Fall Away

Thursday night, I found myself dancing behind the bar at Bella, laughing. I couldn’t tell you how Trevor did it, but I was actually having fun. If the boy had heard the rumors – which I’m sure he had – he didn’t comment on them, didn’t treat me any differently.

That small bit of normality enabled me to work, serving customers as if I didn’t notice their whispers the moment I turned away. I didn’t know what they were saying – honestly, I didn’t really want to know how crazy the rumors had gotten. I forced myself to accept the fact that they weren’t true, and everyone that mattered knew the truth.

Still, as much fun as sporadic dancing was, the job wasn’t as fun without the friendly banter between customers. Granted, I didn’t do much of that before the gossip started, but at least I could talk to people when I wanted to. The atmosphere in the small place was different, but no one else seemed to care.

“Ellie!”

I felt a sense of déjà vu as I looked up to see one of the twins walking into the bar. As he got closer, I could tell it was Soren. It now seemed amazing that I had confused them – I know noticed the little things that set them apart.

“Have you guys memorized my work schedule or something?”

Soren looked at me, a slightly confused smile on his face. “No?”

“It seems like every time I’m working, you or your brother show up.”

Two girls sitting a short ways down the bar began to whisper intensely, and I felt like a new string of gossip would be spreading around the town within the next hour. But whatever. I wasn’t going to second guess my every word, wondering how the rest of the town would interpret it.

Soren shrugged. “You’re predictable, I guess.”

“Isn’t a schedule supposed to be predictable?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

He paused for a moment. “You have a point.”

I shook my head, laughing slightly, and waved in the general direction of an open patch of bar. “Sit down. I’ll grab you a drink.”

Soren obeyed, sliding into an empty seat next to the two girls. I almost laughed as they immediately began to flirt with him. Obviously, they didn’t hold a grudge against him – just me. I watched them out of the corner of my eye as I filled a mug with Soren’s typical drink. I guess the fact that he was a boy – an attractive one at that – solved any possible problem.

“El-lie,” Trevor said in a sing-songy voice.

“What?” I called back.

“Want to be my best friend?”

I rolled my eyes as I moved towards him. “Who do you want me to cover?”

He pointed to one end of the bar before bustling off to another. The fact that I was covering two forty-year old men while he was helping a group of college girls didn’t escape my notice, but I let it go. I was sure he was putting up with some crap by talking to me - he deserved to have some fun.

I helped the men, then finally gave Soren his beer. He took a sip and smiled at me before resuming his conversation with the girls who had gathered around him. A part of me hoped that he would set some of them straight, but I didn’t let myself dwell on the thought. Since it was Soren, I doubted he had any kind of master plan. He was more like Trevor – he talked because he was a flirt, and he flirted because it was fun.

An hour and a half later, Soren walked next to me down the darkened street, hands shoved in his pocket. “How’ve you been?” he asked.

“Fine,” I shrugged. “It’s a small town – you’d have heard of any major changes in the last few days.”

He nodded. “And I figured Kirian would fill me in on anything important… although he didn’t tell me what time you were coming over tomorrow.”

I looked at him in confusion. “I didn’t know I was.”

Soren stopped walking for a second before he seemed to come back to himself and continued his steps. “He didn’t talk to you about it?”

I shook my head. The way we left it, I hadn’t gotten the feeling he was interested in spending any more time with me and my nosy questions.

Soren muttered something under his breath, and I caught the words “idiot” and “chicken” but couldn’t tell who he was referring to. “Well, I guess I’ll ask for him.”

“Ask away,” I said, more casually than I felt.

“You’re off tomorrow night, right?”

I nodded. “You sure you haven’t memorized my schedule?”

Soren rolled his eyes. “You told me Friday’s were your nights off, Ellie. Don’t try to call me a stalker.”

I smiled but didn’t say anything. He took that as a cue to continue.

“Anyways, we were just thinking you could come over again. If you wanted. Nothing special, just to hang out.”

I had to stop and think for a minute. It wouldn’t do anything to stop the rumors, but I had already decided I didn’t care about those. I still wasn’t sure what to make of the twins, but so far they’d been nothing but nice to me. Kirian had opened up to me, even with me unwilling to divulge personal information. It wouldn’t hurt to take some time to get to know them.

“Yeah. Your house at six?”

Soren grinned. “Sounds good.”

I smiled, and realized that these two boys were starting to become the best things about this town.