Truthscapes

The slight downward pull of the plane's descent is the only thing to break me out of my reverie, along a very giddy Brooklyn next to me. 

“Aria!” she waves her hand in front of my face. “Spacing out again? What exactly about the trip has gotten you in such a head space?”

I turn my head to see her face holding genuine interest. “What do you think? We are going to Italy, no one is going to know me there so I can completely be myself and not have to worry so much. I seriously need to learn to be more confident. It won’t be too bad though if you are there with me for our girl trip, right?”

Suddenly, Brooklyn’s arm swings into my mid-section as her face falls and eyes bulge. “I completely forgot,” she starts saying as she slowly turns her head to meet my eyes. “We won’t be alone. I invited some American friends of mine to join us.”

My stomach drops and then freezes. I start speaking slowly. ”I thought this was supposed to be just the two of us.”

Her face shows off a degree of guilt. “I know, I know, I just completely forgot about them because I was so excited for just us. It’s not that big of a deal anyway, they are extremely fine boys.”

This is going to be very difficult. She knows my social skills are limited. What is she doing?

***

As Brooklyn and I exit the passenger boarding bridge, my heart accelerates with every step as I rapidly scan the airport for the strangers that will be the ones I spend the next month with. I don’t scan too long before I hear Brooklyn call for two unfamiliar names.

“Chase! Easton!” Aria grabs my hand and yanks me toward two boys who suddenly look up who I could only imagine are Chase and Easton.

The one with sandy blond hair smirks at me but his eyes dance between Brooklyn and I.

“This must be Aria.” He said.

I grin back at him. “Yes. Aria this is Chase,” Brooklyn says as she gestures to the one with blond hair. Then she gestured to the boy with chocolate brown hair. “and this is Easton.” 

I glance between the two of them as they both stare at me. I need to say something. “Hey guys, as you heard from Brooklyn I am Aria,” I say in a positive tone and smile slightly.

Brooklyn grabs Chase’s hand. “We aren’t sleeping in the airport. Let’s all go to the hotel. Enough intros.” 

Once we all check in at the front desk for two hotel rooms, we head to the third floor. Brooklyn and Chase are non-stop talking and giggling about who knows what, which is an uncomfortable situation for both Easton and I. I can tell just with my peripheral vision that his stance is rigid. When we get out of the elevator, our rooms are right next to each other and it is in that moment that I realized that Brooklyn wasn’t going to share a room with me as she and Chase go into one of the rooms without a word and Easton just heads into the other one leaving me out in the hall alone.

My heart accelerates for not the first time that night. Does Brooklyn expect Easton and I to share a room? This is incredibly awkward. Brooklyn doesn’t think before she acts most of the time but does she really expect me to fend for myself by sharing a room with a stranger? Was this her plan for me the entire time?

My eyes are stuck on the door that Easton just walked through. What if he is already changing? I cover my face with both my hands and rub my eyes so I see streaks of dull color beneath my eyelids. I remove my hands slowly from my face and let my hand inch toward the doorknob in a mechanical motion. I open the door. The room has an array of gray and white with accented blues here and there along with a tall boy standing in the middle of the room with his flexing back towards me.

“I know we haven’t seen Brooklyn in a while, Chase, but that doesn’t mean --”

He turns around. As he sees me, his eyebrows raise and his eyes bug out of his head as they look me up and down.

“Aria?” His brows now wrinkle in confusion.

“Yeah, that's me. Chase and Brooklyn are clearly not coming out of their room they are apparently sharing together and honestly, I don’t want to go in there.” I look past him and get a better look at the room. There is only one bed in here. Oh my god.

It must have been clear what I had thought because Easton also looks at the bed behind him then back at me. “That wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t let them go in there in the first place.” He crosses his arms.

Are we seriously going to get into an argument right now? “You know, you could have done something about them too. You just conveniently decided not to deal with the mess and just walk in here to claim the room.”

He squints his eyes as he stares into my soul for an awkward few moments as he seems to be thinking something through. “I don’t want to argue with you. I got the floor.” And with that he turns around, grabs a pillow of the bed and walks over to floor space beside it.

***

The next morning, the four of us sit down in the hotel cafe for breakfast.

“First things first. Beach!” Brooklyn says before she takes a bite of her omelet.

A few moments later, after glancing around Chase chimes in. “Yeah. Let’s do that. Gives everyone a chance to try to fit it.” Chase sneaks a glance in my direction as he takes a bite of a donut.”

My face starts warming up. What was that comment about? The tension between all of us is suffocating, and everyone can feel it. Brooklyn keeps looking at me the entire time at the table through all the stringy conversation.

When everyone is finished, Brooklyn grabs my arms and pulls me outside while the boys go and get everything ready for the beach.

“What’s wrong?” She says this more like a statement as she looks at me with a weighted expression.

I clutch my hands together behind my back in hopes the perfect words spill out of my mouth. “Sleeping in the same room as a stranger isn’t going to make me too happy.”

She crosses her arms. “Yeah that isn’t preferable but I didn’t plan for this trip to be tense or awkward but you already created an awkward start.”

“How exactly am I being awkward?”

She shakes her head. “You are always awkward. Just talk more, okay?” She gives me a forced looking smile. “I don’t want to argue.”

I purse my lips and nod.

***

The next morning after we all have breakfast, we all get our stuff for the beach and as soon as we get there, I am already feeling streaks of sweat slide down my back. 

I am going to be fun to be around. I can’t be an awkward mess around people I have never met. I don’t know how much they know about me, also being Brooklyn’s friends, but either way I need to add to this trip.

 As I set down my towel and sit, the other three are doing the same next to me.

“Look at us. Gonna go back North with golden skin,” I say.

“You really want that tan.” I look to my left and see Easton sit down.

“I mean, I could definitely use it,” I say as I hold out my paper white skin.

He chuckles. “Ah yes, much more than my southern tan.”

“You live in Minnesota. You can’t call that southern.”

He shrugs. “More southern than Ontario.”

I glare at him. “Hardly.”

“You know he is from Texas right? So yeah actually a lot more southern than you.” 

My head snaps to my left where Chase is looking at me next to Brooklyn, who was next to me.

“How long have you known each other? You and Easton I mean.”

Brooklyn shifts oddly and Chase starts smiling. “Middle school.”

Easton chimes in and looks between Brooklyn and I with slightly raised brows. “When did you two meet again?” 

Brooklyn keeps shifting and staying silent so I take the opportunity to speak. “Fourth grade. Brooklyn was new so you know I took her in and kept her around.”

I look over to Brooklyn where she is staring at me with a grin on her face now. What is on her mind?

“Well this is a riveting conversation, truly, but I am bored,” Brooklyn stands up and turns around with her hands on her hips and takes the time to look at each of us. “Aria? Chase? Easton? Care to join me?” She gestures to the waves behind her. Then winks at me and runs off. Easton gets up to follow, but Chase gets up and stays a moment. 

“If only if you tried to talk without being such a try hard that you knew what conversation flow means.” Then he runs off after Brooklyn.

***

Back in the hotel room, I am sitting on the bed alone as Easton is doing something somewhere else. Honestly, I don’t care where he is at, as long as he isn’t here to see me like this. 

I am not good at leading a conversation but my social skills have never been great. Also, how does Chase even know what I wanted to do in Italy? The struggle had always been real, along with my extreme sensitivity issue, and then someone who I barely know can see right through me?

I pull my knees in towards my chest and rest my chin in my knees as I let the endless stream of cold tears slide down my cheeks onto my knees. 

At that moment Easton walks into the room and stops dead in his tracks as he drops bags onto the floor and stares at me. Oh my god. Oh. My. God. Why didn’t I hear him? I am in my head way too much.

“What’s wrong, Aria?” His genuine concern for me makes it impossible to stop the tears to keep coming. It’s no use trying to hold back.

He steps closer to the bed. “Aria.” 

I can’t look him in the eyes. My face feels so hot my forehead is damp as it starts to bead with sweat. 

I shake my head. There is no way I can say a word right now.

He sits down beside me. Why is he so comfortable around me crying. Unreal. But I oddly like it. 

“Does this have to do with Brooklyn or Chase?” The question sends lightning through my system. What does he know?

I lift my head from where it was resting on my knees. “Why?”

“I want to talk to you about something that I feel I haven’t had the right time to bring up about them.”

“It does.” I whisper.

He nods.

I bury my face in my knees again and then a warm body surrounds me. My stomach flips in surprise and my heart starts beating faster as my whole body melts.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I lift my head again and look into his coconut brown eyes.

I try my hardest to keep my voice calm. “Chase tried so hard today to make me feel unwanted here. Unfortunately, it worked and now it is all catching up to me”

Easton stiffens. “Don’t worry, I’ll deal with him. Brooklyn has exaggerated about who you are, making Chase think he can be mean. Sha has made up complete lies about what you were like.”

“I thought Brooklyn and I were the closest you could imagine friends being but once she surprised me with you and Chase, and now she is all over Chase, I don’t know what is going on with her.”

Deafening silence fills the space for a few moments before he speaks. “Well if I am being honest, Brooklyn has barely ever mentioned you to us, like, at all. She will go on and on about her other friends but the only thing she made you seem like, is a nuisance. If you are here, you obviously didn’t didn’t know. Is she who has you upset?”

Brooklyn. Nausea fills my insides. I have never actually had a real friend when this whole time I thought she had my back. She faked it.

I hope I don’t regret this question. “Why did she keep me around?”

“You were easy to push around without getting into an argument while anyone else stands up to her and argues, she gets whatever she wants with you.”

Nausea surges again. Brooklyn has never been a true friend. Do I know what it is like to have a friend without her? No. The things I have told her over the years that were supposed to be between her and I, Easton, Chase and who knows who else knows. All because I am a pushover.

“I have to talk to her. But not tonight. I can hardly keep my eyes open anymore.” I rub my eyes furiously.

“What do you think are in those bags I dropped on the ground.”

I snap my head up to meet his eyes again.

He gets up and picks up a bag. “You hungry?”

***

I open my eyes and find myself very warm, like I am being heated. I gaze around for a moment before I register the muscular body and Easton’s face only about a few inches from mine. I don’t mean to but I watch as his eyes flutter beneath his lids and feel his slow warm breath on my lips.

I don’t know how long passes before his eyes slowly open to meet with mine. He shuts his eyes again, lifts one corner of his lips in a lazy grin then opens his eyes again. 

“‘Morning,” I say before I try to mingle my way out of his arms, but he won’t let go of me.

“Just like five more minutes. Please.” 

He closes his eyes again but wraps his arms around me tighter as I do so with him. 

That lasted longer than five minutes.

***

Easton and I eventually do get up and amble our way down to breakfast with Brooklyn and Chase. Yes, I am still going to talk to them.

Brooklyn is not worth having if I don’t even feel comfortable standing up to her for acting the way she does. I am better off without her.

Through all the pointless conversation, I made an effort not to say much of any value at all. Brooklyn keeps looking in my direction with a stink eye that tells me ‘we have to talk.’

So after breakfast, I pull her aside before she can do so with me.

“Why are you using me?”

Those words visibly punched her insides. Her eyes go wide and her mouth drops open a bit.

“You have pushed me around our whole life and you think you could get away with it for as long as you want? No. Not going to happen.”

She just stands there staring at me.

“You want to know how I know?” I ask. 

“What did you hear?”

“No matter what I tell you, you will end up twisting it around in your own favor.”

“Easton has been spilling things hasn’t he?”

“You said it, not me. You and I are not friends. Apparently we never were to you.” I pause. “What was the point?”

She was looking down briefly then looked back up to meet my eyes. 

“I believed I could get what I wanted with people who let it happen. It never occurred to me that you would find out about my behavior or how sick that sounds out loud. Easton, Chase and I planned the trip and thought to invite last minute really.”

Brooklyn puts her hands on her hips and looks at anything but me. 

“What do you expect to come of this?” I ask.

She still doesn’t look at me. “I don’t know. I don’t know you either.”

“Oh because I can suddenly stand up for myself? Do you even care that after this conversation I don’t want anything to do with you anymore? You’re fake. I can see right through you.”

Brooklyn finally looks at me. “I will book my own tickets back. You and Easton can figure that out for yourself.”

Brooklyn walks off. That was an answer enough.

***

Brooklyn and Chase had left Italy a week ago by this point so Easton and I have been spending every moment together. The trip was supposed to last a month so we will leave in 3 weeks.

We are currently just sitting on the beach watching the sky shift colors as it approaches nighttime. I break our comfortable silence. “What are we going to do when we have to leave? We live in different countries.”

Easton takes a piece of my hair and tucks it behind my ear and guides my face so I look at him.

“I am going to call you everyday and we can visit each other as often as money allows. I can’t do any less.”

I wrap my arms around him and pull him closer until our lips meet and are in each other’s embrace.