There's a Playground

“Wendy! Wanna hang out tomorrow night!?” Max’s voice called and I looked over at the car he was gathered around. His slut wasn’t anywhere near him, so I figured it would be safe to go hang out with the guys for a little bit. I shook my head, walking over there with Skye quietly.

“I have dinner with my dad…” I muttered, sighing as I looked up at him.

“That fucking sucks… I really wanted to hang with you…”

“Why not tonight?” I asked and Max looked over at Ronnie, who was currently staring at Skye and not making any point to change that or make it any more discreet. I smirked, looking over at my new friend to see that she was staring at the ground quietly and making her point not to look at Ronnie. I could see a light pink color on her cheeks. I looked over at Max again who was shaking his head.

“Can’t. Band practice.” That didn’t sound very convincing…

“You’re in a band?” I asked, not really making it a point to sound like I noticed how he didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about it. He nodded at me and I felt an arm loop around my waist. I froze, my heart stopping as I looked beside me to see Craig. Seeing him, I smiled and relaxed a little more. “God, Craig. You scared the shit out of me…” I muttered, frowning as he grinned over at me.

“Sorry. We can hang out if you want. I’m not doing anything.”

“You aren’t in the band, too?” I asked and he shook his head and then shrugged.

“Nah, they don’t need two singers.”

“Yeah, and I’ve already taken up that spot, broski,” Ronnie said, grinning goofily over at us. I smirked and rolled my eyes.

“Anyway, yeah. Sorry Wenders.” I grimaced Max’s old nickname for me, sighing.

“Thanks for that, Maxers. I guess I can forgive you. It’s not like we don’t live next to each other or anything…” I stated, shrugging and wrapping my arms around myself, ignoring Craig’s arm still casually around my waist like it was nothing. Was it nothing? I wasn’t sure…

“Do you mind if I come hang out, too, Wendy?” Skye asked, looking down the couple inch difference between us at me. I nodded. “Thanks, I don’t…really want to go home yet…”

I figured there was something more to that, but I wasn’t about to say anything about it.

“Aww…Skye!” Ronnie whined, moving across the group to loop an arm around the girl’s shoulders, a large grin still on his face as he leaned down towards her. She blushed hard and I frowned over at Ronnie, not quiet liking what he was doing. “Why don’t you want to hang out with us!?” he continued to whine, frowning as he tried to get Skye to look him in the eye.

“Leave her alone, Ronnie.” A rough voice sounded and I looked over to see the splotchy haired Omar frowning over at his friend. I had the sudden urge to hug the boy, though I suppressed that urge to smile at him slightly, glad that he was saying something about Ronnie’s attempts to get Skye to do…whatever it was that he wanted to do with…

Oh god. Bad images… Didn’t need those!

I sighed, watching as Skye stepped closer to me and away from Ronnie, blushing like made and trying to hide it beneath her hair. I was glad that she seemed to be quite a bit like me. Rather shy and easily embarrassed. It would make it easier.

“Anyway, we should probably get home before my mom gets back from work…” Max said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. They all nodded in agreement and, as a group, everyone but Craig, Skye, and myself took off walking.

“Want a ride? If you live next to Max, I know it’s close, but I don’t really trust my car here by itself…” Craig said, patting the hood of the red car we were standing by. I looked over at Skye, shrugging as she smiled and nodded. She seemed to relax now that Ronnie wasn’t around.

“You gonna be okay, Skye?” Craig asked as he let go of my waist and climbed into the driver’s side. I climbed in back, letting my new blonde friend have the passenger seat if she wanted. Which she climbed into, buckling up a few seconds later.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Ronnie’s really high right now, isn’t he?” She asked, running a hand through her hair. Craig sighed and nodded wordlessly.

“When isn’t he? I swear, he’s going to end up killing himself one of these days.”

“Don’t say that, Craig…”

“Sorry, but…”

“Craig, I think you should just shut up now. It’s okay, Skye. I’m sure Ronnie will be fine…” I said, leaning forward from my position in the middle of the back seat to rest a hand on the other girl’s shoulder. She sighed and stared out the window. Craig merely pulled out of the parking lot and began driving down to my house.

We passed by Max and everyone on our way down, and Craig honked at them, laughing as Ronnie jumped before flipping us off. Even Skye laughed at that one. My hand was still on her shoulder, trying to comfort her and hoping that she wasn’t thinking about Ronnie, apparently, abusing drugs.

I prayed that Max wasn’t doing the types of drugs that Craig and Skye implied Ronnie was. If he was…what the fuck was I supposed to do? I could hardly believe that my best friend had made friends with a drug user let alone become one himself. And I could hardly believe that he’d, apparently, become a whore and was dating a huge slut.

“It’s the one before Max’s house, by the way,” I informed the driver, who nodded in response. Sighing, I climbed out of the car when Craig pulled into my driveway behind my mother’s car. She didn’t start work until tomorrow, so she was still hanging around at home for another day.

I wondered, again, how my dad had gotten a hold of her…

I led my two new friends into my house, smirking as I saw my mother sitting on the couch making necklaces. “Oh, you’re home earlier than I thought you would be, Wendy. How’d your…oh! You have friends?” She made it sound like these were the first friends that I’d ever made.

Which wasn’t terribly far from the truth. Honestly, I wasn’t really the type of person to make friends easily. I had trust issues, but for some reason I was comfortable around Max’s friends. Except for Ronnie, but that was probably because he didn’t seem to like me very much as it was.

“Yeah, Mom. This is Craig and Skye. We’re gonna go chill in my room, that cool?” I asked and then regretted that as she smirked at me, a brow raised. I heard Craig snickering slightly behind me as he read the look on my mother’s face.

“No sex.”

“Mother!” I whined, frowning and turning to grab Craig and Skye by the hands as they laughed. I dragged them away to my room, pulling them in and letting go before turning to close my bedroom door. “Fuck she’s embarrassing…” I muttered, frowning and watching as my two new friends took in my room.

“It’s fine. She seems cool, though,” Craig informed me, planting his ass on the corner of my bed and laying back to stare at the ceiling.

“Lots cooler than my parents, shit,” Skye mused, moving to join Craig on the bed. I smirked and followed suit, but I sat on my floor instead.

“How’s that working for you, Skye?” Craig asked, and I caught an undertone of worry in his tone. I heard the blonde girl sigh, shaking her head.

“Nothing’s changed, Craig. Nothing will ever change. Trust me on that one.”

“I’m sorry.”

I felt so completely out of the loop on this conversation. So instead, I stared at my floor and began drawing little designs in the plush white carpet, not really caring that I couldn’t see any of them.

“We’re being rude, Craig. This is Wendy’s house, remember?” Skye said, sitting up and smiling over at me. I smiled back softly, feeling a little less awkward now that I was…kind of included in the conversation.

----

Skye had gone home about an hour ago. And now it was just Craig and I laying in the warm sand of my back yard and staring up at the night sky. I didn’t really like this whole ‘no grassy yard’ thing. We finally get a yard and it’s full of sand and dirt. It was going to be hell if it rained…

“So do you miss your friends in Denver?” Craig had been asking various versions of that question for the last twenty minutes. But it worked for me, I couldn’t really think about anything to talk about. And he didn’t seem like the type of person to be content with keeping silent.

“I told you this before, Craig. I didn’t have friends in Denver. I kept to myself…”

“That’s sad. Why?”

“Because I…I don’t know…”

“Yes you do. You’re just not saying anything.”

“And that’s how I’d like to keep it.”

“Fine. I certainly miss my friends back in Phoenix.”

“You’re from Phoenix?” I asked, turning my head slightly to look at him. He grinned and nodded back at me.

“Yup. I moved here with my dad like…three years ago or something like that.”

“Oh, that’s cool…”

“Yeah, I guess.” I watched as he shrugged at me before I turned my head to look back up at the stars.

“So how long have Madison and Max been dating?” I asked, finding something that I wanted to talk about. Craig laughed and I wondered what was so funny about that. How the hell was that funny? I didn’t get it…

“They’ve been dating on and off for the last couple months. But I think he’s finally getting sick of her cheating on him all the fucking time. Which, honestly, he should know by now that she’s a slut. He refuses to listen to anyone though.”

“Dumb ass…”

“Yeah, that’s Max for you.”

I giggled slightly at that, nodding in agreement. Even when we were kids, he’d always been a dumb ass with various things like that.

“You have a really nice laugh, Wednesday,” Craig informed me and I felt myself blush at that.

“Um…thank you?” I wasn’t sure what else to say, so I figured a simple ‘thanks’ would be good enough. Compliments were usually answered with thanks anyway. So it worked, I supposed.

There was silence in the air for a few more seconds before Craig sat up and looked over at me. I watched him quietly, wondering what he was thinking and what he was going to do.

“You’re also way pretty.” Yeah…insert beet-red skin tone right now. I was really glad that it was night and the glow from the lights in my house weren’t really reaching this far into the back yard.

“Th…thanks, Craig,” I said, my voice sounding unsure. I hadn’t ever really been called pretty by anyone other than my mom and my grandma. Everyone in Denver just thought I was weird and pretty much avoided me. Once again, however, I honestly didn’t really care about that.

“No problem. I just thought that you should know. Because it’s true.” I looked over at him as he spoke. He was smiling at me warmly and winked at me when he said the last two words. God damn it all…

That kid knew how to make a girl blush. I just wondered if it was genuine or not…