Memories Stay Forever

Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz.

Groggy from a late night with Chloe, I roll over to the other side of my bed where my phone is buzzing.

Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz.

I pick up the phone to turn off my alarm and see how many I’ve slept through.

Okay… I slept through 3 alarms, so that means…. it’s 8:00. IT’S 8:00!!

I shoot right up to a sitting position and quickly scramble out of my bed to my closet.

What to wear… what to wear!! I thought eagerly to myself.

Without really thinking about it, I grab my slate blue blazer along with my favorite flowy cream blouse to go with my white wide-legged pants. I throw my hair up messily into a clear hair clip and throw my phone into my handbag and hurried out the door. As I am closing the door, it occurs to me that I don’t have shoes on, so I quickly put on a pair of crisscross sandal flats I saw lying by the door. Seeing as Chloe is still asleep, I decide to quietly close the door.

Buzz-buzz

My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I don’t have time to look at what it is.

Buzz-buzz

Buzz-buzz

Buzz-buzz

I yank my phone out of my pocket to see many texts from Chloe.

‘hey… ummmm where did ya go??’

‘where’s the orange juice?’

‘where are your fuzzy slippers?’

‘where are you????’

I stop and think for a second to process everything.

‘uhhh…. wdym where i go?? in the fridge behind the milk, hidden somewhere you won’t find them because they aren’t yours. i woke up late this morning so i am trying to get to work on time.’

I take a few more steps before pondering the texts from Chloe. Before I can ponder too long, I receive another text from Chloe.

‘girl. you forgot its saturday. didn’t you?’

‘omg…. i did lol’

I push send after adding an emoji with a hand on the face and an emoji laughing with tears. With a sigh of relief, I put my phone back in my pocket and turn around to start heading back to the apartment. Luckily, I only walked about a block away from my apartment, so it wasn’t too far to walk back.

I open the apartment door and see Chloe sitting on the couch, with her gray fuzzy blanket she refuses to let me use, smiling. Waiting for me to walk through the door so she can taunt me about forgetting today is Saturday. I look at Chloe and narrow my eyes, tighten my lips, and add a slight curl at the corners of my mouth, so she knows I am joking.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I forget today was Saturday” Chloe can barely make it through half the sentence before she gives a little laugh, “and rush off to my precious new job in utter fear of being 5 minutes late and losing my job?”

She’s now up from the couch and walking over to the kitchen to get some more tea. But not before she over dramatically stopped and put her hands on her hips as if she was trying to prove a point. At this, I couldn’t hold it in anymore and let out a laugh. And then it occurred to me, she doesn’t have a job. So I decide to make that a point.

“Aren’t you the one who doesn’t have a job??”

Her jaw drops and she just stares at me like I have offended her moral values somehow.

“Oh. Umm. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean t-” I start.

“OMG! Olivia, I’m joking,” again, she barely makes it through a few words before giggling. Always one for theatrics, she flips her hair and continues getting her tea while smiling the whole time.

Before she has a chance to suck me into something, I quickly walk to my room to change back into my pajamas and lay back in bed to try and sleep some more before Chloe thinks of something that will occupy the day.

“Liv. Liv. Liv!!”

I open my eyes to see Chloe leaning over my bed staring at me, saying my name.

“What?” I say groggily, trying to regain my senses and make sense of what is happening.

I hear Chloe giggle a little.

“You’ve been sleeping for 4 hours. It’s almost 12:30,” she pauses for a bit before adding, “I’ve waited for like an hour for you to wake up so we could do something. Maybe get some lunch?”

“Chloala bear, we just went out for dinner last night. I have a new job but haven’t received a paycheck yet. We can’t be eating out a bunch.”

“You sound like mom,” Chloe says, sounding like an annoyed toddler.

“Well somebody’s got to do it to make sure you don’t get too crazy.”

I crawl out of bed while Chloe stands up from leaning over my bed. I rub my eyes to adjust to the light of the room, to see Chloe still just standing there.

I pause and stare at her back, “What are you doing?”

“I dunno, waiting for you,” she shrugs it off and starts walking out of the room.

I open the fridge to see if there was any orange juice left and not to my surprise, there isn’t.

“Really? You drank the whole jug?”

“Whaaat… You know I love orange juice. If you don’t want me to drink it,” she says in a sweet innocent voice the younger child always uses, “then you should have labeled it.”

“We both know that you would still drink it anyways,” I say with a slight roll of my eyes.

“Yeah, you’re right. Like always,” she mumbles under her breath.

Knowing I could hear her, she lets out her signature goofy laugh. The one that could make the harshest of rain storms go away as if she were simply wiping water beads off a waxy surface.

I look at her bright sunshine yellow pajama shirt with ‘Radiate Positivity’ in the middle, and can’t help but join her.

In the middle of her laughter, she stops and says, “Hey. Have you and Remi talked recently?”

“No. Why,” I ask, questioning this random inquiry.

“I was just wondering if you two made up yet?”

“No. We haven’t okay?! Why do you care anyways, it’s not like it affects your life at all.” I said sounding a bit too irritated than I should’ve been.

I think Chloe picked up on my irritation and stopped bugging me with any more questions. I was able to sit on my bed in my room and cool down for almost five minutes before she waltzes in and sits next to me.

“I think we should go to the mall to clear our minds,” Chloe says with her little girl tone again.

“Okay,” I say stubbornly, “but only because you need to get out.”

The mall isn’t that big and doesn’t have as many stores as the one we used to go to as kids. When we get to the mall, Chloe immediately flocks toward the shoe store and buys yet another pair of sneakers. She claims she needs a pair of coral and peach high-top sneakers completely different from the coral and orangeade regular sneakers she already has. I grab a bit to eat at the food court and sit down at a bench, while Chloe looks for more items she doesn’t need.

“Come on!”

“Jessica, wait up,” I yell back while trying to keep up, “your going too fast. Slow down!”

Her long blonde hair flows in the wind as she looks back and smiles.

“Jess, stop. What if we get caught?”

She stops and looks back at me, “Liv, we won’t get caught. And besides, what’s there to get caught for? We aren’t doing anything wrong.”

She has said that many times, but I still have this feeling of uneasiness like someone was going to find out.

“Both of our moms said we could go to the beach after school,” she says reassuringly.

“I know that, it’s just that-”

“Olivia. What are you worried about? Why are you so anxious all of the sudden?” Jess says in an almost pitiful tone.

“You know they wouldn’t like us doing this.”

“Doing what? Having fun? Playing in the ocean? Come on Liv, live a little,” she says, giving a little giggle at the end.

“Jess, you know they don’t like us going out this far. And we don’t have Micheal with us this time if anything happens. I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” I say in a worried, pleading tone.

“Alright fine, if you really feel like something will happen we can get out,” she says sounding like a little girl whose mother told her to put away her toys.

“Thank you.”

“But not before one last body surf!” She throws herself at an incoming wave, hugely misjudging its size.

“Jess! No!” I yell, hoping she’ll hear me.

“Olivia, Hellooo?”

In my blurred vision, I see Chloe waving her hand in front of my face.

“Hmm? Yeah, what?” I ask, shaking away the memory which had just consumed me.

“I’m done. Are you ready to go back to the apartment?”

“Uh, yeah sure. Let’s go,” I say as I quickly gather my senses as well as my things and stand up to leave.

As we are walking out of the mall exit doors, Chloe starts to say something but I don’t completely hear or register what she is saying.

“OLIVIA! WATCH OUT!” She yells as she yanks my arm and pulls me into her.

I see a small blue car, whose driver wasn’t paying attention, zoom past where I stand, seconds after Chloe pulled me away.

“Th-thank you,” I mutter as I fully embrace Chloe while crying on her shoulder a bit.