You Don't Decide

“You don’t think that was a bit harsh?” My best friend Jaime screamed when he threw open the front door to my house only moments after I had arrived. I couldn’t stay at school. Not after that. Jaime must have seen what happened and followed me home. We were both out of breath from running but Jaime was still able to shout at me, must have been a burst of adrenaline.

“Stay out of it, Hime. It’s none of your business.” I told him, walking into the kitchen to get some water. I wasn’t out of shape at all, don’t get me wrong, but I live almost a mile from the school and I sprinted the whole way there. I don’t know how Jaime isn’t dead right now.

“How are you acting so calm about all of this?! You literally just ran into your soul mate out there, Vic! You’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with that kid and you just swore at him and ran out of the building! Then, to add insult to injury, you send your brother to go scare the kid! What if I had done that when I met Jenna?! You think that the two of us would be who we are today?! No. And you just pushed that kid so far out of your life he’s gonna need a grappling hook to get back in.” Jaime aggressively took my glass of water and threw it in my face. That was when I got pissed.

“I didn’t send Mike to do anything! He hates these stupid bands as much as I do! I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with that kid? Like my parents were supposed to spend the rest of their lives together?” I screamed at him. He started to say something with an apologetic look on his face but I cut him off. “Like Mike is supposed to spend the rest of his life with… Oh yeah… Nobody!? These bands are fucking pointless!” I walked over to the front door, grabbing his arm while I walked. I dragged him to the front door and swung it open. “Now leave!”

“I would.” He said, staring at the door, “but there’s someone in the way.” I turned to look at the door and saw the kid from the hallway; my ‘soul mate’. My mood somewhat lightened when I saw him. What? No It didn’t. I was still pissed. “Hi! I’m Jaime! What’s your name?” Jaime shook his arm from my grasp and shook his hand, pulling him in the doorway and shutting the door behind him.

“As much as I love the second grade introductions, I’m not here to talk to you. I’m here to talk to him.” The boy said pointing a finger at my chest. Suddenly it was like Jaime wasn’t even in the room and he was completely focused on me. “Look, I get that you don’t like this whole idea, and after what happened today I can admit I’m not too fond of it either. So I’m willing to make you a deal. My parents love this kind of shit. They love the whole idea of the bands. They also love the fact that mine went off today. They want to meet my ‘soul mate’ and I don’t have to hear to tell them that he’s a selfish prick. So you don’t have to like me. You don’t even have to talk to me. Except you have to spend at least one day a week at my house, pretending to be completely smitten with me, for their sake.”

Before I tell you what happened next, you should probably know something about me. I don’t take orders very well. I don’t listen to anyone that isn’t my mother or my brother and even that’s iffy sometimes. I’m very much my own person and I don’t take well to being pushed around and being told what to do. So when some scrawny white boy with an all knowing piece of plastic on his wrist comes in here and tells me that I have to pretend to be in love with him and that I have to spend time with him I should be pissed right? I should probably sock him one right in the face. I should knock that adorable little smirk right off his face. I should put a little black in those stunning blue eyes. But for probably the same reason that I chose those adjectives to describe him, I found myself saying,

“What’s in it for me?”

“I’ll leave you alone. I won’t bother you about these stupid bands that you hate so much. I won’t tell you how we’re completely meant for each other or how we’re perfect for each other or any of that other soap opera shit. I’ll let you live your life and I’ll live mine and we only have to deal with each other one day a week. So what’ll it be? Deal with my incessant Noah Sparks monologues? Or spend one day a week being the perfect soul mate in front of my parents?”

“I don’t like being told what to do.”

“I don’t like being made a fool of in the middle of the hallway.”

There was a show down. A definite tension rose in the air that Jaime could have cut with a knife if he felt like it. We stared at each other, trying to figure out which of us was going to back down, for what felt like an eternity. I could have said no. For all I know this kid was bluffing. He wouldn’t really bother me every day, would he? He’d move on. His band would most likely reset just like my dad’s did. He could have been bluffing, but I didn’t care.

“You’ve got yourself a deal…”

“Kellin.”

“Kellin.” I repeated back at him. The way it sounded tasted good in my mouth.

“Here’s my number. Call me before 5. You’re coming over at 6.” He slipped a piece of paper in my hand and then let himself out. I was dumbfounded. I just stared at the door, mouth dropped, until Jaime started cackling beside me.

“I like him. He’s got spunk.” Jaime said.

“He’s got something.” I replied. He’s got a date. Tonight. With Me.