H: Hell Freezes Over Once a Year

“Fioooooooona! Where aaaaaaaaaare you?”

Fly chuckled a little to herself as she heard her sisters looking around for her. She closed the closet door and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket to see if Heath had replied to her last text. Another Sunday at home, babysitting her sisters and Fly decided that to beat her nostalgia of looking at old pictures, to play hide and seek with them. It definitely was helping her take her mind off of all of the times that Jared had bugged her for the past week and a half.

Ever since that first ill-fated session where they were supposed to work on their project in the library, he’s seemed to go out of his way to make her life miserable. If he wasn’t purposely blocking her way to go in or out of a classroom, he would knock her books out of her hand, purposely kick soccer balls at her head in PE, and jostle her backpack out of her arms in the stairwell, anything that would make him seem like an 8 year old.

Ely has been trying to tell him to knock it off, but Fly intervenes and says that it isn’t necessary for him to try and stick up for her. It was her battle and that something that she had to get through herself….even if Jared was acting like a whiny baby.

Fly’s grip tightened on her cell phone and her hand shook violently as she thought about all of the things that he had done to her. He was acting less mature than Mallory and Lilly! It was only until she realized that she had been clenching her jaw that she let go of her cell phone and looked as a text sprung up onto her phone.

No, I’m not going to tell you who I like.

Fly couldn’t help but smile a little bit. She and the rest of her friends knew that Heath liked someone; he had been acting really different for the past couple of days. He had been actually doing his work in school and he always had a goofy smile on his face, a surefire sign that he was crushing on someone at the moment, and because Heath and Fly are best friends…she was dying to know what was going on.

Fly smiled as she texted back: Come on. Please? I mean, you were the one that tried to show me how to kiss when we were younger. ^-^

It didn’t take long for the response to come after that and Fly could practically see Heath blushing in front of her.

That’s when we were kids and I didn’t know what I was thinking back then, let alone now. But still, the answer is no.

Fly rolled her eyes and put her cell phone back in her pocket before jumping at the sound of the closet door opening, her sisters’ giggling reaching her ears.

“We found you!” Lilly squealed.

“Yeah, you did.” Fly laughed and crawled out of the closet. She stood in front of her beaming sisters and couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit when she saw how excited they were. “Ok, now you guys hide and I’ll look for you.”

“Yay!” Mallory cheered as Lilly raced off to find a really good spot.

“Wait a minute,” Fly grabbed onto Mallory’s arm before she could go running off. “Where did mom and dad say they were going to be home?”

“I don’t know,” Mallory replied with a small shrug. “They were going to look around at some preschools for Joshua.”

“But he can’t even go to school yet.” Fly replied, looking confused.

“I know,” Mallory nodded seriously, as if she knew what hardships the world could through at her. “But you know mom, she wants to see which one will be good for him when he’s old enough to go there.”

“And dad went along because he doesn’t really have a backbone.” Fly added and Mallory placed her hands in front of her mouth and giggled. “Don’t tell him I said that, and I’ll look for you last.” Fly held her pinkie finger out to her sister and Mallory eagerly grabbed it with her own before running off.

“Alright,” Fly turned around and covered her hands with her eyes and started counting. “1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…”

Twenty minutes, a broken vase, and an extreme frustration later, Fly stood in the foyer of her house, tapping her foot against the ground, and letting out a little grunt of frustration every few seconds as her blue-green eyes shifted back and forth, in case she could catch a glimpse of movement.

“Guys, I called a truce ten minutes ago!” she shouted impatiently.

Still nothing.

“Come on, mom and dad are going to be home soon!” she continued to plead and then waited.

Still nothing.

Smirking to herself, Fly walked over to the front door and opened it and closed it loudly. Then she stomped her feet hard on the floor. “Oh, hi mom, dad.” She practically shouted. “Mallory and Lilly? Oh, I traded them for two big bags of candy. Yeah, I think it was a good idea too, the house will be much quieter.”

Suddenly, Fly heard footsteps pounding over her head and she took a few steps back away from the door, waiting for her perfect moment to strike. Before she could even see her sisters, she could hear their panicked shrieks coming and when she timed it right, she jumped out from beside the stairs and grabbed Mallory and Lilly in her arms, wrestling them away from the door.

The two young girls shrieked with laughter and tried to get out of Fly’s grasp before she haphazardly dumped the two of them onto the couch.

“I knew that you didn’t trade us!” Lilly bragged and nudged Mallory. “Mal fell for it.”

“I did not!” Mallory replied and shoved her sister.

“You did too!”

“Did not!”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Hey,” Fly cut in-between her two bickering sisters. “How about instead of arguing, we watch a TV show?” she stopped talking when she felt her cell phone vibrate and she pulled it out of her pocket, furrowing her eyebrows when she saw a number she didn’t recognize. “Hello?” she asked hesitantly as she put it to her ear.

“Fiona?” a somewhat familiar voice asked.

“Yes, that’s me.” Fly replied as she turned away from her sisters and started to pace the room.

“It’s Jared.”

“Oh,” Fly’s shoulders dropped when she heard his name. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes and curl her upper lip at the same time. It was the usually thing she did whenever she saw him, heard his name, or even thought about how annoying he was. “What do you want?”

“Ouch, that’s cold.”

“I’m not up for any games Willingham,” Fly warned. “What do you want?”

“I just want to talk.” Jared replied calmly.

Fly paused. “…Why?” She asked and turned and looked into the mirror that was in the living room. She studied herself. Her face held a look of intense confusion and she had her hair out of her normal braid and it was falling down her shoulders.

“We have a lot of things to talk about, and I want to get everything out in the open.”

“I don’t know…”

“C’mon, please?” Fly took the phone from her ear and stared at it as if it just turned into a baby alien. Jared Willingham? Wanting to apologize? That was something that she only expected when hell froze over.

‘Calm down Fly,’ she scolded herself while shaking her head. ‘He’s not apologizing, hell; he may be even trying to ditch you. I mean, it is Jared. You shouldn’t trust him, there’s definitely something going on with this.’

“Please?”

But he actually seemed like he was begging her and that was something that Fly never thought that she would see, him begging for something .Well, at least something other than getting a really good looking girl to go out with him. But that definitely didn’t count.

“Fine,” Fly turned back around and faced her sisters, who were sitting on the couch quietly, watching her. “But I have to bring two of my sisters with me.”

“That’s fine; we can watch them while we talk.” Jared seemed to be letting out, what sounded like a relieved sigh. “Thank you.”

“Where are you going to be?” Fly asked coolly, placing a hand on her hips.

“I’ll be at the lifeguard stand, thanks Fiona.”

Fly hung up the cell phone without saying goodbye and stuff her phone into her pocket before looking at Mallory and Lilly. “Come on guys, we’re going to the beach.”

Mallory looked at her older sister warily. “How do we know that you’re not going to actually trade us for bags of candy while we’re out there?”

“I’ll by you ice cream while we’re there,” Fly replied and rolled her eyes. “I promise.”

“Ok.” Lilly stuck out her hand and waited for Fly to take it before she shook it hard.

“Ow,” Fly pulled her hand away and shook it out before turning and walking to get their coats. She looked at Lilly over her shoulder, and Lilly smiled back at her innocently. “More like the sign of the apocalypse.” Fly whispered to herself, shaking her head.

“Ok, so I’m going to be over there, don’t go too far away from me.” Fly said to her sisters as she pointed over to the lifeguard stand. Surprisingly, Jared didn’t ditch her and was actually there, looking out towards the ocean, the wind gently pulling at his hair.

“Ok!” Mallory and Lilly promised and scampered off towards the ocean water.

Fly took a few deep breaths before walking over towards Jared. She was so quiet that he didn’t even hear her when he approached until she cleared her throat loudly. Jared turned around and an easygoing smile slid onto his face, causing Fly to screech to a stop, swallowing thickly.

He actually looked…attractive.

Fly shook her head and put on a cold look to show Jared that she meant business and that she wasn’t going to take any jokes.

“Hi,” Jared greeted timidly. His smile faded when he saw that she wasn’t going to make this easy for him. “Thanks for coming.”

“I was curious as to what you were going to tell me,” Fly replied, finally speaking to him. “So why not. What’s this about?”

‘He probably is going to play some sort of prank on me.’ Fly thought, her paranoia causing her imagination and angry thoughts to start to run away from her. ‘I knew I should have seen this coming. It’s typical Jared. He conned me into coming here so he could say-‘

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” Fly chocked, not exactly expecting what he was just said.

“I’m sorry.” Jared repeated. Fly started at him, not sure what to say. She stared at his eyes, looking to see if there was a twinkle of mischief but there was nothing. Jared chuckled and shook his head. “I’m being serious, Fiona.”

That was starting to scare her too; he wasn’t calling her names or anything. Just Fiona. It was weird.

“You’re sorry?” she repeated.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I wanted to apologize for calling you names, making fun of your height, and for saying that I hate you.” He stuck his hand out. “So are we cool?”

“Uh, I gue-“

Fly stopped talking when she saw a look of panic cross over Jared’s face. She started to look over her shoulder, but Jared grabbed her face in his hands, keeping her from looking around and turned it back to him.

“Kiss me.” He gasped.

“What?” Fly shrieked and tried to move away, but he held onto her tightly.

“Never mind.” Jared replied before surging forward and pressing his lips against hers.

Yep, Hell had definitely frozen over…