Fall From Grace

Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be in Johnny’s bedroom. That being said, it was a lot different than I would have imagined. There were a few posters of various bands that I guess he liked. The bed wasn’t made up and the room itself was bordering on messy, but I liked it. It fit him well and things being too clean freaked me out anyway. I walked in the door and plopped down on the bed, making Johnny laugh.

“Go ahead, make yourself comfortable then,” he said and I smiled.

“Got it. Now, what movie did you intend on making me watch?” I asked.

He opened a door underneath his TV and pulled out a DVD at random. It turned out to be Dazed and Confused, one of my favorites so I had no problem with the choice. Johnny put it in the player and turned around, looking a little uncomfortable before sinking down on the bed next to me.

“Sorry, nowhere else to sit,” he said.

“It’s okay, I’m pretty sure friends can sit by each other. Now hush your face, the movie is starting.”

With that, we both fell silent and watched as the first scene started playing.

~x~

We must have fallen asleep during the movie, because the next thing I knew I was opening my eyes to sunlight coming in through the tiny window in Johnny’s room.

I started to sit up, but I realized that Johnny had his arms wrapped around me as he slept. He actually looked pretty cute while he was sleeping so I decided not to wake him. Instead, I lay there pretending to be asleep until he finally woke up on his own about ten minutes later. It was probably less awkward that way anyway.

When he woke up and realized the position he was in, he quickly let go of me and sat up. I made a show of waking up so he wouldn’t know I’d been lying there awake. I opened my eyes and stretched before sitting up, stifling a yawn.

“So this is weird,” I said.

“Good morning to you too,” he said, smiling at me. I preferred his smile over the scowl I usually received from him.

“Well it is weird. We weren’t even friends yesterday and now I’m waking up in your bed,” I said. I really did think it was weird. I didn’t know exactly how to act around him now.

“You know what we have to do now, right?” he asked, getting to his feet and going over to his closet. I looked away as he tugged his shirt over his head and pulled on a fresh one.

“What’s that?” I asked after he was fully dressed again.

“Go get breakfast.”

“You, my friend, are a lot more awesome than I ever thought possible,” I said, getting up from the bed. I went into the bathroom to freshen up and throw and a little make up I was glad I had thrown into my purse. I frowned when I realized I didn’t have clean clothes to change into.

“I need to borrow a shirt,” I said as I stepped back in the room. Johnny nodded and pulled another one from his closet. I thanked him and went to change. The shirt was a little big on me, but not so much that I couldn’t deal with it.

~x~

As we rode in Johnny’s car to Ihop, I couldn’t help but think how at this rate, our sentence would be done and over with a lot faster than I had anticipated. I just wondered if this friend thing would last after we got the okay from the judge.

“To Ihop!” I yelled suddenly, making Johnny jump and the car swerved a tiny bit.

“You’re fucking crazy! You and Jimmy would probably get along pretty well,” he said, shaking his head at me.

“You shake your head at me a lot,” I pointed out, digging through my purse for my sunglasses and putting them on.

“You’re a little strange, that’s all,” Johnny said, looking at me a little nervously and smiling, like he was testing out the teasing thing to make sure I wasn’t going to go psycho on him or something.

I reached over and punched him in the arm lightly before bursting into laughter.

“Yeah, I am a little strange. I’ll give you that.”

~x~

Fifteen minutes later we were seated at our table at Ihop waiting on our food.

“I can’t believe you ordered chocolate chip pancakes. You’re like a little kid stuck inside a teenager’s body,” Johnny said, sipping on his orange juice.

“Hey, I have fun. What’s the point of life if you aren’t going to enjoy the little things?” I responded.

“You’re probably the person that makes a beeline for the swings as soon as you step foot in a park,” he said and he was right of course.

The Dr. Pepper I had just taken a drink of almost came back out of my mouth as I laughed.

“Dude, it’s scary how well you seem to know me,” I told him.

“Maybe it’s a sign of all we’ve been missing out on by hating each other all these years.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said thoughtfully.

The waitress came back with our food then and we dug into it.

“This is so good,” I said as I took the first bite of my pancakes.

Johnny looked kind of jealous as he started shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth.

“Next time I’ll have the pancakes. The eggs aren’t that great,” he said, frowning a little before he continued eating.

I laughed at him and reached over to his plate, grabbing a piece of bacon, and taking a big bite of it.

“Okay, number one rule; never steal food off a man’s plate. It’s so not cool,” Johnny said.

“Quit being a big baby,” I said with a laugh.

I cut one of my pancakes in half and plopped part of it on Johnny’s plate. “I think this more than makes up for it.”

“Okay I guess it does,” he said as he shoved the entire pancake half in his mouth at once.

We finished up eating and, after a short argument about why he couldn’t pay for mine, we both paid for our part and left the restaurant. I still couldn’t get over how crazy it was that Johnny and I were trying to be friends after all this time.