian, is this what you want to watch?” I ask but before I say anything else, I see him sleeping. “Wasn’t he just singing right now?” I ask Chris who just shrugs.

Seated in the middle of the two boys, I find myself getting comfortable as I rest my head on Chris’ shoulder. He puts his arm around me and I snuggle closer.

“Hey, I want in,” Comes a childish voice from behind me. It was strange, I have never seen this part of Henry before. The Cute Henry! Midnight does work wonders in people. I find myself shifting closer to Henry who just hugs me in return.

I kinda feel a little bit sad for Chris but to be fair, if Natasha had been around, he wouldn’t even be here right now. I stretch my legs after a while and put them on Chris’ laps.

We binge watch Never Have I Ever and I find myself thinking of Henry before I sleep. None of us move an inch even after completing the series, It’s almost dawn anyway.

I open my eyes after a while and stare at Henry’s features, mostly his hair. Okay, maybe I actually have feelings for Henry, no one needs to know that, especially not him. Instead of thinking about the reasons I shouldn’t be with him, I think of the reasons I should.

I mean he’s smart, talented, built, has dreads, can dance, also, he’s a photographer, which means behind all those motives is an artistic soul.

I don’t think I’m Henry’s type anyway. Comparing all the girls he’s ever dated, I guess he likes thick girls. I’m your average skinny ass so no, things can’t work out between us. Before he makes me feel a lot worse about my body, I’d overlook the little crush I have on him.

…/…

“What is on me?” I say slowly as I struggle to shift the hand-like object off from my body. It then occurs to me that I’m kinda sandwiched in between the two of them. Before we started binge-watching, we extended the length of the couch. Yeah, it was one of those sofas.

 I think of moments I’ve read in numerous books although this time, instead of Henry’s grip on me to be tighter as done in those books, he actually readjusts his position so his arm falls limp to his side. I roll my eyes and mutter “fairytales”.

 I try not to move so as to not spoil the position altogether, but before I could even close my eyes to sleep back. Henry wakes up and, in the process, wakes Chris. “Morning Genny”. “Morning Grey”. They say almost at the same time. “Morning guys,” I say in return slightly turning my head in another direction so my morning breath doesn’t kill them.

“Except it's actually noon, not morning,” Jace interjects. “I’ve fixed brunch, come and eat. Gen, please wake Darian up,” Jace adds.

“Darian, Darian, Darian, DARIAN!” I shake him and push his legs. I think of a better way to wake him up. I connect my phone to a portable Bluetooth speaker then I play Bobby Roode’s entrance theme song, Glorious, not before putting the speaker really close to his ear.

“Holy smokes!” he says as he practically jumps up. He runs to the toilet not long afterward and comes back to the sitting room holding his head in his hand.

“Morning,” I say to him and he whispers “why are you being so loud?”. I just laugh and tell him to come to the backyard for brunch.

We all sit around a table and discuss mostly last night’s event. It was indeed a success. Luke decides to drive Tami drove as she complained that her mum had called her like a thousand times. She hugs me and says bye to everyone else.

I look in Darian’s direction and honestly, I found his condition very amusing. Darian tries to take the whipped cream from the center of the table but squints his eyes because according to him, “The world is too bright”. I laugh and help him majorly because he looks pathetic. I kiss his forehead and ruffle his hair before sitting down.

“Can you guys just go out already?” Elle says. Darian and I shout “wait, what!?” before saying “He’s not my type” and “She’s not my type” at the same time. Chris just finds everything amusing.

Henry stands up immediately and announces that he has to go. “I have a date,” he says. “You see, I told you it was a lost cause,” my mind says to me.

He says bye and walks somewhat stiffly towards the house. What happens next only proves the statement, “Never run-on smooth ground when you can walk”.