To Fill the Void

“John‘s been asking about you.” said my best friend as I almost dropped the drinks I had ordered for us. Setting the cups down on the wooden table, I took a seat in front of her, quickly growing annoyed by her mischievous smirk.

“Why?” I asked, taking a long sip of the ice tea I had in my hand, before looking back down at the textbook in front of me.

“I don‘t know, I‘m not John.” she said peering over her cup, eyes narrowing at me. “Do you like him?”

Choking on the ice cube I was biting on in my mouth, I coughed before looking back up at the girl through blurry eyes. “No! I don‘t even know him, when I met him I was drunk.” I said, avoiding her eyes.

“I think you like him.” She said seriously, tightening the ponytail behind her head. “I mean, he‘s cute, has an amazing voice, and is pretty sexy. I can‘t blame you.”

“Alright, I think he‘s cute. There you go.” I said remembering the tall lanky guy. “But, there is a difference in thinking someone is hot and liking that hot person.”

“So he‘s hot.” She winked at me, making me roll my eyes as I looked around the coffee shop at anything but her. The shop wasn’t as crowded as the first day I got here, but students sat at their tables, much like me, studying their textbooks. I was supposed to be studying for one of the tests that was coming up at the end of this week, but Brookelle was easily here to distract me and my mind kept creeping back onto the event that was about to have another anniversary in a month.

Damn it.

“You guys wouldn‘t look that bad together.” She continued, making my mouth gape open at her words. The boy was way out of my league, I didn’t see it. But I still couldn’t help but feel a blush run across my cheeks, bringing the cup to my lips to I tried to hide it.

“How can you say that?” I asked, taking the cup away from my lips. I stared down at my hands a little embarrassed, as my bangs covered the little smile I couldn’t help but place on my face. “I don‘t know him, Brookie. He could be some kind of top secret agent that rapes girls for a living on the side!”

“I‘ve been to some of my cousin’s band practices, and he comes over to my house with Garrett sometimes. He is a cool guy! Lead singer, El, that’s pretty hot!” She nudged me with her index finger, a smile playing her lips. Putting the thoughts into my head, I could see the cute crooked grin of the green eyed boy, making me blush deeper.

“Brook, he barely knows me! He probably thinks I‘m some washed up girl, who drowns her sorrows in alcohol and cigarettes. Not that attractive! Plus, I don’t need to drag anyone into that.” I said truthfully looking across the table at my best friend, most of it was completely true.

“Elizabeth. You are gorgeous, funny, weird, and got nothing on any other girl. John wouldn‘t ask about you if you didn‘t make some kind of imprint in his life.” She said placing her hand on top of mine; her voice was serious as it matched her eyes. I nodded with a small smile, as she brought out her cell phone, tapping buttons before holding it to her ear.

“Who’re you calling?” I asked as I grabbed my highlighter once more in my hand, marking anything that I found important. Looking up from the book with raised eyebrows, she looked over at me mouthing ‘John’ before she began to say hello into the phone. However, she didn’t manage to as I grabbed her wrist trying to get the phone out of her grasp.

“Ellie, let go!” She said as I continued repeating ‘no’. We were both now pulling back and forth on her wrist, and I knew there would be a bruise blossoming soon on her skin, but I continued to fight for the phone.

“John, hold on!” she yelled before pushing me off of her, she mouthed for me to get it together, before placing the phone back to her ear. “Sorry, back.” She smiled at me, sticking out her tongue.

I rolled my eyes, as I fixed my shirt and sat back down in the booth, I began to bite on the end of the highlighter. She sat cross-legged across the table from me as she talked to John, and I tried my best to ignore it, knowing that this was going to end badly.

“Great! We’ll see you in twenty? Alright, bye.” She hung up the phone, before beaming up at me. “John‘s taking us bowling.”

“Oh joy,” I said allowing my body to fall back into the booth.

“Geeze, don‘t get too excited, all of the guys are coming, actually. They just finished practicing.” She said sarcastically, and began to pick up her unmarked sheets of homework. Forcing myself up, I followed in her footsteps outside of the shop where we were instantly hit by the hazy Arizona sun, as we stood on the sidewalk.

Adjusting my bag’s strap on my shoulder, I crossed my arms as I waited for a familiar car to pull up. Brookelle stood at my side, rambling on about how her first date with my brother had been to a bowling alley also, and all I wanted to do was grab her by her small shoulders, and shake her. This wasn’t a date! Especially, if my brother was going to be there, along with some band members of whatever band John and Garrett were a part of.

I sighed as I squeezed the bridge of my nose; this was just going to be great. John probably thought of me as some psychotic girl who had issues, considering that he probably heard the fight Brookelle and I had over her phone earlier, and then the night a few weeks ago when I was drunk. I was just not stable, at all.

“Here they are!” Brookelle squealed from next to me, as a white van pulled up in front of us. I couldn’t help but stare down at my feet, as the smile crept across my face once more at the fact that John was the one driving, staring at me through the windshield with that adorable crooked smile. Butterflies soared through my stomach as I heard him call for us to get in, and we quickly did so. These reactions needed to stop.

I walked around the side of the van, where I opened the door to meet the smile of my brother who sat in the center of the bench. He waved to me as everyone greeted Brookelle, and those that knew me yelled “John‘s tub girl!“ which was starting to get on my nerves. It was a little embarrassing to say the least, considering John was sitting in the seat ahead of me, and I couldn’t even find myself to look up at him, but relaxed a bit as I heard him laugh.

“Alright, guys who don‘t know who she is-” I could hear Garrett say from behind me, as I shifted in my seat to see Garrett pointing at me and the other two boys following where it pointed. I instantly recognized the longhaired boy, he was one who had tried to get me drunk at John’s party, but the way he looked didn’t make me worried, as he smiled at me.

“This is Ellie, D‘s sister.” They actually called my brother D? I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Small fry, this is Pat.” he pointed to the boy at his left, the one from the party.

“Yeah, I remember her. Sorry about the whole thing at the party, I was pretty trashed.” he said rubbing the back of his neck embarrassed. I smiled at him and nodded, telling him it was okay, and he instantly perked up.

“Then this guy,” Garrett continued, pointing to the guy on his right, “is Kennedy, but we call him Kenny.” Kennedy managed a small wave as he continued to stare at me, his eyebrows furrowing as he did, before I cleared my throat. He instantly took his gaze from me, and I couldn’t help but smile. However, somewhere inside me, I felt like I knew the guy for some reason. The dark hair and light brown eyes, sure, it could have been anyone, but the feeling inside me said otherwise.

“Turn up the radio, Jared.” Brookelle patted the redhead in the front passenger seat, as he nodded and turned up the volume. Soon music was blaring throughout the car, and all the guys sang along to the lyrics, as I sat being pushed into the car door as my brother tried to avoid Brookelle from hitting him in the process of her dancing.

Shaking my head, I crossed my arms as I listened to the music nodding a bit, watching the scene pass by. My attention was quickly brought back to the guys in the car as I watched Jared, Garrett, and Pat dramatically sing Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey to each other. As the music began to pick up, even I had joined them as we all sang the rest of the song out the open windows of the car. My brother pushed me back and forth with him, as he tried to get me to dance along with him and his girlfriend, but I would push him off with a smile as my eyes lingered up to the review mirror.

Meeting the green eyes of the driver, I saw my smiling reflection in the mirror behind his, as he winked at me. I saw as the girl in the mirror flush a bright red the same color that matched the messy haired boy, before my eyes went down to my jeans, my hair falling in my face. I looked back up to see his attention turned back to the road, as he drummed his hands on the steering wheel to the beat.

---

It hadn’t been a long drive to the bowling alley, where we all piled out of the car and rushed into the neon lit building. My brother had paid for my game along with Brookelle’s and his own, and received the ugly used bowling shoes; thankfully I had worn sneakers today. This was the only part of bowling that I hated, the shoes that were used by millions of different people. I guess you could say I had a foot fetish.

Shoes on and bowling balls in hand, we all were now sitting around our lane, watching as Jared went to throw the ball down the polished floor. He was completely confident, as he let the ball go and we all watched as it barely made it down the lane before rolling into the gutter.

“Gutter ball!” Pat and I declared as we laughed, watching as Jared huffed before rolling his eyes at us.

“Well, I‘d like to see you do better, Ellie!” he stretched out my name with a smile, as I got up for my turn.

Not caring much for what ball I got, I picked up one, and turned around to face the group of people behind me. I raised my eyebrows at Jared, and I could hear one of them tell Jared he was going to get served over my shoulder. Taking a few steps, I let the ball go and watched it make it to the end of the lane before swerving to the side, knocking over one pin. Jared went into an uproar behind me, as he made a scene about the pin I hit.

“At least I hit one!” I countered on him, as John made his way up to where I was standing. I raised my eyebrows at him, as I watched him pick up a smaller ball then I had previously thrown, as I continued to look at him confused considering it was still my turn. He weighed it in his hands before handing it to me with a smile.

“This should be better, for your size.” He explained as he handed me the blue marble ball, ignoring his eyes I managed to nod. Expecting him to go back to where he was sitting, he smirked at me as I began to get ready to let the ball go. “Here,” I heard him over my shoulder, before he hesitantly wrapped his hand around my own that was holding the ball, demonstrating how to throw the ball. “You‘re throwing it; you have to let it flow.”

“Okay,” I managed, as the electricity of his touch surged through my body and I could feel the blush coming back on my face.

Gently placing his hand on my hip, we both swung back my arm and I easily let the ball go as I watched it fly down the lane, knocking over the remaining pins. I couldn’t hold it back, as the happiness came over me, I screamed an ‘I told you’ at Jared before pumping my fists above me head.

I could hear the rest of them laughing as I walked over to where Jared sat stunned, and hugged him as I laughed at myself. I hadn’t gone bowling since middle school, yet, play a sport since then, and as conceded as it sounded, I missed winning.

My brother made Jared and I shake on a truce, which was when Kennedy seemed to shoot straight up from his seat. “I know where I‘ve seen you before!” he exclaimed as I narrowed my eyes in confusion. ”You‘re the girl who got escorted off the soccer field by a police officer when I was younger!”

What a wonderful way to put it, Kennedy.