Black Diamonds

Jackson must have left pretty early. I lifted my head from my pillow and opened my eyes around eight in the morning and I was by myself, sleeping on top of my still made bed, his body’s indent still left beside me. I slid under the covers, ready to fall back asleep. Before I dozed off again, I checked my phone on the nightstand beside me. There was a text from Jackson. ‘Left before any of your friends were even awake. You’re welcome. See you soon’ it read.

I smiled, definitely feeling some relief. To be honest, I hardly even remember falling asleep yesterday. God, I must have been an awful host. Who just falls asleep on a guest. Realizing this, I picked back up my phone and typed out, ‘Sorry I fell asleep on you.’ I tossed it over at the end of my bed, assuming I wasn’t going to get a text for a couple more hours. And I was perfectly okay with that. I snuggled back down into my sheets.

Not too much longer after I had fallen asleep, my room was barged into. “You little slut!” I heard being called. I managed to groan and slam my pillow over my head, mentally trying to make the door go back to being untouched.

Unfortunately, I failed, for there was a little bounce to my bed as someone sat at the end of my bed. “It’s eleven, wake up.” The voice was Sloane. I could feel her nearing me.

I guess I did sleep longer than I felt. I was still exhausted and in a groggy stupor. Sloane pried the pillow from my fingers and tossed it aside. I rolled over onto my back and looked up at her. She was flashing a big, toothy grin at me, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

“Kayla told me she saw that you and Jackson were in here sleeping together,” she disclosed, still smiling down at me.

Sitting up, I let out a small laugh covered with a sigh. “Did she mention that we were both fully clothed and actually sleeping.”

Her expression changed. It went from an intrigued and excited smirk to a fallen grimace. “I guess she forgot to say that part.” This time her voice was more disappointed and carried less than a tint of wickedness.

I let out a chuckle and patted her on the back teasingly. “So the date must have been a real drag if you fell asleep during it.”

She reminded me that I had to check my phone. It could have actually sucked beyond belief and I wouldn’t have even know it yet. I crawled past her to grab my phone. The latest message from Jackson read, ‘Don’t worry about it. You seemed pretty worn out when I got there. You’re cute when you’re sleeping.’

I smiled to myself. “It definitely wasn’t,” I responded to Sloane, setting my phone back down.

She let out a sigh. “I wish I could have seen him.”

Right when she said that, I remembered what Jackson had told me yesterday. Feeling spontaneous, I just flat out said it. “Hey, would you want to go to a concert? Jackson’s band is playing a show in a couple days and he told me to invite you guys. If you wanted to go that is.”

Sloane’s eyes lit up. “Oh! I want to go! Do we get to meet the band?”

I let out laugh. “Of course you do.”

She pumped her fist into the air excitedly. “I finally get to meet his friends!” I just laughed again.

Later that day, I invited both Renee and Kayla to come with us as well. Both of them agreed, but Kayla could only come on one condition. I already knew what was coming before she said it. Jacob had to come along. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if he just wanted to always be around her or if he just felt left out and lonely too much. Most of the time, I doubted that those assumptions were true and he probably just didn’t trust her. Probably why she couldn’t talk to Brian, too.

That was the maximum amount of people I wanted to come. I didn’t to be in that large of a group. I hardly wanted Jacob to come because he could be a bit of a whiny downer at these sort of events. His arm was always tightly wrapped around Kayla whenever we wanted to go explore and she would have to say, “I’ll catch up with you later.” I could already see it happening at the concert. We get to go say hello to all of the guys and Jacob and Kayla will stay back in the audience, waiting for all of the opening bands to play. Who could thrive in a relationship like that?

The rest of the day passed on slowly. Everyone around the house was tired from running around in the sun all day yesterday and staying up late. Most of them had red, sunburnt noses and shoulders. Regardless, they sat on the porch still. Feeling refreshed from my long slumber and lay-low day yesterday, all I could do was join them outside.

Nick and Trey threw back some beers, Renee between them, sipping on some juice through a bendy straw. She toyed with the straw between her fingertips, obviously feeling uncomfortable. If I haven’t said it before or if it wasn’t picked up before, Renee is very against drinking, smoking, and premarital sex. She wasn’t a stickler or something, she was just pressed into her from birth from her parents’ strict Christianity. She really didn’t mind if you did it around her. But something about Trey and Nick doing it made her nervous. I think it’s because they have been known to be irresponsible. Well, actually, they’re the definition of irresponsible.

Nick could hardly keep a job. It’s not that he even got fired, he quit and made up ridiculous excuses as to why he did so. Then he just kept to himself in his room and wrote. No one even knew what he wrote, but three years later and he is still on the first chapter. One of my old friends read it once and said it was no better than an average high school graduate.

I guess Trey was the more responsible of the two. He had more attainable dreams and actually put some effort into them. He could keep a job, he would just complain about it constantly or call in sick. I’m surprised they don’t think he has some immune disease by now.

Ironically, we got on the subjects of jobs when Kayla said she was gonna try to actually go to college for psychology like she has always wanted to. Everyone applauded her except for one person. Of course.

“Kayla would be the first one to go to college,” Nick snickered at her. Renee shot him a look. Once he noticed, he added in, “Well, besides you. That was a given.”

Renee giggled it off, being more relaxed about it than Kayla. Kayla jeered, “What’s that supposed to mean, Nick?”

He only laughed again. Then he said, “You’ve always been the overachiever of the group.”

We could all practically see the smoke pouring from Kayla’s ears at this point. “Going to college doesn’t make me an overachiever. It makes me responsible. Being an overachiever isn’t even a bad thing. It’s better than being whatever you are. And whatever group you are talking about, you are not in it.”

Like always, Kayla left. I was about to go after her once it began to get awkward out there. But Trey broke it up. “So Lacey, do you still want to go to college.”

“Someday,” I replied wistfully. “Becoming even the most unknown movie director still feels like light years away.”

Nick scoffed. I turned my head towards him abruptly. “So that’s why you’re fucking that actor. Climbing your way up the celebrity latter. Starting out with this D-Lister.”

I began to grow tired of Nick’s caustic remarks at his attempt at showing off his pretentious attitude that he claims not to have. I just let it go for now, looking back down at my cup of water and spinning around the ice with my straw. He knew damn well that I wasn’t fucking Jackson.

“Lay off, Nick. Didn’t you have enough entertainment messing with Kayla?” Renee groaned.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Nick assured. “I just don’t see who gets so low to to that in the real world.”

That was the last dig Nick was going to throw my way when it came to Jackson. “And I don’t see how someone who has spent three years on the same five sentences of a story is going to amount to something more than a movie critic in that schizophrenic, pompous mind of his.”

I still didn’t bother to look back up at him. I could just hear his chair slide out and his feet walk over to the door. I knew he wasn’t offended. Someone with a head the size of the planet couldn’t let one comment from me get to him. The door shut behind him before I looked up, grinning at Renee. She rolled her eyes at me, but laughed.

“Finally someone said it,” Trey remarked. Renee and I both looked at him, shocked. We knew that deep down Trey was sick and tired of Nick’s attitude, but he never expected him to say it. Especially to us. Especially to me. “You might have been the only one to say that. Well, besides Kayla that is.”

I shrugged. “He needed to hear it.”

He took another sip from his bottle before standing up, ready to leave. “I’ve been thinking about getting my own place. At least a little distance between Nick and I. Maybe it’d be good for us.”

They always acted like they were in some sort of a relationship or something. Still I was interested, so I didn’t blow it off. “Why don’t you just do it then?”

“‘Cause,” he said then finishing off his beer and tossing it into the recycling bin we had out here. “I’m all he’s got at this point.”