Possessions
Chapter 2
By: Makena
"So... why'd we really get invited to Aaron's wedding?"
Joel, who had been staring at the ceiling of the bus, glanced over at the opposite bunk where Benji was sitting, holding a blue Dr. Grip pen and the note book paper Joel had give to him earlier.
"What?" Joel questioned. Benji sighed and looked over his notes and what he had written so far.
"Well, I've been thinking about it," Benji said, putting his things down. "And I mean, he completely hates me for more than one reason - and I don't blame him. I mean, did he invite us because he felt bad for me? Probably. But did he really expect us to come? If we even COULD come, right?" Joel frowned slightly.
"You're thinking WAY too much into this, man," he said, lying his head back down on his pillow. "Maybe he was just like, 'hey, let's invite the Madden twins' and sent us an invitation?" Benji shook his head.
"Nope," he said. "I don't think that's it." He paused. "I think we should go."
"Well, yeah," Joel said.
"Wanna know why?" Benji pressed. Joel sighed.
"I don't know, Benji," he said, tired and getting slightly upset. "Because it would be a nice thing to do?"
"Nope," Benji said, shaking his head. "Because he doesn't think we'll come. If we show up, he'll be completely surprised and you KNOW it'll piss him off."
"Wait," Joel said, sitting up again. "You're going to attend Aaron's wedding to piss him off?"
Benji nodded. Joel rolled his eyes.
"You're insane," he muttered. "Some times I liked you better when you drank."
Benji looked at Joel, confused and slightly hurt. Joel looked up at him.
"I'm kidding."
Benji shrugged but shut up anyway, returning to his song. Things had been different since he gave up drinking - he thought things through instead of yelling "I don't care" and sitting, huddled in his bunk as the world went by.
He sighed to himself and glanced over his song, going over music in his mind as he carefully picked up the acoustic guitar that had been lying next to him on his bunk.
'Damn it,' he thought bitterly to himself as he tuned his guitar. 'Song writing was supposed to help me get my mind off those fucking memories.'
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Makena stepped into the airport from the terminal with a messenger bag slung over her shoulders. She wore black jeans, a black tank top and a long black coat along with dark sunglasses. Her long, blond hair was held up by two black "chop sticks."
She looked around, lifting her sunglasses to better see around the small Waldorf airport, taking everything in.
"Hello again, Waldorf," Makena muttered, still looking around. "Little shit hole of a town."
"Makena!" a voice cried out. "MAKENA!"
Makena looked to her left to see a girl slightly shorter than her with dark brown hair pulled up into two messy buns trying to weave herself through the crowd. She wore jeans, torn at the knees, and a black Anti-Flag t-shirt much like the one she had seen this girl wear before. One wrist was covered in red and black bracelets, and the other held a spike bracelet and a bracelet made from cloth with three stars clinging to it.
She smiled as she approached and stopped short in front of Makena, catching her breath. Makena - while lacking in the height department - was still a good three inches taller than Nicole and looked down a little at her, grinning devilishly.
"I love hanging out with people smaller than I am," she said with a laugh before launching herself upon the girl in a hug. "God damn it's been a while, Nicole."
"Too long, you fucker," Nicole said with a laugh, letting go. "Shannon called and said you'd be here and told me to come pick you up."
"Oh?" Makena questioned. "I was just gonna take a cab, but... you work."
"Thanks," Nicole said, rolling her eyes sarcastically. They began the walk towards the baggage claim, talking about nothing in general.
"So, what brings you back to Waldorf?" Nicole asked finally as Makena picked out a large brown suitcase from the baggage claim and dragged it to the floor.
"You mean Shannon didn't tell you?" she questioned skeptically. Nicole shook her head as the walked out of the large automatic doors into the slightly chilled spring air.
"Where's your car?" Makena asked, looking around the large parking lot. Nicole pointed towards a red and white Cadiliac in the middle of the parking lot. "Nice," Makena said.
"Anyway, what brings you back?" Nicole pressed as they stepped onto the gray pavement and towards Nicole's car.
"Aaron's wedding," Makena replied, taking a cigarette out of one of her pockets as well as a turquoise lighter. "I'm a bride's maid."
"Aaron's getting married?" Nicole questioned. "To who?"
"Whom," Makena corrected. "This girl - Raemie. I don't know her, but I guessed Aaron talked to her or something and... I don't know." She paused.
"I hate weddings."
Nicole laughed.
"When is it?" Nicole asked, watching Makena take a drag of her cigarette.
"Not for another two weeks," Makena said, blowing a cloud of smoke from her mouth. "I have time to kill between me helping with the wedding stuff."
"You think Benji's gonna be there," Nicole asked with a nudge, grinning as she walked around to the driver's side of the car. Makena paused, frowning slightly.
"Why?" she asked walking towards the trunk of Nicole's car.
"Why what?" Nicole said, confused.
"Why would he be there?" she questioned, watching Nicole open the trunk for her. "Never mind. He probably didn't even get invited - Aaron and him have... er... "artistic differences," shall we say." She paused. "I'm sure Billy and Paul will be there, though..."
Nicole opened the trunk before whirling around to look at Makena, grinning.
"Really?!" she asked, excited. "I haven't seen either of them since Billy graduated... I mean, who the hell wants to keep in touch with their high school "chums" anyway?" She paused. "Well... most of them."
Makena laughed as she stuffed her suitcase into the trunk and shut it, walking around to the passenger's side and opening her door.
"I don't care," she said. Nicole shrugged, sliding into the driver's seat.
"I wish I could come, now!" she cried. "Damn... it's been way too long!!" Makena laughed.
"I'm sure you can come," she said. "As bride's maid, I give you my personal invitation to attend Aaron's wedding as my personal guest." Nicole laughed.
"I guess now is a bad time to tell you that I hate weddings, too, huh?"
---
Paul picked up his cell phone and scrolled through the phone numbers he had stored into it before picking one and holding it to his ear.
"Who are you calling?" Billy questioned, pausing the movie he had been watching. Paul held up his own invitation to the wedding and Billy nodded.
"Hello?" an unfamiliar voice answered from the other line. Paul paused, wondering if he had dialed the right number.
"Uh... Hi," Paul said. "This is Paul... is Aaron around?"
"Actually no," the voice spoke. "He went to get some things at the store. Would you like me to leave a message?"
"I suppose..." Paul paused. "Is this Raemie, by any chance?"
"Yeah," the girl replied.
"I'm calling about the wedding."
"Oh. Oh! YOU'RE Paul!"
Paul laughed. "Yeah, I guess so," he chuckled. From the other line he could hear a door opening and a male's voice speaking.
"It's Paul," Raemie said distantly, obviously speaking to Aaron. "Paul? Aaron's back - you wanna talk to him?"
"Yeah," Paul said.
"'Kay, here he is." She paused. "I'll see you at the wedding?"
"Yeah," Paul replied. "Bye." There was a moment of silence as the phone was handed from Raemie to Paul.
"Paul?" Aaron's voice came.
"Hey," Paul said. "What's up?"
"Planning for the wedding, dude," Aaron said with a slight laugh. "What's up with you?"
"I am RSVPing," Paul responded. "We've got time off since the Civic Tour ended and whatever, so Billy and I are gonna come."
"Awesome," Aaron said. Paul hesitated.
"Umm... Benj and Joel are coming too." There was a moment of silence.
"Oh," was all Aaron said. Paul sighed.
"See, if you didn't want them to come you shouldn't have invited them," he began.
"No, no," Aaron said. "I... agh, never mind. I didn't think they'd actually come, but they were invited. I don't actually have to talk to them, do I?"
"It's your wedding, man," Paul said. "Talk to them if you want to." Paul paused. "I know all that all that shit happened in high school and whatever, but... whatever happened between you and Makena?" Aaron sighed.
"She's... different," he began slowly, carefully choosing his words. "Ever since the accident she's just been... I don't know... empty, I guess. Less so than Benji ever really was, but just... I don't know. I still love her, yeah, but... I don't know. She's just so different now - she's not Makena." He paused. "She doesn't really want to see Benji."
"Umm... okay," Paul said. Aaron sighed.
"He's coming now, isn't he?"
"Oh! Right!" Paul laughed slightly to himself. "That he is."
Aaron sighed again. "Just - don't tell him, okay?" he asked. "I won't tell Makena either."
"They're eventually going to see each other, you know," Paul pointed out.
"I know," Aaron confessed. "Anyway, I'd better get going."
"Same here," Paul said.
"Oh, and tell Benji I'm glad he's coming," Aaron added quickly. "I know he's coming to piss me off."
Paul laughed. "Yeah," he said. "Probably."
"I'll see you in a couple of days, then?" Aaron asked.
"Yeah," Paul agreed. "Bye!" He hung up and glanced over at Billy, who had watched the entire conversation from the overstuffed chair.
"So... Makena's going to be there, huh?" he asked. Paul frowned.
"How'd you know?" Billy rolled his eyes. "I could hear Aaron and you talking," he said. "You should probably turn the volume down on that thing if you don't want people to know what you're talking about." Paul laughed and looked at his cell phone before shutting it off.
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"So... that was Paul, huh?"
Aaron switched the cordless phone off and turned around to face his fiancé, Raemie. She was shorter than him, standing at about 5'6" with short black hair that contained a mix of red, pink and blond streaks. Her lip was pierced on the right side, as was her nose and her ears. She wore a black tank top that showed off tattoo's on both shoulder; one said life, and the other death. Her wrists were adorned with black, red and blue plastic bracelets and a couple of spiked bracelets. She was standing at the sink, pealing potatoes.
He smiled at her. "Yeah," he said, kissing her head before stealing a piece of potato. Raemie elbowed him in the stomach playfully.
"I can't make potato salad if you keep eating all the potato's raw, Aaron," she said. She paused as Aaron opened the refrigerator and took out a beer.
"I heard you talking about that Makena girl," she said slowly.
Aaron shrugged. "So?"
"Do you really still love her?"
Aaron hesitated. "Well... yeah..." he began. Raemie's heart sank. Aaron, detecting this, quickly added more. "I mean, like a friend." The comment hadn't made her feel much better.
"She was your girlfriend," Raemie reminded him.
"Yeah," Aaron admitted. "In high school. I told you about everything that happened between us - there's no way in hell we would ever work out now anyway."
"Would you want it to, though?"
Aaron frowned. He set his beer down on the counter before wrapping his arms around her from behind. "Of course not," he told her. "Because then I'd never have gotten the chance to marry you."
While she knew it was corny for him to say something like that, Raemie smiled let him kiss her on the cheek. "I'm gonna go take a shower," he announced. "Don't forget we have reservations at six - Makena and Ryan are going to be there."
Raemie nodded and watched him leave. "How could I forget?"