When Sonny and Marisol had left his house, the drive was spent trying to gather themselves. After a brush with the grim reaper in a black and red pantsuit, Sonny welcomed the peace of the morning road of Crown Heights. Excitement fueled his fire and Marisol probably enjoyed the thrill of almost getting caught, but between his mother and Rye, Sonny needed some peace and quiet. The slowly paced traffic was just the downtime he needed.
As it would pick up after ten minutes, the rest of the trip was pretty smooth for the most part. Sonny’s driving skills definitely improved since the last time Marisol was beside him. The last time she was anywhere near the front seat of his truck, at least as far as he could remember, was right before winter break started. The Misfits had gone on their little cheat day down to Miami and decided to cruise all day. That was probably the moment before the big one on Christmas Sonny fondly remembered.
And that was probably the last time he and Marisol had that kind of day off when they were still just friends.
It still shook him to his core in just how much has changed. The dynamic between them was different, but also in a lot of ways, it has mostly stayed the same. Taking out the part about them having sex whenever they could, the way they were with each other was as though they were still just best friends. Because that’s what they were: Best friends. No amount of labels or intimate moments could change how close they were before the night of the Christmas party. No amount of gift-giving or close calls after nearly banging could ruin what was unmistakenly a friendship that came first and came before anything else in his life.
As Sonny parked his orange truck in the usual spot on the far right of the parking lot, which put them as close to the football field and bleachers (their go-to spot for quality best friend smoking time), Sonny took the key out of the ignition but didn’t move. He only sighed and leaned back into his seat. “Is it too late to ditch?” Sonny asked his girlfriend, holding her hand and squeezing it for comfort. “How difficult would it be to just drive out of here and, I don’t know, go to Disney World?” He laughed at his question but on some level, he was serious in his contemplation of ditching.
“Disney World?” Marisol repeated, letting out an amused laugh. “I never pegged you for a princess-loving, mouse-wearing little bitch,” she joked, shuffling in her seat so she could face Sonny and resting her head on the passenger seat header.
“Bitch please! I can fuck with Goofy all day. He’s my -- well, I can’t say what he is to me, but just know I will moo right along with that cow-dog!” Sonny proclaimed, both of them laughing hard until a nonspecific amount of time passed to where it was just awkward silence. “But seriously, is it too cowardly to just...not face Rye today?” He asked, somewhat sighing.
“Not really…" Mari admitted, letting out a sad sigh as her thumb gently grazed the back of Sonny's hand. "If Rye's reaction is the same one the others will have, then I'm not sure I want to face them either."
“I see what you’re doing,” Sonny stated, letting out his biggest sigh yet. His sudden realization about what he suspected Marisol was doing had worked (much to his annoyance).
It pained him because he was nearly at the point where skipping school was the only option, but if Rye didn’t see either of them at school, even if the hotheaded fool was happy, it would, in turn, make both he and Marisol look bad. Why couldn’t they show their faces? What happened to make them want to ditch? It was annoying and Sonny didn’t want to, but he saw no alternative.
“We have no choice, I suppose.” Sonny spoke after a few moments of silence. He squeezed her hand. “Let’s just do this -- together. And should the worst case happen, you can just take a swing at their car with your handy-dandy bat,” Sonny half-joked, “this time I’ll even record you and we can send it to Jackass!”
Marisol's loud laughter filled the inside of the truck. “You’re never going to let me live that down, won’t you?” she asked him with a grin. Knowing Sonny and the rest of their friends as she did, they probably wouldn’t-- unless she pulled an even bigger stunt. Not that she planned on it, of course. She’d been doing good on her meds and therapy, and things weren’t nearly as crazy as they were before. "As tempting as it is to become Lady Jackass, I wanna think I’ve grown past that. So don’t expect any more broken windshields or side mirrors from me.”
He chuckled, taking the keys out of the ignition, an act that was soon followed by a typical Sonny sigh. “I guess you have a point. We’re both past those immature moments that made us a pariah.” With that admission, he turned to look at her. “If you can promise me that neither of us will revert to our ugly selves at least until after we have lunch in exactly--” Sonny looked to his wristwatch “--four hours from now, then I won’t chicken out.”
"But you're already so fucking ugly. You don't have to revert back to anything," came Marisol's quick response to her boyfriend, managing a few seconds of a straight face before bursting out in laughter.
Sonny lightly punched her arm. “It’s what’s on the inside that matters, not the contrived conception of what societal beauty should be.”
"Okay, Archer, settle down with your philosophical preaching now," the girl said with a chuckle, raising her hands up in defeat. "As much as I love that you think that way, it defeats the purpose of the joke. You're supposed to laugh, remember?"
“Maybe he’s influencing me,” Sonny laughed, shrugging. He grabbed his bag from the backseat. “Let’s head into hell, I guess,” he spoke, dread in his voice and a reluctance in his delayed actions, but eventually, he opened the door taking one giant step out of the truck because, yes he’s not the tallest person, so the distance from the driver’s seat and ground wasn’t the same for someone who could reach their leg down without feeling the smack of their step in their joints.
If getting in and out of the behemoth of a truck was a challenge for Sonny, it was a whole damn project for Marisol. The shorter girl basically needed a stool to get on, and was only able to exit by taking a seat on the floor of the passenger's side of the vehicle and sliding down onto the pavement beneath her. Once safely in the ground, she grabbed her backpack, slung it over her shoulders, popped two pieces of gum that she'd grabbed from her container inside the truck before her exit inside her mouth and rushed to the driver's side.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" she asked Sonny, raising an expectant eyebrow up at him and crossing her arms in front of her chest.
He knew what she wanted. The slight pouting expression her lips made, the way her arms folded across her chest, the way those soul-piercing eyes waited with limited patience — yeah, Sonny knew what she wanted. Was he going to give in? Yes, of course, he was. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to make her intentionally wait for her reward. Miss Little ‘Give Me What I Want Now’ was going to linger for a few, long moments as he purposely, which also was in a humorous way, moved his face closer to hers, laughing as he gave her multiple little rabbit kisses.
“I lo-lo-love you!” Sonny said with laughter as his lips were still locked with Marisol’s.
If you were to tell Marisol a year ago that she’d be acting like those imbecile, loved-up, sickly-sweet vanilla couples you saw all over the school, she would’ve laughed in your face and called bullshit. There was no way, she said, you would ever see her all over some guy, hugging and kissing and being affectionate and putting up a Nicholas Sparks movie performance for poor, unsuspecting folks. And with Sonny Drake, of all people? You might as well have been high on hard drugs. But alas, here she was a year later: happily wrapped up in her boyfriend’s arms with her own around him, looking and feeling very much madly in love with the boy who used to be her best friend.
“Fuck, I love you more!” she somehow managed to cry out in between giggles and kisses, her voice muffled by Sonny’s lips on hers.
He couldn’t stop smiling and laughing and sometimes both happened, resulting in an accidental lip-bite that was one notch above teasing. “You know I’ll keep doing this until one of us wins, so I’ll be the adult here and submit to your will, mistress!” He kissed her again.
“As it should be!” she sassily responded moments after pulling away from Sonny’s lips, giving him one last kiss before unwrapping her arms from him and holding his hand instead. “Now let’s get going before somebody else walks in on us.”
He smiled at her one last time before doing the same as his lips quickly pressed against hers. Then the two, with their hands together and squeezing lovingly, made their way across the senior building's entrance with minimal fear in their eyes. If any existed, it was the heart-pounding anxiety of casually putting themselves out there. But, as Marisol would say to anyone who had something negative to say: they could all suck it.
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