Pretty Girl (The Way)

My hands shake as I hurry to shove everything into my messenger bag. My iPod remains untouched on the top of the table – I guess TJ is a big enough distraction to deter thieves – and my phone is still in the front pocket of my bag. I realize that the loose sheets of paper I’d been writing on are getting crumpled and squished when I jam them into my bag, but at the present time I don’t care.

“Natalie!”

I ignore Ashleigh and flip the top of my bag closed. The hair on the back of my neck is on end, and I know it’s because my roommate is closing in on me.

“Natalie!” Her voice is exasperated, but I continue to ignore her as I weave my way around the table and attempt to get out the emergency exit. I don’t care if I set the fire alarm off – I need to get away from TJ.

She follows me all the way across the building as I near the door. With my hands against the door, I push. The fire alarm sounds at the exact moment I’m greeted with the warm pulse of sunlight. The screech of the alarm drowns out her voice, and I disappear into the crowd.
…
I feel calm as I’m curled up on the couch, my iPod playing softly and my econ book open on my lap. It’s like my apartment is a breath of fresh air, open and quiet where I can just exist. The library was suffocating; like warm air in a tight space. The solitude brings my anxiety under control, and after pacing and hyperventilating for twenty minutes, I’m able to relax as I focus on my work.

The front door slams shut, and I recoil instantly. There’s no way for me to pretend I hadn’t heard her entering – she is making it damn near impossible to ignore her.

Sure enough, Ashleigh rounds the side of the couch and stops in front of me. I look up at her slowly, to find her staring at me with her eyebrows raised and her hands on her hips. Slowly I pull my iPod buds out of my ears.

“So are you going to tell me what the hell that was about?” She demands.

I chew on my lip and tug on a lock of my hair. I had really hoped she hadn’t noticed. “Nothing,” I reply softly.

She sighs, and out of my peripheral vision, I see that she lets go of her hips. “Natalie –”

“It’s a stupid reason,” I tell her.

“It isn’t stupid if it makes you like this.” Her reasoning is solid, and I notice the compassion in her voice, but I also know what she’d get like if I told her what’s really going on.

My silence is deafening, and she sighs again. “Your name is Casey Morgan.”

Startled, I look up. My mouth drops open. Ashleigh shrugs as if it’s no big deal, but I have a feeling that whatever she has done is a big deal. “I told him your name is Casey, and to excuse your behaviour due to the fact that your Aunt just passed away.”

“Ashleigh –”

“You’re welcome,” she tells me. And just like that, she leaves and the conversation is over.

What a weird day.
…
The next day I feel it’s safe to go back to the Library. Ashleigh is back in our apartment arguing on the phone with her brother, who had phoned and asked if he could come crash on our couch for a reason he doesn’t want to tell her. The noise was too much to handle, so I had decided to do my work somewhere else until my first class of the day at 1:30.

I relish in the silence when I push into the expansive library. I feel almost elated that it’s peaceful here, because that means no TJ. I settled into a corner of the library, and extract my laptop out of my bag. While it starts up, I look out the wall of windows on my right. It may be bright and sunny out, but it definitely isn’t as warm as yesterday.

My Mac book comes alive, and I shrug off my fall jacket. I pull out a manila folder and open it up on the desktop. I’d decided today to work on my advertising assignment, so I wait for Adobe Photoshop to load. My gaze is once again pulled to the outdoors. I don’t want to be inside and working, but if I want to go out this weekend I have to finish this assignment.

“Casey?” A hand claps down on my shoulder, and I nearly jump out of my skin. A feeling of dread slowly creeps up my stomach and settles in my throat. There are only two other people that would know about that name.

I turn around slowly in my seat, and lo and behold, it isn’t Ashleigh. “TJ Oshie,” I breathe.

He looks uncomfortable, standing with his hands now in his pockets and fidgeting on the carpeted floors. But then it’s like a light bulb goes off over my head, because I suddenly how utterly embarrassing it is to have him call me Casey, even though he should know my name is Natalie. Ashleigh and I have both made fools of me, and I’m in too deep to say anything.

I scramble to my feet and attempt to gather my things up. He comes and stands beside the studying cubby and leans against the wood. “I’m sorry about your Aunt.”

I’m too numb to really think about what he’s said, and I keep my eyes on my things. “Don’t be. She beat my cousins.”

Lie, after lie, after lie. At some point, you’d think it would get old, but apparently for me it doesn’t. They’re coming so quick and effortlessly from my mouth that I almost scare myself.

“Well then I’m not sorry.”

I shrug on my jacket and clip my bag closed. Without any kind of eye contact, I start walking. Maybe he’ll leave. I have no such luck as he follows behind me. I can feel prying eyes on me as I scuttle from the building, but I try to pay it no mind.

Finally, when he coughs awkwardly behind me, ten minutes away from the library, I sigh. I stop walking, and turn on my heel so quickly that TJ nearly bumps into me. I’d had every intention of looking him square in the eye and ask him exactly what is so interesting about me, but at the last second, I falter. I look at the sidewalk; at his worn sneakers. “What do you want?” I ask quietly.

“I need your help,” he says.

Curiously, I look up. He’s gotten taller since high school, and he’s filled out. He’s still got that curly mop of dirty blonde hair, and he’s still got those flushed, round baby cheeks. And he’s still got those eyes.

Fourteen-year old Natalie sits in fourth period English, her nose buried in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Her raven black hair is tied high in a smooth ponytail, and a splash of light pink shimmering watermelon-flavoured lip-gloss is dotted lightly over her lips. She has taken extra time this morning to get ready, and she is especially proud of the American Eagle shirt she had bought over the weekend and is wearing now. It mkes her feel like all the other popular kids who wear American Eagle apparel, and her self-confidence shines through in the form of a bright smile.

“Who does she think she’s fooling?” A voice hisses snidely from behind her.

Natalie stiffens, her self-esteem wavering for a brief second as she realizes that Bethany, the biggest bitch in the ninth grade, talks about someone. Part of her hopes it’s someone else, but the foreboding feeling in her gut knew it’s her.

“You can still see all the rolls of a bakery with that shirt. She makes me never want to shop at AE again.”

Tears sting her eyes, and she tries to cover it up by hiding behind her book. She’s talking about her. And it hurts almost as much as being rejected by the person she had dressed this way for.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the object of her affection. His hazel eyes are just as sad as the frown on his face, as he undoubtedly hears Bethany’s snarky remarks, but he does nothing. His eyes hold hers for a brief second, before he deliberately turns away and back to his own book.

He’s sorry, just not sorry enough to help. Natalie’s heart broke that day.

I can feel tears prick at the corner of my eyes, and TJ looks startled. “Hey, are you okay?”

He bends his head, his fingers ghosting over the back of my arm. I bite my lip to keep from crying, but his immediate sincerity make it hard. “Natalie’s said some horrible things about you,” I squeak. What’s one more little lie?

TJ recoils in obvious pain, but doesn’t move away from me. Why? “That’s actually what I need your help with,” he pushes on, “I need to talk to Natalie.”

I gulp. “You want me to talk to her?”

“Yes.”

I pull away from his comfort; his light touch. “It’s too bad she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

He steps forward after I step back. “You don’t understand, Casey. I have to talk to her. After I got drafted by the Blues, her mom let me know that she got accepted to University here.”

“You talk to my mom?”

TJ looks oddly at me. “I mean,” I hurry to fix my mistake, “Momma Allister is like my secondary mother.”

TJ gives a half smile. “Yeah, women in that family are something else.” But then a frown marres his features, and the reminiscent look disappears. “I’ve done things that I’m not proud of. I need to talk to her.”

I chew on my lip. What should I do?

I sigh and wipe the tears from my eyelids. “I’ll talk to her,” I concede, and relish in the youthful grin that spreads across his face. Natalie could never make that look appear, I think coldly. “But I can’t promise anything.”

His smile stretches, and it breaks my heart. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get out of the hole I’m in.