Chapter 3: The Ride Home

For as long as Sherry had known Dom, she had always had him by her side as her best friend since they were young. So young that they can’t even remember the first day when they both truly became best friends. They would always find a way to chat and play inside and outside of school hours; they were inseparable. The two of them hung out so much that the other kids in their various school classes would always come to the same conclusions that they always did and say to them since they hung out so much together, that they must have liked each other a lot.

When she was young, Sherry never really saw Dom as a love interest and never really gave it much thought, so she always shrugged her shoulders to the people who reminded her on the odd occasion about how she and Dom seemed close to them.

Dom, however, could see where all the other kids were coming from; still, instead of admitting it outright and agreeing with them, he would turn red every time others told him about how he and Sherry looked like they were together and shout at them in denial with an embarrassed tone in his voice. Dom would shout something along the lines of.

“NO, WE’RE NOT!”

The main thing that helped Dom and Sherry stay so connected when they were younger was the fact that the Bremdat household, Dom’s parents, knew the Aweber household pretty well or the Drenren household as Sherry and Samantha’s last name used to be. Mr. Drenren, Sherry’s father, and Samantha Aweber used to always head over to Dom’s old house to hang out with Dom’s parents while bringing Sherry along for the ride so that she could see and play with Dom. Of course, this was until one overcast day five years ago when the Bremdat’s were packing their belongings up into their new blue car and hauling it into a moving truck with the intent to leave Dwindabre for an indefinite amount of time.

Mrs Bremdat had gotten a brilliant job opportunity in the north of J-Land as a Doctor hence why they had to move out from Dwindabre in the first place. This was one of the last days Dom and Sherry got to see each other in Dwindabre before they split for five years. Dom was crying as he was really sad to leave Dwindabre and leave Sherry behind too, but Sherry was trying to tell him that everything would be okay since Sherry didn’t fully grasp the situation at hand just yet. Sherry didn’t realise that her best friend would be leaving her indefinitely at that time.

As Gavan revved the engine of his new blue car, Dom looked depressingly out of the car window and at least mustered up enough strength to wave goodbye back to Sherry while Sherry waved back enthusiastically to him.

Not long after Dom and his parents left Dwindabre, Mr. Drenren himself suddenly went missing too, leaving Sherry and Samantha alone without telling them where he was going away to and if he would ever return to them ever again. Sherry, for the first time in her life, after Mr Drenren left the Aweber household and since Dom left Sherry too, started to feel what it was like to see someone in her life leave her without giving her a sign of when they might come back to her. As much as Sherry was a positive oddball at this time, she never really had any other friends that surrounded her that she was particularly close to. All she had was just Dom, her extended family, and her immediate family members, which at this time was now just Samantha, during a time when Samantha struggled initially to keep the roof over their heads on her own since Mr. Drenren’s finances weren’t being funnelled back into taking care of them and their home.

After a long time, when Mr Drenren went missing, Samantha met someone who recommended another work placement for her with better pay than the jobs they were both currently working for. Samantha was recommended this work placement by a younger woman called Yovan Tristal during a coffee break away from her workplace before they both headed back to work for the day.

 

Dom slumped in his car seat and started to remember the hug that Sherry gave him while beginning to remember one of two things. One memory was currently blurry to him so he only got a faint bit of nostalgia from it but the other thought was an obvious feeling from how he felt when he was younger. This feeling brought back the memory of when Sherry hugged him for the final time on that overcast day when he, his mother Janny, and Gavan all moved out from Dwindabre.

Dom thought to himself.

“I… it’s so weird that Sher’s sitting behind me right now…”

Dom thought about the hug that Sherry gave him recently and the last hug he got from Sherry when they were younger and couldn’t help but feel like they were connected in some way, shape or form. It was as if this hug, in particular, was somehow bound by fate to happen again; Dom just never realised it until now. It was like life’s way of finally making Dom understand that it wouldn’t be his last hug with Sherry Aweber.

Dom looked briefly at the car’s rear-view mirror so that he could see Sherry briefly and then looked back out of the car window beside him with a smile that they were finally reunited again after five years of being apart. Sherry looked around in the backseat of the car until she looked beside herself and saw a few shopping bags from the various shops in Dwattalebringdamadodoka, which were mainly from different branches and franchises of the ‘Generic Store’ branded mega-corporation. Sherry asked Dom and Gavan to start a conversation with them.

“You guys seemed to be busy shopping today! What’s the occasion?”

Sherry also started this conversation with Dom and Gavan because she was curious about their day. Sherry also wanted to talk to them about how much they’ve changed from her perspective after all these years. Dom was taller and more muscular looking than when Sherry last saw him, while Gavan had put on a lot of weight when they last saw each other.

Gavan replied in a tone that annoyed Dom as he responded to Sherry.

“Ah yes, Sherry dear! Domathy starts school tomorrow, and I thought we’d go out together before the new school year began for him, you know! He’ll start to get busy for these next few years! Won’t you, Domathy?”

Gavan briefly took one of his hands off of his grey and black steering wheel to mess up Dom’s hair. Dom snapped back at Gavan while annoyed with him.

“Dad! Stop! You’re messing up my hair!”

Dom shoo-ed away Gavan’s arm with an unenthused look on his face while Gavan took his arm back and placed it onto the steering wheel of the car once again while amused with Dom’s response.

Sherry looked around the old, worn-down car and then over to the back of Gavan’s head and over to Dom, who was still looking at Gavan with an annoyed expression on his face for ruffling his hair into a mess. Dom was still agitated with Gavan ruffling his hair, but he started to get nervous once he noticed that Sherry was looking at him.

Dom cocked his head around and away from Sherry’s gaze and looked back through the car’s front windshield with a small crack at the bottom right-hand side of itself. While looking out of the window to think of a conversation topic randomly, Sherry remembered that Dom struggled with some subjects back in primary school. Along with playing and hanging out with Dom, there were a few times when they were both with each other at one another’s houses where Sherry would always help Dom with his homework so that they could speed through the homework together and start to play with each other once they were both finished.

Sherry leaned in and pulled her hair back with her left hand so she could see Dom speaking to her from behind the headrest of the car seat he leaned on. Sherry asked Dom out of curiosity and teasingly to get his attention.

“Dom, are you going to be all right in T.Y? Or did you finally get held back a year after all this time? Wait… would that make me your upperclassman then?”

Dom quickly turned his head to Sherry to reply, feeling offended that she would even think so lowly about him and his intelligence.

“No! Of course not Sher! I’m not as bad as I used to be, all right! I won’t bother you like I did when we were younger!”

As Dom sat in embarrassment that he had to be tutored by Sherry a lot when they were younger, Sherry continued their conversation by telling Dom in a soft tone.

“Aw… I miss giving you a tight hug when you started crying when we did homework together! I still remember when you were so worried about dropping a year back in primary school!”

Sherry’s tone sounded a bit genuine but mostly insulting to Dom. Even though Sherry was getting on his nerves, Dom replied to Sherry while embarrassed about those memories.

“You don’t have to remind me, Sher! I’ve changed okay! I don’t cry over trivial shit like that anymore!”

Sherry looked at Dom and smiled smugly at him while she started to doubt him. Gavan chimed into the conversation by saying to them while disappointed at first.

“Language Dom! Is that true Sher? Cause that’s adorable! You know, I remember a time when-“

Gavan was about to tell a recent story about himself, Dom, and something that happened between them that was funny to him since the conversation seemed to be about Dom and the embarrassing moments in his life, but before Gavan could continue to tell his story to Sherry, Gavan froze still in his car seat as he felt Dom’s cold and sharp gaze pierce straight into the side of his face. Gavan started to feel a cold sweat drip down his face when he noticed Dom’s menacing aura that had begun to grow and form around him.

Gavan said nervously while keeping his eyes on the road and fields ahead of him.

“Never mind…”

Gavan laughed loudly but nervously afterwards as he started to drive quietly now since he was frightened for his life. At the same time, Dom turned to face Sherry in the back of the car by moving his body sideways onto his car seat and turning his head around more than it already was. Dom scanned Sherry up and down now that she was motionless and trying to process what had just happened between him and Gavan. Along with the fact that Sherry was sitting still in the car and wasn’t able to move around much at all.

Dom started blushing once again when he stopped to stare at a more mature area of Sherry that he’d never seen before since, once again, it’s been five years since they both had seen each other last. In a flash, Dom quickly turned back around in his seat and stared back onto the road in front of himself, with Sherry looking at the back of his head confusingly.

Sherry thought to herself.

“Is he shy being around me now? Maybe I’m prettier than he thought I’d be if we met again in the future!”

Sherry breathed out of her nose and placed her fists onto her sides in victory for being able to impress Dom in one way or another. Sherry stared at the back of Dom’s head as Dom himself took glances at the rear-view mirror at Sherry and realised that she wasn’t going to leave him alone with the way he just quickly averted his gaze from her.

So, Dom turned around again in his car seat to ask Sherry a question. Sherry sat in her seat with her hands down either side of herself while still leaning slightly to the back of Dom’s seat to eagerly wait for Dom to speak again.

“So, Sher, what were you doing in Dwattale today?”

Sherry replied to him confidently and leaned back on her car seat a bit while gesturing with a hand under her chin and forgetting about Dom’s sudden head turn earlier.

“You know! Just shopping…by myself!”

Sherry enunciated the last part of her sentence with confidence as if that was something to be proud of, but Sherry’s confidence soon faded as soon as Dom started smirking at her and chuckled a little bit. Dom replied to Sherry while trying not to laugh at her.

“You know Sher…most people nowadays go to towns by themselves. It’s not that impressive, you know.”

Dom closed his eyes while smiling after knocking Sherry down a peg for teasing him with confidence earlier on. Sherry became unamused as she pouted and stared at Dom. Once Dom reopened his eyes, he looked at Sherry while leaving his right hand on his seat and brought his other hand around and through the car seat. Dom started to stretch his index finger toward Sherry’s face. Dom said to her while he extended his arm.

“No matter how long it’s been, it still seems you’ll always keep that same face of yours.”

Dom’s finger connected to Sherry’s cheek and started poking her. Dom continued talking to Sherry as he poked her.

“To be honest, if your cheeks were a bit skinnier, I might not have noticed you when you came over to us from the bus stop!”

Sherry raised an eyebrow and thought to herself.

“Was that an insult…or a roundabout way of complimenting me?”

After a few more seconds of Dom poking Sherry’s face, Sherry looked annoyed at Dom once again and asked him concerningly.

“Dom, can you stop poking my face now?”

Dom continued to be mesmerised by poking Sherry’s left cheek and couldn’t hear her because of it. It was like Dom was now lost in a world of his own since he was thinking of the memories he shared with Sherry when they were both younger. Sherry said to Dom while feeling agitated at him for constantly poking her face.

“I’ll bite your finger if you don’t stop it, Dom!”

Dom soon started to imagine Sherry with cat ears, whiskers and a long, pink-furred tail sticking up from behind her while Sherry started making hissing noises at him from poking her with his finger too much.

Dom snapped out of his nostalgic thoughts and started to retract his finger from Sherry’s face since he was worried that Sherry would bite his finger if he didn’t stop soon. As Dom did so, he stupidly shoved his instincts to one side and decided to poke Sherry’s face one last time to test fate. But before he could get anywhere near Sherry’s face, Sherry leant forward in her seat and ‘caught’ his finger with her teeth.

Dom quickly pulled back his finger in shock and looked down at it while holding onto his ‘bitten’ finger to see how hard Sherry had ‘bitten’ him. As it turns out, though, no mark was left on his finger. Not even a speck of saliva since Sherry didn’t chomp on his finger at all. Dom just imagined the pain of the bite since Sherry made the motion of biting his finger to fool him. All Sherry did was hover her teeth around his finger and quickly leaned back in her seat to make sure Dom wouldn’t hurt her teeth when he retracted his finger.

Gavan snickered as he had an idea of what was happening between Sherry and Dom while also drawing Dom’s attention away from Sherry. As Dom was pulled out from giving his attention to Sherry and as Dom started to argue and chat idly with Gavan, Sherry decided that she would get nosy and poke her nose all over and into the bags that were beside herself in the back seats of the car. Sherry quickly nabbed the bag closest to her and yanked it to herself as she started to get nosier with what Dom and Gavan had bought today.

After Sherry felt like she would be seen poking into Dom and Gavan’s shopping bags, Sherry slipped the bag quietly to her feet so that the bag was snuggly in between Dom’s car seat and her legs. Dom turned for a brief moment and looked behind himself to see Sherry innocently looking outside the car window while minding her own business.

Dom turned back around in his car seat and continued to talk to Gavan about tonight’s dinner. As the boys discussed their dinner for tonight, Sherry looked into the shopping bag that was now in between her legs to see that a set of clothes were in the bag and were pieces of Dom’s school uniform. Dom had a shoe box with black shoes at the bottom of the bag, then grey trousers that would suit the school environment. These trousers, in particular, weren’t jogging bottoms but formal trousers, almost reminiscent of normal and formal work suit trousers.

The next piece of Dom’s school uniform that Sherry spotted was a white shirt. Sherry thought to herself while scanning the rest of the bag for more of Dom’s school uniform and smiling at how she wasn’t caught yet by Dom or Gavan.

“Seems Dom doesn’t have much colour in his outfit so far.”

From the choices Sherry saw in the bag, she started to remember the options for the pieces of her school uniform that she could’ve picked that were displayed on the school’s website on her phone before she encountered Dom earlier today. Sherry noticed in the shopping bag that if Dom were going to Dwindabre’s secondary school too, he had picked the blazer option instead of the jumper option too. Dom’s blazer also had no colour since it was the shade of black. Sherry thought to herself briefly.

“Some boring character Dom’s aiming to be….”

Sherry kept looking into the shopping bag and found Dom’s neckpiece clothing item: a yellow ribbon. Sherry thought to herself with confusion.

“Seems a bit girly to wear a ribbon, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to try it on and see how it looked.”

Sherry was caught off guard by Dom looking at her in the corner of his eyes and commenting to her what he knew Sherry was thinking about when she was looking for a while at his yellow ribbon tie. Sherry squeaked and then she sighed while dropping the ribbon tie back into the shopping bag. Sherry then put the shopping bag back to where she pulled it from and started apologising to Dom and Gavan for being so nosy about what they bought today in Dwindabre.

Dom smiled and started acting smug since Sherry had been smug with him earlier back in Dwattalebringdamadodoka and asked her.

“Eww, have you become a pervert now, Sher? Snooping through all of my new clothes without me knowing?”

Sherry quickly replied to Dom in a panic.

“No! I just…it’s not that! I….”

Sherry soon realised that she didn’t have much of an excuse as to why she was randomly snooping through her friend's shopping bags in the first place and felt defeated until Dom said to her.

“Don’t worry Sher, I’m only joking with you! We haven’t bought anything too incriminating… unless you count my dad’s 2XL boxers, haha!~.”

Gavan replied in a playful tone to Dom as he giggled at him.

“Ah, give over, will ya!”

Gavan pushed Dom over with one hand playfully before putting his hand back onto the car's steering wheel and continued to drive towards the green exit sign down the road that said.

“Next Exit: Dwindabre.”

 

As they approached the green next exit sign, Sherry asked Dom after realizing the uniform might be customised since it fits the same criteria as what she could have bought for herself for school too. Also, Dom mentioned to Sherry; “Yeah, I just wanted to try it on and see how it looked.”  Which might imply that his uniform for school was customizable too.

“Hey, Dom?”

Dom hummed in reply with his mouth closed, and as he turned around to look at Sherry again.

“Are you also going to be going to Dwindabre’s secondary school? Like, not Mrs Drillhole’s the other one?”

Dom replied sarcastically to Sherry.

“No, I’m going to Gravdonvar Secondary School in Gravdonvar!”

Sherry screamed in surprise and clutched onto Dom’s car seat, saying straight to his face.

“Wait! That’s far north from here! Are we not going to see each other again for another few years!?”

Dom was so genuinely taken aback by Sherry’s reaction that he started to feel horrible for being sarcastic with Sherry about where he was going to school. Dom soon fixed this misunderstanding with Sherry by apologizing and telling her.

“Sher, sorry I was joking. I’m living in Dwindabre again, so I’ll also be attending the same school as you so don’t worry!”

Dom gestured with his free hand while his other hand was gripping onto his seat. Regardless of how genuinely worried Sherry seemed to be for him she sarcastically told him in reply.

“Ah, that’s too bad; I’m going to Gravdonvar Secondary School in Gravdonvar, lol!”

Dom apologised again to Sherry, knowing that she was joking from the big smile and look of relief that she had on her face. As they started laughing at each other, Gavan had a great idea of what he and Dom could have for dinner today, even though he had already decided what he would have with Dom. But for Gavan's ‘great idea’ to come to fruition, he needed to talk to Sherry in the back of the car. Gavan asked Sherry as she was still laughing with Dom.

“Hey, Sher! I know this seems sudden, but would you like to come to our new house? We live in Dwindabre again so… wouldn’t it be nice to know where we live so you can chat with Dom on your way to school in the morning?”

Sherry took a moment and thought about what Gavan had asked her. Sherry looked back at Dom’s school uniform inside the shopping bag and started to get curious about how Dom would look in his new school uniform since she was finding it hard to imagine that he would want to wear such a flimsy little ribbon as a part of his school uniform. Sherry was also curious since she hadn’t seen Dom in school wear since he moved away from her when they were both younger.

Sherry finally made her choice and told Gavan.

“All right! I don’t mind detouring to your guys’ house!”

Gavan’s eyes shun with success sparkles as his plan was finally put into motion while also trying to foster Dom’s friendship back with his old best friend since Dom left his old secondary school recently to move back to Dwindabre and didn’t have any of his friends move with him back to Dwindabre too.

The number of friends Dom used to have has taken a nosedive. There are a few online friends that Dom keeps in contact with that he knows of, but Dom hasn’t been too fond of socialising with other people he used to hang out with in real life physically. Hopefully, while reuniting with Sherry, they’ll at least have each other, even if they don’t befriend anyone else at school tomorrow.

Gavan sparked another thought that dampened his mood slightly. As an adult, Gavan should’ve already asked Sherry if it was okay for her to stay over with them, so he asked Sherry just in case.

“Eh, Sherry, do your parents mind if you stay at our house for a bit then? Do they both know that you’re still out?”

Sherry quickly replied to Gavan.

“Oh yeah, you’re right. I better-“

Sherry stopped as she remembered Dom's earlier words about going to town alone. Sherry started to feel her pride weaken and finished her sentence by saying quasi-confidently.

“I’ll be all right! I always go out, so they know I’ll be okay!”

Sherry looked chuffed with herself until Dom said in a monotone voice while staring her down unenthusiastically.

“You don’t have to lie about this kind of thing, Sher…just ask them.”

Feeling defeated again, Sherry took out her pink-cased phone to text Yovan while Gavan also asked Sherry as she texted Yovan.

“If you don’t mind as well, Sherry, would you also like to have dinner with us tonight?”

Sherry looked at Dom, who seemed indifferent to whether Sherry would say yes or no, probably because he made a show of himself earlier and then looked back to Gavan to reply to him after quickly making up her mind.

“Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem! I’ll ask my ma to be sure, though!”

Dom and Gavan anxiously waited with baited breaths for Yovan’s response to Sherry’s text as Dom had an idea of what Gavan was trying to do when inviting her over for dinner today. Sherry typed a message on her phone to Yovan and waited for her to reply.

A few seconds passed in the car with no sign of Yovan texting her back until she got a little chirp notification sound from her phone. Once Sherry read the message to herself, she nodded to both Dom and Gavan while telling them.

“Yeah, ma said it would be okay if I stayed over for dinner with you two!”

With one hand still on the wheel, Gavan pulled back his other arm with a fist to his chest and sat in relief as he was finally going to get someone else’s cooking for today that wasn’t from Dom or himself since he knew Sherry would lend a helping hand to him. Gavan also thought to himself, with his thoughts echoing in his head.

“Finally! We might be able to have a proper meal tonight! If I remember correctly, Samantha was a brilliant cook and taught Sherry a lot about cooking when she was younger. With some luck, Sherry can help us cook something decent tonight!”

 Gavan looked over to Dom briefly and kept his train of thought going.

“I’m sorry, my son…I’m never home enough to teach you cooking anymore…that’s why I don’t have the heart to tell you that your cooking… is just …sucks…”

Gavan looked back onto the dark but well-lit road and saw Sherry in his rear-view mirror, which prompted him to think to himself.

“Please, Sherry…teach my son these skills one day if you have them! Teach him the skills that I could never teach him….”

Then Gavan thought with a depressing tone in his inner voice.

“Nor his mother….”

Dom and Sherry looked curiously at Gavan as he seemed to put on a stern and depressed face while driving towards the housing estate that they lived in. Sherry and Dom were both worried for Gavan which prompted Dom to ask him.

“You alright Dad?”

Gavan snapped out of his depressing thoughts and smiled at Dom while glancing at him since he was still driving.

“Oh… yeah, I just- I’m just doing a mental checklist of what we can use for the lasagne tonight!”

Gavan ruffled Dom’s hair again briefly, making Dom annoyed at him again. Not too long after Dom’s hair was ruffled by Gavan, Sherry exclaimed to Dom, since it came up in their conversation before Gavan asked Sherry to stay over.

“Wait, you have a little sister now, DOM!? What’s her name? How old is she!?”

Dom nodded and smiled at Sherry as she had sparkles in her eyes from learning that Dom now had a little sister. Dom replied to Sherry with a proud tone in his voice.

“Yeah, my little sister’s name is Saoirse! Pronounced S-air-sha. Saoirse only just turned five a few months ago. Saoirse can be quite a handful sometimes, but she’s really adorable! Trust me, I should know as her brother!”

Sherry was happy to see that Dom liked his little sister as an older brother. If Dom were at odds with Saoirse, it would probably be bad for Sherry to get caught in between their sibling rivalry since Sherry was coming over for dinner today.

         

Before Sherry and Dom could continue their conversation and catch up with each other, they were cut off by Gavan as he announced to both of them cheerily.

          “Welcome to fifty Dranovast! The brand-new home of the Bremdat’s!”