I Can't Make You Stay

I didn’t want to dress up for this date. Matt said it wasn’t anything serious, like our previous one. Last time a dress had seemed appropriate, this time Matt said we were going pretty local, and to dress ‘casual’.

“I think he meant naked, Bree,” the always wonderful Julie Spencer told me, as she texted her own boyfriend, some new guy named Brian.

“You’re a headache.”

I smoothed out the eye shadow on my eyelid, and put a lighter color underneath my eyebrow bone. I smoothed out my eyebrows and picked up my mascara to do next.

“Why didn’t you wear a skirt?”

I rolled my eyes but continued to do my makeup. “Because you forced me into a dress last time, and I thought that was enough. He’s gotten enough leg.”

“But you’re wearing shorts right now.”

I ignored her and sang along with Matt Bellamy during Invincible. I finished the mascara and looked at myself in the full-length mirror on the door of my walk-in closet.

It was rather warm today, but then again it was June, and my hair was up in a ponytail. I hadn’t bothered to do anything with it that the heat would’ve ruined. I wore a regular Roxy wife beater tank top with shorts and Julie’s old dark blue flip-flops that I had washed many, many times.

“Must you wear that bracelet all the time?” My sister asked me as her Silver Pearl buzzed with a text message (we had matching phones, in different colors). I looked down at the Juicy bracelet from Adam and at that moment, my Red Berry buzzed two times.

I checked my inbox to see a message from Adam, and one from Matt. I glanced back and forth between them, only seeing part of the texts and wondered which one to read.

Ah, back when the choices were easy.

I picked Adam first, just because I knew what Matt’s would say already.

Come over, the guys wanna play Frisbee later

I cringed as I slowly typed, Can’t

I saw Matt’s text read: I’m here, turning off Main onto Washington now

I wish he wouldn’t text and drive, but I responded with a simple ‘okay, on my way’ when Adam’s response came in.

…Excuse me? I must be mistaken, I thought I had texted Aubrey Spencer

“You didn’t tell Adam, did you?” My all-knowing sister said from across the room, comfortably seated on my bed. I sighed and walked over to the window, trying to think of a response when another came in:

You’re going out with him again, aren’t you? Holy crap Aubrey, what are you doing? Are you wearing a dress again, cause I might have to kill you

Relax Lazzara it’s nothing serious. Just a 2nd date, I’ll be back in time for late night Frisbee

“You better get a move on, Matt’s a-waiting!” And Julie left the room. I scanned the room for anything else I might need, grabbed an extra hair tie and slid it on my other wrist as I left.

I yelled goodbye to my sister, but I heard her on the phone, mostly likely with Brian. I grabbed the money left on the counter for me and exited the house.

I had told my parents that Adam was taking up Frisbee again with his friends, and that I was probably going over there before we walked down to the park. They left me money just in case. Which was a coincidence because Adam asked me to come over before the guys had their Frisbee game, and I was actually going on a date with Matt. I ignored this strange occurrence, since that was all it was.

I looked back at my phone before I slid it in my pocket when I retreated from my cul-de-sac, realizing Adam never texted back. But I knew Adam, and when he sent a message after another he usually threw his Voyager (only god knows why his mother got him a touch screen phone with a keyboard). Especially now that he had found out I was going on another date with Matt.

I couldn’t understand how my best friend could hate the guy I was casually dating. It wasn’t anything serious yet, but maybe that’s what Adam was fearing. Maybe he thought if I got a boyfriend, we wouldn’t hang out as much, but Adam had to know that would never happen, right?

He hadn’t even met him yet; he was basing everything off of the rumors at school. And school was over.

I walked down the rest of Washington towards Main Street and found Matt’s car sitting idly by in front of a house that no one was ever in. I waved when I thought he was looking at me, but who can ever tell when he has those aviators on? He did a cute wave back and smiled, turning his car back on as I opened the passenger side door and hopped in.

“Hey,” I said, and slammed the door behind me. Matt grinned and took his aviators off, settling them on the top of his head and said the same thing back.

“So where we goin’?”

With his eyes on the road, Matt smiled in an I-know-and-you-don’t way that almost made me play hit him. “You’re gonna have to wait.”

“Why?” I whined and pouted when we came to a red light. He quietly aw-ed at me, so low in efforts for me not to hear and lightly touched my chin with his warm, massive fingers.

“Don’t pout, sweetheart,” he told me, his eyes still on me. I glanced over at the red light in front of us but then remembered this was a long one. “You’ll see when we get there.”

“Or…” I began. “We could just tell Aubrey and get it over with. How do I know you’re not going to take me to your house to continuously rape?”

“Because if I was going to, I would’ve done it already,” he winked at me and started driving again as the light changed to green.

I mock-glared at him and he chuckled, “Don’t give me that look.” He took my hand. “I hope you like where I’m taking you…”

“I’d tell you if you told me!” I exclaimed in a singsong voice. Matt chuckled again and simply brought my hand to his face, his lips lightly brushing my skin. I felt the minor sweep of coldness from the tiny hoop in his bottom lip, and a shiver crept up my spine.

“Oh,” Matt said. “I made something for you, I hope you like it. It’s wedged between your seat and the e-brake.”

Matt released my hand and when I looked down beside me, I saw a CD inside a black case, with a clear cover. It was a little out of the ordinary, this CD sitting here, because Matt’s car was pretty much spotless. He seemed to take good care of his car, with no garbage, broken CDs, books, or anything on the floor or in the seats of his car.

“Do you clean your car when you come to meet me?” I asked as I glanced at his backseats and saw the same thing: completely spotless.

Matt released a nervous chuckle and nodded, “Guilty.”

“You don’t really have to,” I told him. “Nothing wrong with a little mess, a little chaos.”

Matt only smiled, but he kept driving.

“So what is this CD?”

“Oh right I, um, made a CD for you. Mostly songs I thought you’d like, after you said you enjoyed that one Metallica song. If you don’t like them it’s-“

“Matt shush, I’m sure I’ll like the songs,” I looked at the front of the CD, where Matt had scribbled my name in all caps. My heart fluttered a little, how cute was he?

“So where are we going?”

Matt still wouldn’t budge.

--

We were in the neighboring town when Matt pulled up in one of the local parks parking lot.

“We’re at the park?” I asked confused, as we both stepped out and I slipped my infamous black Ray Ban sunglasses on.

“No…” Matt trailed, and he took my hand and led me out of the parking lot. “We’re going around the corner.”

I looked over to him to frown, but then I realized how much taller Matt Sanders were than me. He towered over me at pretty much the same height as Adam and smirked down at me the same way Ad did.

“We’re here,” he told me, and stopped at the entrance gate to a normally empty lot. But it wasn’t empty any more…

The lot was filled with booths, people stood outside and inside of them. On the other end of the lot were rides, hanging dangerously close to the edge of the dock that went into the lake at the neighboring park. It was the carnival that stopped in around the same time every year, which came to sponsor the town.

“Aw, I love this place!” I exclaimed, walking inside the area and was suddenly overcome with happiness. “My best friend and I used to come to this every year as kids!”

Matt gave a sigh of relief, “I’m so glad. So what do you want to do first?”

”I don’t even know!” And I grabbed his hand and dragged him deep into the carnival, searching for something to start my previously long lost childhood experience.