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Wiping the tears off my cheeks, I muted the earbud and held the steering wheel tightly with both my hands.
‘If everything was normal, our story would be one hell of a true love trope.’ He was right, but everything wasn’t normal, which made our story an ‘I kill you and you die’ trope.
18
JAYDEN
FOURTEEN YEARS OLD
“Do you still want to be my best friend in the future?” I asked Jordan as we both sat on the grass.
“I always want to be your best friend.” She smiled up at me and I beamed back. I was happy that she still wanted to be my friend in the future.
“Even when you get married?”
She nodded, smiling at the flower I had picked for her. She really loved white roses and I loved to pluck them out for her because she always looked so beautiful whenever she was happy and smiling.
“Who would you get married to when you grow up?” I was really praying to God for her to say my name. I would love to get married to her in the future, so that she would remain my best friend for life.
I thought our parents would be so happy if we told them we wanted to get married, they always smiled whenever they saw us together.
She stared at me for a while as her cheeks turned pink, before she looked back at the flower and shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe a prince.”
I slumped my shoulders with a pout. I was not a prince, which meant she didn’t want to marry me. I was sad, but I wouldn’t show that to her. She might get scared and run away if I told her I wanted to marry her, we were still too young for that.
We still had to go to school, tell our parents and plan our babies names before we decide to get married.
“What about you? Who would you get married to when you grow up?” She asked, looking up at me.
I shrugged too and replied, “a princess.” She was my princess, she would always be my princess. Then when we grew up and got married, she would be my Queen, and we would walk side to side in the palace, which was our home by the way, and our princesses would walk in front of us.
“Would you marry me if I was a prince?”
“You are a prince.”
I frowned. “No, I’m not.”
“Of course you are. It was written in a book I read that a prince is a boy who is handsome, a boy who is respectful to people especially girls and elderly people, a boy who loves to see people smile, a boy who loves animals and a boy who has a cute smile. You are all that, which makes you a prince.”
I grinned. “You think I’m handsome and have a cute smile?”
“Hmm hmm,” she singsonged and I blushed. I stared down at her again, but she was either sniffing her rose or looking at the sky.
“Jay,” she called after some minutes of comfortable silence.
“Mmmh?”
“What should we do now? I’m so bored.”
“I am too.” I placed a finger on my head as if I was thinking, then I suddenly realized.
Jordan had a nickname for me. She was always calling me Jay and because of that, my brothers jumped from Dee to Jay. I had told them so many times to stop calling me that because the name only belonged to Jordan, but they refused to listen.
“Should I find a nickname for you?” I questioned suddenly. “A name that only I can call you, like my own special name.” Her eyes lit up with excitement and she nodded hysterically.
I glanced around for a while trying to find a nickname for her. I was stupid, I should have made sure I had a nickname before telling her, now I had no names in mind and she’d get sad if I didn’t provide one.
I stared at the rose in her hand. Rose? No, that was another girl’s name, I didn’t want to call her by another girl’s name. I tore my eyes away from the flower and let my eyes wander around again.