Make This Perfect Again

The bus stopped in Kelowna and I said goodbye to Airin and Marque. Airin became over-emotional and nearly started crying. He always had a hard time saying goodbye to me when we got off tours. He even had a hard time saying goodbye to me when he went to Winnepeg for a year. It was nice to know that my brother cared that much about me though.

Mariah and I walked from the bus station to my house, it was only a few minutes away. I unlocked the door, and when the door swung open, I breathed in the scent of my house. It was still as I left it. I had my aunt looking after it, so she would clean up while I was gone. I had sent her a text that I was home and told her thanks for taking after my house.

My house was small, but it was inviting. It had two bedrooms to it, but only one had a bed. I used the other bedroom as my office slash storage room. I had a couch that did turn into a bed, which wasn't that comfortable, but you atleast got a good sleep on it. "I don't have a spare bed or anything, so you're gonna have to stay on the couch..." I turned to Mariah.

"Oh, that's fine. I don't mind it." She said, setting her bags down on the floor. Her duffled bag wasn't that big, so I didn't know how many clothes she had, but it didn't look like many. She also had her carry on bag which I noticed contained a note book and mass amounts of pens. Mariah had always wanted to be a writer, so she carried around notebooks where ever she went.

I smiled at her. It was great to finally have someone in my house. I had been living alone since I was 19, and I didn't really mind the peace and quiet, and John would come up and see me from time to time, but living alone...was difficult. I wanted to have someone to wake up to every morning, someone to talk to that didn't require phone calls or e-mails. I just wanted a friend.

"Hey, Rye?" I called from my bedroom.

"Yeah?"

"How about, after we finish setteling in, we go get something to eat?" I appeared into the living room, Mariah was sitting on the couch. "There's an awesome litte bakery just a block from here. And then there's always Tim Hortons..." Mariah smiled.

"I think that little bakery sounds good. I've been living off of Tim Hortons for the past 2 weeks." Mariah said, a disgusted look on her face. We headed out the door and walked down to the cafe. It was a place where I usually went with my laptop and just write. Not just songs, but I'd write poems and short stories. The cafe had a great atmosphere, so it was a great place to get things done.

We walked up to the counter to order. I ordered a slice of the vegetarian pizza and a strawberry banana fruit smoothie. Mariah ordered a crossaint with cream cheese and a cup of tea. We sat down with our stuff and began to eat. We had so much to catch up on.

Mariah told me that Mr...Jeremy had indeed adopted her. Mariah's parents were violent drunks who stole money from Mariah. That's why she was always over at my house, and why she was always bruised and beaten up. She also thought that Jeremy, which I find extremely weird calling Mr Logan that, was always the fatherly type. Even when he was teaching us back in highschool, he always had some kind of fatherly instinct about him. He cared about his students, but many people didn't like him. He was my favourite teacher because of all the cheesy jokes he made, and he was the one to help me get over my stage fright. Mariah thought he was the best socials studies teacher we had, but then again, she never met Ms Robinson, who we had in grade 11 for social studies. But Jeremy was good too. He often got sidetracked in class, talking about how he went to Japan or something along the lines of that.

"So, Josline. Do you have any man in your life?" Mariah asked me when we had gotten up to date with what had happened in the past 6 years. I sighed heavily. "I'll take that as a no?"

"Oh, no. I am dating someone. Do you remember John Baker?" Mariah had to think for a minute.

"Blond, blue eyes, tall, kinda had dry skin, played guitar?" Mariah asked. I nodded my head. "Ew. Why are you dating him?" I laughed, knowing Mariah never did like John.

"Well, he's got nice skin now, he has brown hair, still got the blue eyes. And he still plays guitar." I said. "Why am I dating him? Well..." I honestly couldn't think up an excuse to why I was dating John. I knew if I told Mariah that it was just to replace Josh, she would want to know who Josh was, and I would have to explain everything to her about Josh and I. After I didn't say anything for a while, Mariah just nodded sympathetically.

"Fuck buddies?" She said. I burst out laughing.

"No! I've only ever slept with one guy, who isn't John!" I said through laughing fits.

"Oh! Who is this guy?" Mariah asked. She cornered me. I couldn't lie to her. I was never goo at lying to Mariah. She was too smart and could always tell when I was lying. Not because of my lip biting, but also because I would sometimes stutter. I had to tell her about Josh.

"Uh, this guy named Josh." Mariah looked at me, as if trying to get me to tell her more. "Ramsay? Josh Ramsay. Ring a bell?" Mariah then looked slightly taken back.

"J-Josh Ramsay? You mean the singer of Marianas Trench?" How did everyone know about them before I did? I nodded my head lightly. "You dated Josh Ramsay? Why aren't you dating him now." She asked me.I retold the whole story to her. How everything was amazing at first, and then how it all ended...

It still hurt me to talk about what had happened between me and Josh. I didn't cry when I talked about it anymore, so that was good. "Oh, that's kind of sad." We were silent for a little while longer. "But...JOHN BAKER?" Mariah made a disgusted face. "He's just...ICK!" I started laughing again, recieving many funny looks from other people in the bakery. I stopped laughing for a few seconds, looked at Mariah, and then we both started laughing.

God, I loved my friends.