Seventeen and Invincible

“Mimi, come on.” She groaned and lifted her head slightly. “Mia.” She rolled over glared. “Mia, you’ve gotta get up. It’s the first day of school. It’s the first day of senior year.”

“No, I’m not going.” She scrunched up her face and turned to look at the window. “I’m not going to school.” I turned to Garrett, after all, with me this was his area of expertise.

“Mia, you can’t just stay in bed all day,” Garrett replied quickly. “I’ll call John.” She looked back at us and away from the window. Garrett pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and started to skim through his contacts to find John’s number.

“It doesn’t matter,” she sighed. “It won’t matter if you call John, or my mom, or anyone. I’m not gonna go to school.” She sat with her legs folded against her chest and the blanket pulled tight against her. “I’m not going.”

“Then I’m calling John,” Garrett responded, hitting the green ‘send’ key on his phone. “Maybe he can get you out of bed.”

“Just stop! Okay?” she yelled. “Just stop trying to get me to act like everything is okay; like nothing happened. Okay? Just stop!” Tears started running down her cheeks again and Garrett rolled his eyes. “Please? Just stop trying to get me to go. Stop calling John. Just stop!”

“Garrett,” I whispered, putting one hand on his shoulder and reaching out to Mia with the other. “Garrett, hang up the phone. Stop calling John.” He sighed and pulled the phone away from his ear, snapping it shut. “Mimi, stop crying, please?”

“You guys just expect me to act like nothing happened! It doesn’t work that way!” She sobbed and screamed until she lost her will.

“No, Mi, we don’t want you to act like nothing happened. We just want you to get up and take a shower, okay? Get up and go take a nice hot shower, it’ll make you feel better.” She sighed and stood up, moving lazily, languidly, to the bathroom across the hall.

Once the water had started and she was out of ear shot, Garrett began. “I can’t help her!” he hissed. “I don’t know how to help her. She needs John. She isn’t you—I only know how to help you when you’re cranky and sad and noncompliant. I have no clue what to do when it comes to Mia.” I sighed and straightened out her pillows and blankets.

“You need to be patient.”

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“I hate you,” she muttered under her breath from the backseat of the car. “I hate you all.” Garrett rolled his eyes, but I gave him a look reminding him to be patient. She continued to mutter until she realized that we were not in fact going to school, but rather the old diner that Garrett and I had spent many a morning at. “Where are we?” she mumbled.

“At a diner. We’re taking the day off, Mi.” She smiled a little and climbed out of the car.

“Good, ‘cause I was starving.” I smiled and nudged Garrett, whispering an ‘I told you so,’ into his ear. John walked over toward us, having been instructed by Garrett to meet us here.

“Shouldn’t y’all be in school?” he yelled with a laugh. “Last time I checked, you still had another year before graduation.”

“Hardy har-har,” I shouted back at him. “We’re playing hooky.” He nodded and lifted his sunglasses from his eyes as he approached Mia. She smiled for the first time in days when he took her hand and kissed her forehead.

“So why are we still standing outside?” Garrett joked. “Come on, let’s go get food.” He held the door open as Mia walked in, followed by John, who had to duck, and then myself. “Four,” Garrett called to the hostess, who quickly scooped up four menus and seated us in the back.

“Wonder if we’ll get the creepy waitress again,” I mused, as John and Mia slid into the booth close to the wall.

“Probably,” Garrett laughed, sitting next to John as I sat down next to Mia. Almost as if on cue, the waitress walked up to our table, greeting us as usual.

“I already know what the two of you want, two orders of chocolate chip pancakes and two coffees, right?” We nodded as John and Mia looked at her skeptically. “And you two?” she asked with a smile.

“The French Toast?” Mia replied as more of a question. “French Toast and green tea. Please.” She passed her menu across the table and to the perky waitress.

“And you?” she glanced over at John.

“French Toast and coffee,” he replied quickly. “Thank you.” She nodded, collected the menus and turned to walk away. “Come here often?” John laughed. Garrett and I both shrugged and a silence lingered over the table, only to be broken as we thanked the waitress when she returned with three coffees and a green tea.

“Is this what you guys do whenever you skip school?” Mia asked with a laugh. “Y’know, just come to the diner and get breakfast?”

“They skip school?” John asked, eyes wide like a deer in the headlights. “No, no. Not them,” he laughed.

“All the time,” Mia replied. “But really, what do you two even do? Should I be afraid to ask?” I kicked her under the table—we’d been over this.

“No,” Garrett and I replied at the same time.

“We go out for breakfast and then we hang out,” I added.

“There’s a place we go to to hang out.” We all looked up and thanked the waitress as our food was placed on the table. “It’s a little bit outside of town.” Mia and John looked at us skeptically as we cut into our pancakes, because we found nothing strange about our reserved hangout location.

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We left the diner, hesitant about bringing John and Mia to our spot at the lake, simply because it had always been ours. We in the end, however, caved.

“This is where you guys go?” she laughed, smirking at me slightly. “It doesn’t exactly look safe,” she said, setting foot on the dock.

“It’s safe, Mi. We’ve been here and slept here enough times.” John strolled over and to her side while Garrett spread the old quilt out on the splintery dock.

“Yeah,” John joked, “I’m sure on the nights they ‘slept’ here, they made plenty of commotion,” John laughed. “It’s gotta be sturdy.” I reached over to smack him in the head. “What?” he asked with a laugh. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re just saying what?” I snapped back. He rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air for comedic effect. “What, O’Callaghan?”

“It’s just,” he paused. “The two of you…I don’t know. It’s weird. You’re like the best friend combo, but you also are like coupley. It’s weird. You two don’t exactly seem what I’d call platonic. And it’s nothing new. It’s been like that since middle school. I dunno,” he shrugged. “Maybe it’s just me.”

“It is just you,” Garrett and I responded simultaneously. John and Mia exchanged a knowing glance and then looked back at us.

“That.” Mia alternated pointing at the two of us. “That is exactly what he was talking about.”