Ice cream
sounded like a splendid idea, and
God, was it.
So, I caved,
so what?
I should be allowed to accept the things
my friend offers me.
Maybe my heart hurt from rejection,
but it was nothing shoveling
cold dairy into my gullet with
that same friend
can’t fix.

“So, I ****** up,”
I spoke up.
My shoulders tensed and my grip around my spoon would surely leave an imprint for a minute.
“While it most certainly is a big deal-
a huge deal-
it’ll get better,”
I swallowed.
Not mint chip,
but saliva that I hadn’t even realized accumulated.
“It will get better. Right?”
I looked to my friend for advice.
Sure, it tended to be
less than helpful,
but it was advice nonetheless.

“Well, I,”
He leaned against his forearms on the
countertop,
holding his own spoon in one hand and
bowl in the other.
“Yeah.”

“That sounds confident,”
I remarked, but I creased my eyebrows.
It would get better.
Right?

“Yes. Yeah. It will get better.”
He gave me a smile and leaned back up;
the stool legs whined as he shifted against the counter.

It was consolation,
kind of,
but it still was consolation.
I’d completely biffed on confessing my
undying love and had basically hit rock bottom.
And you know what they say:
“the next step above rock bottom is eating
ice cream
with your bros.”
I stared at the green clump of
ice cream
in my bowl.
Some chips were sludging out of it due to it melting.

“I do envy you,”
I tossed my words to him,
though my face was
still
aimed down and at the bowl.

“Why’s that?”

I chuckled and shook my head before
picking up a scoop of
ice cream.
“You don’t have to deal with rejection as
pathetic as mine,”
with that I bit the
ice cream
off my spoon, though avoided scraping my teeth against the metal.

I couldn’t help but notice how he avoided my observation the same way.

“Yeah,”
he chuckled after some time,
“I don’t.”

I raised an eyebrow.
Something felt off in my stomach, and it wasn’t the countless bowls of mint chocolate chip
ice cream
I had consumed.
“What?”
I plastered on a smile.
“Got some secret love life I don’t know about?
A little crush on a girl?”

He scoffed and punched my shoulder.
It didn’t hurt.
“Nahh,”
he rolled his eyes and ate a bite of his
ice cream.
He swallowed before continuing.
“That’s not for me,”
his voice lowered.
He must’ve noticed me staring because he shoved my bowl closer to me and looked away quicker than the speeds I drove at.
“Focus on your
ice cream.
You’ve practically eaten the whole tub of
mint chip anyways.”

I narrowed my eyes at the back of his head.
“Uhuh.”

Odd.

I confessed
knowing it'll leave you unrested
this ***** secret won't be addressed
and I'll- I'll be depressed
since I'll be detested
and you'll stare at me like I'm possessed
as my heart becomes distressed

Boy was he oblivious.
Sure, I was dense,
but at least I could admit it.
I could also admit that
I was a little hurt
each time he
seemingly
chose to ignore my pokes and prods.
I get to listen to him go on and on about this one girl-
who I don’t even care that much about-
and he gets to go on and on about her.

Obviously, I’ve got to be there for him.
Everyone should be there for the ones they love. But ****,
does it hurt when the ones you love
jab
at the heart that throbs for them.

I refused to let the ride home be silent.

“Did you want some ice cream or something to make you feel better?”

A groan of a reply.

I didn’t bother to give him a glance.
I squeezed the steering wheel and kept my eyes glued to the road,
though I’d rather they be glued to him.

“You should come over,”
I spoke, though it was almost
drowned out by the whiny screech of my brakes.
I took the opportunity to look at him.
He did not meet my eyes.
Instead, his arms were over his chest and he stared at the window at some old car wash
on the right side of my Toyota.
“I think you could benefit from a break 
thinking
about that girl.”

“I don’t know, man,”
a sentence at last.
“I have homework probably.”

The car ****** forward as the light turned green, breaking my companion’s eye contact with
the gas station extension.
My eyes lingered on him for a moment before
I scratched the back of my neck.

“C’mon, it’s Friday,”
I urged.
“You deserve a chance to take your mind off
that girl.”

He threw his arms out.
“She’s not just some girl!
She’s an absolute beauty who
barely knows I exist! Like I said,
angel fish,”
he gestured to the air to the right of him,
“Sea urchin,”
the same hand now met his chest on the “sea”.

“I,”
I shook my head.
“I think you give that
b#tch
too much credit, you know?
She called you slurs…”
I brought the car to a cruising speed when I noticed we were alone on the road.
“And, ‘cause, y’know. I think sea urchins are pretty f#cking awesome.”
I snuck a glance at him.
He was staring at his lap;
his brows were knitted and his eyes looked as if they would fall out of the sockets.
“…I think I’m a sea urchin as well.”

He snorted and sat up straight to look at me. “Really?”
He smiled,
dimples showing.
Good.
“You can’t be a sea urchin too;
you’re too perfect to be one.”
His head of brown hair shook and
one of his matching brows raised.

“Perfect?”
I grinned.
“This guy?”
I brought a hand off the steering wheel and ****** a thumb towards my chest.
I was a careful enough driver to
still be focused on the road.
At first glance you might think I’m some sort of reckless delinquent
who only cares about
getting girls and
getting drunk.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Well, maybe not perfect,”
he smiled towards me, rolling his eyes.
I let my gaze meet his before snapping back to the street.
“But definitely perfect enough..”

“So,”
I mumbled and scratched the back of my neck,
“Ice cream?”

“So you ****** up,”
he spoke up. He shrugged as if it were no big
deal, but really it was; it was a huge deal.
“No big deal,”
his face betrayed his tone.

“Uhm? No- really it is, it’s a huge deal,”
I protested.

“Okay, bud, take a breath…”
He threw me a sheepish smile
That I pathetically fumbled.

“‘Take a breath’?”
I echoed with a scoff.
“‘Take a breath’?!”
I grabbed a hand full of my hair with each arm and squatted on the concrete.
“First you said ‘the worst she can say is: no’;
and now you tell me to ‘take a breath’?”
I tucked my head between my knees
and stared at the white paint
that had begun to fade off the parking lot.

“Well, yeah. I, you know,”
he chuckled.
I was certain he was doing that stupid thing,
where he scratched the back of his neck,
even if I couldn’t see it.

“No,”
I groaned,
“You don’t know.”

“Okay, this is embarrassing… Get the hell up,” he crouched down and yanked us both up by my wrists.

“Is everything you say a lie?”
I took a long and dramatic drag on the word “lie”,
pulling my arms away from his grasp.

“So she called you a b#tchless, d#ckless, f#ggot who would die such a big ****** that your wiener would invert at even the
slightest touch of a woman,
no big deal,”
he repeated once more.
All he got in response was another groan.
He leaned against his Toyota before trying to remedy the situation,
“I mean, you know, who hasn’t been called a-”

“I really don’t need to hear you to say it again.”

He chuckled and scratched the back of his head. “Right, sorry. Probably not helping, huh?”

“Yeah, no.”

For some reason,
this kid just did not know when to
shut up.
“Well, I, you know there are plenty of other fish in the sea, right?”

“Yeah, but no angel fish wants to go out with a sea urchin!”
I gestured to myself before pressing my stomach against his car.
We’d been at school far too long after the bell.
I was sure some of the teachers suspected we were doing crack,
or something.

“I,”
he started, looking to me at his side.
He stepped off his car and
opened the passenger side door for me.
“Then, I guess you just gotta find
another sea urchin.”