She Can't Read Minds

“So, what happened?” Leslie asked, sliding down beside me against the wall. Jenna and Bridget sat against the wall a cross from us. Inside the den, the boys shouted at the television screen. At iCarly. I would have laughed at that if this were a normal situation. But it’s not.

“Nothing really.” I answered with a shrug, looking at Leslie who smiled weakly at me and attempted to give me a hug. Wow I feel better now. See that, even sarcasm doesn’t work. Jenna sighed, watching me with sad eyes while Bridget shifted uncomfortably. I felt myself becoming annoyed by this simple thing. “What?” I accidentally snapped.

“I can still feel the awkward.” Bridget commented, squirming around with an uncomfortably expression her face. I rolled my eyes as the others agreed with her. “I’m sorry, hon, but that moment you just had was extremely awkward and now what are you gonna do? You have no ideas. We have no ideas; we’re stuck.”

“Are you telling me you’re giving up on helping me?” I asked, giving each of my friends a look before focusing more onto Bridget. She shrugged her shoulders, not knowing an answer. “Aren’t we all friends here? Used to be best friends who helped each other? So you’re gonna give up on me when I need you guys the most.” Jenna rubbed her forehead.

“What can we do, Andi?” Jenna asked.

I shook my head, “No, I don’t wanna fight with you guys.” Leslie rolled her eyes.

“No one was fighting.” She told me like I was completely stupid for even suggesting it in the first place. I looked at her, upset with her.

“Yet.” I finished, “No one was fighting yet, but in a couple of minutes I just know we’ll be fighting over this stupid thing that doesn’t even matter.” From the den you heard silence, like they were listening to us now and not the stupid television show with the annoying girls on it. I didn’t want them to get into this too; if this led to losing even one person, I wouldn’t want to lose them all. “It doesn’t matter anymore, okay guys? So let’s just go do…something. Anything.”

“If it didn’t matter,” Bridget urged, “you wouldn’t have gotten upset by the thought of us giving up on this. If it didn’t matter, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now. We’d all be upstairs; we’d all be happy. Clearly it fucking matters to you.” She rolled her eyes and stood up to walk down the hallway and out the front door. Jenna stared off to where her best friend vanished before flashing me a weak pity smile and chase after her. Leslie turned to me.

“What?” I asked her, feeling like digging a hole and hiding forever.

“I won’t give up.”

“Yeah?” I bit my lip, watching her smile and nod her head. Leslie had her moments, but in the end she stayed by your side when you seriously needed it. She knew when the worst time to walk away was, that’s why she never did. That made it hard for me to tell her: “I think I might.”

“You don’t mean that, love, don’t say that.” She tried.

I shook my head, “No Leslie, I finally noticed something. I noticed that no matter how close we could be one second, somehow we were miles apart. Now we could be close, everything could be amazing, but we can’t be. Obviously it wasn’t supposed to happen the way I wanted; obviously I built myself up for a painful down.”

“Stop Miranda, it was supposed to the way you wanted. No one said you wouldn’t have to work a whole damn lot for it. Just because you don’t have what you want right this second, doesn’t mean you won’t ever get it.” Leslie said.

“I’m sorry.”

Leslie stood up and glanced down at me, “No, I am.” With that, she followed in the way the other two went. Why do I keep messing things up?