before the pain | luke (JATP)

XXVI

Mila felt strangely awkward as she placed herself in Reggie's car that Thursday morning, he handed her the coffee as she sipped from it quietly. Reggie of course noticed this and sighed.

"What's on your mind?" Reggie asked, nervous that it was him who had caused her to be awkward that morning, Mila nodded as she smiled gently to her friend, making sure he did not worry. "Just... A lot on my mind, what about you? How's everything going with-"

Reggie interrupted: "Please don't mention my parents, they are yelling once again about them wanting to move, which is ridiculous, they just want to move away from each other" He admitted which made Mila look down at her feet.

"I talked with Aera yesterday," Mila said in almost a quiet voice, Reggie raised an eyebrow, trying to stay focused on the route as he looked at her. "What did she say?" Mila leaned back and repeated the whole talk in her mind.

"Well we're on good terms again... no worrying for a giant lesbian murder that's after me yet" This made Reggie laugh before drinking his coffee.

"Well, are her and Caroline you know?" Mila nodded as she leaned back in her seat. "They are taking it slow, but I think you can wave goodbye to your crush Reg" Reggie took one of his hands to his heart and faked a tear.

"Oh how my dreams have been crushed" They both laughed as they drove towards Alex's house, Mila yawned before looking at her friend with a bright smile. "Aera and I talked, how about on Saturday, we have a small get together?"

Reggie raised an eyebrow as he parked the car in front of Alex's house: "A get-together?" Reggie asked as he had heard her wrong. He of course remembered that Saturday was her birthday and Luke had been working on her birthday gift ever since she had mentioned it was her birthday.

"How many are we talking about and would your parents even allow that?" He asked with a serious face, she nodded with a small smirk. "Oh, I will make them say yes" Reggie widened his eyes as he looked at her.

"I am sometimes afraid that me and the boys are a bad influence, what happened to the quiet shy girl?" Reggie asked, which made Mila laugh, and ended up shaking her head at him. She had of course noticed she had changed... If this change was good or bad, she did not know yet, but one thing was sure, she no longer felt alone.

As Alex, Reggie and Mila drove to school, their talk was set on the Halloween movie night that they were going to have. They walked towards locker 272 when they agreed their following list of movies would only consist of one being the nightmare before Christmas.

"Cool, are we going to be at Milianna's house?" Mila of course didn't think that her heart would beat so fast just by hearing his voice, she turned around calming herself as she did, as her eyes met his and they both smiled, she giggled shyly and nodded.

"Yea... I Uhm I think we can be at my place" Mila answered, Luke gave her a warm smile before ruffling her hair. "Don't be so nervous, we will behave" He winked at her before the bell rang. "See you at lunch" Bobby smiled at her before they turned around and walked back to the math classrooms.

Mila turned around only to find Alex and Reggie smirking, Mila lifted an eyebrow at this. "Don't you have class?" Mila asked, as she rolled her eyes, taking Alex's hand, who as he walked with her, looked back at Reggie who gave two thumbs up.

They placed themselves in their seats, the teacher began teaching about some boring time period, which Mila had already forgotten all about when a note landed on her notebook. She looked at Alex, who smiled at her before writing down in his notes what the teacher taught. Mila opened the note, carefully not to get caught.

I noticed something

Mila narrowed her eyebrows to the text as she wrote back to him.