Operation Beautiful

“Hey, are you not coming?” I ask Haley. Instead of heading to lunch with me, she turns back towards one of the buildings.

“I have an art project to finish,” she says. “You go ahead.”

I consider asking her if I can tag along. I really don’t feel like seeing Trevor right now. But at the same time, I have no intentions of adding fuel to the fire. By the time I open my mouth, Haley’s already too far gone. So instead I head to my locker, unsure of my next move. On my way I see Emmaleigh propped up against the cafeteria door, texting.

“What are you up to?” I ask.

She jumps slightly. “Well, I figured you wouldn’t want to eat in there and Jess and I still aren’t talking, so...”

I smile. “You were waiting for me?”

She runs a hand through her curly blonde-brown hair nervously. “Um...kind of?”

“Where do you want to eat?”

She just shrugs. Instead of going into the cafeteria, we sit down in the grass between a couple of the school buildings. A few minutes in, I get a call.

“Hey, Du Pont!” comes Janice’s dry voice. She seems slightly irritated, her voice louder than usual. “Is Haley with you?”

“No,” I say. “Why? Is she not picking up her phone?”

“Oh, you’re not?” Janice says, just as loud. It’s almost as though she’s speaking to someone across the table. Before she hangs up I hear her say. “See? I told you--”

“I didn’t say they were together,” Trevor snaps angrily. “I didn’t even ask where she was!”

Then she hangs up. I let out a deep sigh.

“What’s up?” Emmaleigh asks.

“I think Trevor and Haley fought because of yesterday,” I say with a groan. “Which is the last thing I wanted.”

Emmaleigh frowns thoughtfully. “I was afraid they might. We should go talk to her.”

I’m about to agree, but being around Haley if Trevor shows up is the last thing I want to do right now. “Maybe we should just call her?” I say hesitantly.

Emmaleigh nods and reaches for her phone. Her head tilts to the side, her curly hair moving slightly in the wind as she waits for Haley to pick up. “Hey, Haley?” She motions for me to move my head closer.

“Hey, Emma. What’s up?”

“Um...well...” Emmaleigh looks at me for help.

“Emma, I’m really not in the mood for beating around the bush.”

“I don’t want you to get upset.”

“Then spit it out!”

“Did you and Trevor fight?”

There’s a long pause.

“This is one of those face-to-face conversations, don’t you think?” Haley asks finally, her voice careful.

“Okay. I’ll come find you then. Mind if I bring Corey?”

“No, go ahead. I’m in the art room.”

Emmaleigh looks at me. “Let’s go.”

Haley's sitting quietly in one of the corners of the room, hidden inside an office cubicle. A portrait of two really small girls shoving cake into each others' faces is lying unfinished before her.

"You guys fought?" I ask, pulling up a stool.

She shrugs. "A little. How's your eye?"

"It's all right. Nothing major. Trevor...?"

She waves a hand, the corners of her mouth upturned in the smallest of smirks. "Physically, no harm done. Just a small knock in the jaw."

"Hey! I was going easy on him because he's my friend!" I say, raising my hands in defense.

"So you guys fought?" Emmaleigh prods.

Haley nods and looks from me to Emmaleigh for a second. I guess she really doesn't feel comfortable around Emmaleigh yet.

"Why don't you go make sure Trevor isn't coming?" I ask, my intentions the furthest thing from subtle.

"Mm." Emmaleigh walks off, but she looks a little hurt.

"Thanks," Haley says. "I don't really feel comfortable talking about this with everyone."

"What happened?" I ask.

"I got mad at him for hitting you," she says. "And he showed me those stupid pictures."

"He knows they don't mean anything, right?" I ask.

She tilts her head to the side and bites her bottom lip. "If he's thought about it at all then he should. I explained every single one to him and he didn't accuse me of cheating, so that's not really the problem."

"Then what was he so pissed about?"

She shrugs. "If I heard his yelling properly, nothing we were doing was horrible given the circumstances, but he felt extremely jealous seeing the pictures, which led to that whole problem."

"So it sounds like you guys are on to 'forgive and forget' now?"

"Well, he asked me to stay away from you while he got his feelings under control," she says, cocking an eyebrow.

My heart stops. "And you said?"

She shrugs. "For him to F off, basically."

"Haley!" I almost beg. "He's not being completely unreasonable. Christa's been trying to get him jealous of us for like a month or so now. He's been trying really hard to stop himself. It's not his fault he snapped." It seems odd for me to be defending the guy who gave me a black eye but at the end of the day, Trevor is my friend. And I've seen Haley before Trevor. He's been amazing for her.

"So that's what this whole Christa crap has been about," Haley muses.

"Please tell me you didn't break up," I plead.

"We didn't break up. More like...on hiatus."

"Haley!" I all but yell.

"He said to avoid you while he sorted things out and I told him that i thought it would be better to avoid him until he sorted things out." She turns back to her painting as if nothing is wrong.

"Haley, you're completely overreacting!" I yell. "Jealousy is not that big of a deal!"

She twirls around to face me. "You're just a convenient excuse, Corey."

"What?"

"When was the last time you saw me without Trevor within 10 feet of me?"

I think about that for a long minute. "Aside from classes...that first trip to the mall."

She nods. "Exactly. Come on, I know you guys have noticed it too. He'll wait outside the bathroom for me."

This is true. Spike and I have been joking around about it behind their backs. But I assumed that they'd straightened it out when Spike saw them having a "heated discussion" before the soccer game.

"You could just ask him to back off! You don't need to break up with him!" I say, agitated. She's completely overreacting.

"Corey, you don't understand." She put her paint brush down and looks at me nervously. "You remember what happened at the mall?" How could I forget? "Well, see, usually that doesn't happen in the day. But I do get nightmares. This therapist friend of Mom's says it's my mind slowly” she waves her hand vaguely. “...coming to grips...some crap like that. Anyway, the point is that when I'm like that, the only person who can calm me down is Trevor."

"How is that a problem?"

"Well for one thing, it kills my mom to know that she makes it worse. Secondly, if it happens at my house, we have to call Trevor over at three in the morning." She sighs. "I didn't realize how depended I was on him until the mall thing. Because at first when he stuck to me like glue, I didn't care! I didn't even notice! I actually...liked it." She looks up at me.

"There may be a lot of things I don't know about relationships, but I do know that being that dependent on a guy is not good. I want to be able to handle my nightmares on my own a little. I don't want to have to see Trevor exhausted and beat-up in the morning because I couldn't handle myself. And I definitely don't ever want to find myself lifeless and following some guy everywhere. I mean, I was thinking about it, and I haven't hung out with Clarice and Janice in a while. I think...I think we both need this space."

I'm confused. Half of me says she's overreacting, the other half says she made a good choice.

"I-I see," I say finally. "Well do me a favor and let Trevor that it's not my fault you guys are breaking up or else he'll never talk to me again."

"We aren't breaking up," Haley says with an exasperated sigh. "We just aren't going to talk until we've sorted all this crap out."

***
"Emmaleigh!" I call from across the hall. She turns around briefly and I run after her. "You disappeared," I say when I've caught up.

"I didn't want to intrude," she says.

"It kinda sucks that Haley didn't want to talk in front of you," I say carefully, certain that she'd been upset about that before.

"Yeah," she says. "I mean, it makes sense considering we've hung out, like, three times. But...I mean, I'm used to hanging out with Jess and having her tell me everything, so it felt odd."

"I see."

The bell rings and we start walking her towards her locker. On our way I see a pink post-it on a locker nearby.

"Jessica again, huh?" I ask, pointing.

Emmaleigh shrugs. “I guess so.” She grabs her stuff and waves goodbye. “I’ll be coming to you guys’ place at six,” she calls.