Best Friends Forever

13

The next week passed in what I hoped to be the start of a more uneventful school year. I had always hated drama - it never ended well. So now that things were finally calming down, I had a much more optimistic outlook for how the rest of the year would pan out, but little did I know.

Every two weeks, my family, Jason's, and Lucas and Addy's rotated hosting a get-together for all three families. It was tradition, something they had started when we were just mere children, but it was something that I was very thankful hadn't died.

This week it was at Addy and Lucas's. I had just finished changing out of my school uniform into a more casual outfit when I heard my mom's voice yell from downstairs, "Leila! We're going to be late!"

I put on a quick coat of mascara and headed downstairs. We all loaded into a car and started our drive over, my parents continuing a conversation they'd already started before we left.

"Talia, don't say anything to them," my dad said. "Seriously. It's not your place."

"I know, Toby," my mom responded. "But they can't keep leaving for weeks on end. I get it, their jobs involve a lot of travelling. But they have a seventeen year old child that they've been leaving home alone for years."

"Seventeen is almost an adult, Tal," he said. "I'm sure Jason's fine."

She sighed, but let it go. "Okay, you're right."

"But do what you want, because you talk a big game, but I know you'd never have the courage to actually say anything."

"That's not true!"

"We both know it's true. In your head you're ready to give them shit, but in real life you would just be like 'oh my god hi Julia hi Justin I love your parenting style you guys are doing amazing'."

My mom crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "Fake news," she said.

"Okay, let's pretend I'm not completely correct, as per usual," he laughed.

My mom turned back to look at me. "Just so you know, Leila. You're dad is a smartass know-it-all robot who thinks he's always right when he would actually be lost without me."

"Woah woah woah, I never said I wouldn't be lost without you," he said. "But I am always right, and that's just an undisputable fact."

"You know what else is an undisputable fact?" my mom asked.

"What?"

"The fact that chocolate is delicious is the most undisputable fact of all time, yet you continue to try to dispute it."

My dad wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Chocolate is terrible."

"Agreed," I piped in, and my dad reached back to give me a high five. "Chocolate is for suckers, sorry mom."

"Whatever," she grumbled. "I'm just going to find myself a new, non-robotic, chocolate-loving family that'll accept me as one of them. Good luck living without me, losers."

"Oh no!" my dad said sarcastically. "What are we going to do without her, Leila? Who's going to eat all the food in the house if she's not here?"

"I hate you," my mom laughed right as we pulled into Lucas and Addy's house.

Their house looked perfect as always. There wasn't a strand of grass out of place on their perfectly manicured lawns, the plants such a striking color of green they must've been watering them with holy water. The outside of the large home was perfectly illuminated, highlighting the beautiful architecture of the mansion.

Uncle Jake and Aunt Jasmine had always given off an aura of perfection. Everything about them, their family, their children, their lives, seemed so undeniably perfect that everyone in their general vicinity felt like hot messes around them. Even Lucas and Addy has turned out pretty close to perfect to the general public. Perfect grades, perfect manners, bright futures. It would've been intimidating if they weren't such a genuinely nice family, and although we weren't related by blood, I thought of them as a part of my family anyway.