Separately Together

Chapter Twenty-Six: 2/2

"Do you want to come?" Finnic looks over his shoulder at me with a look of excitement on his face. It wasn't often he would invite me along with him and Harley on their outings.

Mama had been in one of her moods lately and she hardly ever came out of the bedroom. Maybe he was feeling bad for me, surely he didn't want his twelve-year-old sister tagging along.

"Finnic I'm fine," I say turning back to the book I was reading. I felt their eyes on me so I turn my back to them so that they couldn't see the sadness that spread throughout my face, at the thought of being left alone yet again.

"You're coming," Harley says simply as if he heard absolutely nothing I said, or that he did and he didn't care at all.

"I said I was okay," I say looking back at them a little aggravated that they were ignoring me but also a little excited by the aspect of getting out of this place.

"You said you were 'fine'." Finnic assesses and I realize my mess up.

"You're coming," Harley repeats himself, stating I didn't have a choice in the matter.

"It will be good for you to get out of the house, Maddie." He says using my nickname from him.

"Are there going to be a lot of people there?" I ask feeling a little nervous now.

They were planning on going to the local drive-in and watching a movie, with some friends of theirs. I'm not sure why they wanted me to come along.

"Just a couple of friends. Dixon's coming." Finnic adds. Dixon was Harley's little sister; she was a good bit younger than me, but it did make me feel better that I would be the only kid tagging along.

"Okay," I say my nerves settling a little. What was the worst that could happen?

~.~.~.~.~

The movie was PG thank God, I had been pondering over the idea and was wondering if my brother would be smart enough to know to keep it PG for Dixon.

I sat in the back seat, she was a lot more talkative than me, but it was always lighthearted questions, and I found the conversations we made to be decent.

Harley and Finnic sat in front of the vehicle with a couple of other boys their age. All of them laughed, not even paying attention to the movie, and part of me thinks that they had just come here to hang out instead of paying attention to the movie. Maybe that's why they wanted to bring us along, to have an excuse to tell mom.

Mom would have told Finnic no if she would have known there were going to be girls involved, which had joined the circle a few minutes ago.

He didn't care about me getting out of the house, he wanted an excuse. I roll my eyes at his childishness. Somehow, I feel like I'm the older sibling.

"I'm thirsty." Dixon glances at me with big doe-like eyes. Was she expecting me to get her something?

Oh, the eyes are like baby dolls.

"Oh. Okay. I'll go get you something." I open the door and eye the concession stands, glancing back at my brother.

"Where are you going, Maddie?" He asks with his arm wrapped around a girl, I had seen her before, but I don't remember her name.

"To get a drink," I say shyly. Not like all of the eyes on me.

"Here." He starts digging in his pocket and hands me a ten-dollar bill. "Get me one too."

I didn't bother telling him that it was for Dixon. I could just share if I get thirsty.

"Okay." He turns back around and starts talking to the girl again.

I keep my head tucked down on the way to the stand, waiting in the line behind a good bit of people. It was fairly packed out today and the panic settled down in my stomach it had got better late, but it was because I was simply better at hiding it.

I was the next person in line when a boy tapped my shoulder. "Hey." He says, he was my brother's age.

"Oh, hey," I say shyly tucking my hair behind my ear.

I go to turn back around when he doesn't continue to talk, but he grabs my shoulder and turns me back towards him. My eyes grow wide at the contact. He lets me go and coughs awkwardly. "What's your name?"

"None of your goddamn business," Harley says as he comes up beside me.

I turn back around and step up to the counter, ignoring the shivering boy talking to Harley. He was scolding him, telling him I was a kid.

When I get the two cokes and a bag of cotton candy, I turn back around to see the boy walking off still shivering.

"Thanks," I say, normally it was Finnic scaring off all of the boys that try to talk to me. "You don't have to tell Finnic, might save us a visit from the sheriff." I chuckle and Harley holds out a five-dollar bill towards me, it wasn't a secret that the Calebs, were on the poorer scale. We did have a lot of money, but we had more than Harley's mom.

"I asked Dixon if she wanted a drink and she said that you were getting her one. Here." He holds out the five dollars closer I just walk past him, waving my hand in a 'don't worry about it' wave.

"We are going to share it." He catches up to me.

"Still, take it." He says holding out the five-dollar bill again. I snatch it out of his hand and push it into his shirt pocket. He glanced down at my hand shoving the money into his pocket and grabs my wrist. "You're just as stubborn as your brother." He shakes his head and then lets me go. "If you keep eating all of those sweets, sweets your teeth are going to fall out."

I smile at the nickname thinking at it suits me fairly well since I am always baking whenever we have the ingredients to make muffins or cakes.

I make it back to the car that Finnic saved to get for years now, sliding back into the back seat with Dixon who was fast asleep. All of that for nothing, I roll my eyes and take a sip of the coke ad to open up the cotton candy and take a bite out of the sweetness, letting it melt in my mouth. It had been a while since I had had cotton candy and it was just as good as I remember it, and I didn't care if they were using us as an alibi to flirt with girls, I was having an enjoyable time.

Dixon winded up laying her head in my lap and I covered her up with my jacket because her arms had goosebumps all over them, she didn't bring a jacket with her, maybe her mama just didn't know it was going to be cold tonight.

I let the lie settle in my brain, instead of thinking about how Harley is always wearing raggedy clothes with holes in them, and they always smelled like smoke.

Even now the eight-year-old's hair reeked of the same smell, I heard my mom tell Harley to wash his clothes one day because of 'cigarette smoke' is that what this smell was? Whatever it was it was very unpleasant, but it didn't bother me too bad because I liked Dixon, she was the only reason I came along tonight, and I had fun.

Later on, that night we dropped Dixon and Harley off at home, and I let her keep my jacket. Even though my brain tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for why her mother wouldn't have sent her a jacket and it's wintertime I knew it was because she didn't have one. I had three, how could I possibly wear three jackets at the same time? it was a little big on her, but I thought it made her look even more like a baby doll.

As I lay staring at the ceiling that night, I thought of something that shocked me.

When Harley walker grabbed my wrist ... it felt good.

I think I like him. Like, like him.

Maybe even love him just a little bit ...

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