Blue Sky and Other Things That Are Good For You

I slipped on the torn up pink dress and headed off to work. Suzy was going to be picked up by Ryan around four and she’d be going trick or treating with them. “you look great!” Ted says as I enter the store. I smile politely and put on my pin. As the day goes by, more and more people stop by, and not just little kids.

Katie, one of Amanda’s followers was throwing a big party at her house, and everyone came by for some frozen yogurt before heading out there. Even Amanda and her clones. They were all wearing slutty uniforms, such as nurse or a bunny. It made me sick.

“oh look! It’s that whore, Blue Sky.” Amanda says loudly.

I was about to point out that there were little kids around when Katie broke in, “Amanda, families are around here. Keep that at school.”

“like you care.” Amanda replies. Then she turns back to me, “five low fat vanilla please.” She says and then they walk off to a booth in the back. Katie gives me a small smile before following.

I serve up the five cones, not being low fat. Call it a charity case, they all needed to gain some weight. The bell at the door dings while I take the tray back to them, I don’t bother to turn around. I’ll just get them when I go back.

I set the tray down and they all grab a cone. Amanda takes a lick as I walk away, “excuse me?” she asks rudely and I turn around. “this is not low fat.”

“yes it is.”

“no, I can taste the fat in it.”

“well, I can get you another.” I say politely, today wasn’t the day to have a fight with a customer.

“I have a better idea.” She takes her cone and smashes it against my face. It slips down to the floor. The rest of the girls laugh and throw their cones at me to, most of them hitting my dress. I see Katie sitting there, slowly licking away at her cone. Amanda glares at her and then gets up to leave.

Katie was last to get up and follow, “I’m sorry.” She says, still eating her yogurt as she continues her way. I watch the five of them leave the store and then look at the people standing at the counter. There was a little Dalmatian, two little girls in a gown, and a tall firefighter. Great, he saw that. Luckily Amanda didn’t recognize him.

I walk over and grab a rag to wipe as much of the stuff off as I could. I serve the three cones I knew the kids would want and they ran off to listen to Ted’s wife read scary stories in the kids room.

Without saying anything, I grab a bucket and fill it with water. I had a mess to clean up after all. Ryan followed me to the back where the mess was.

I kneel down and start picking up the cones as he stands there.

“you okay?” he asks.

“of course.” I reply, wiping some of the yogurt up.

“I’m sorry.” He says.

“for what? You’re not the one who threw the yogurt at me. And you shouldn’t be apologizing for your girlfriend.” I look up at him as I say this. He had on a dark blue shirt that showed off his muscles like they’re supposed to and firefighting pants with the suspenders hanging at the side. He looked like an actual firefighter from town.

Ryan bends down to help me but I push his hands away, “I don’t need your help Ryan.” I say loudly. I was mad, not at him, but at this whole situation.

Instead of standing back up, he sits down on the ground next to me. “you’re mad.”

“of course I’m mad. You saw what she did to me and I had to act all nice about it. If I didn’t need this job so much she would be in the hospital right now.”

“you don’t mean that.” I throw one of the dirty rags aside and start on another.

“yes, I do. You don’t get it at all. You don’t get me and you especially don’t get her. Sure, she’s sweet around you because she doesn’t want you breaking up with her. And that day she caught us on the sofa, she wasn’t going to dump you, she will never dump you. Amanda is afraid that you’ll dump her though. It’s obvious. That’s why she doesn’t want me around you, even for the play.” I try to explain.

“that doesn’t make sense.”

I toss the rag aside and sit back, “okay, every girl at school would never do anything to get on Amandas bad side. And if by chance they did, she would find out because that girl would tell some other girl who would tell some other girl and it would finally get to her, got it?” he nods, “but since I don’t have any friends at school, there’s no one for me to tell if for some godforsaken reason you and I hooked up. That means there is no way for her to know what you and I are actually doing when she’s not around. That’s why she doesn’t want us to hang out.”

“I think you’re thinking too much into this.” Ryan says. I start cleaning up again. “She trusts me.”

I laugh, “she doesn’t trust you. she doesn’t trust anyone. That’s why she is so mean, if she showed one bit of weakness, she’d tumble down along with the Berlin Wall.” A flash of pain crosses his face and I instantly feel bad. “Ryan, I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m just telling you what everyone else is afraid to say.”

“I just don’t get it. She seems fine when I’m around.” Of course he wouldn’t believe me. His phone vibrates before he can say anything more. He reads it and then talks, “shit! I forgot about Katies party.”

He looks behind him at the kids and then back at me. “go.” I say, “I can watch them until you get back.” I was finally done cleaning up the mess and dumped everything into the bucket, putting up a ‘wet floor’ sign.

“you sure?” he asks.

“yes, I’m positive” I set the bucket down in the back sink and wipe my hands. “just don’t come back drunk.”

“never had a drop of alcohol in my life.”

“well good for you.”

He starts to leave and then turns back and leans over the counter, “you look great as Cinderella by the way.” He then kisses my cheek before hurrying out the door. For the next couple hours, all I worried about was him coming back sad. Amanda knew how to pick guys up at parties, and I had a feeling that tonight would be the night she would finally get caught doing so.

About an hour later Lydia and Rick come through the door laughing. “hey guys!” I say smiling.

“Hi Sky.” Lydia replies, “our kids are here I’m hoping.”

“of course. They’re in the other room listening to stories and doing some crafts.”

“and what about Ryan?” Rick asks.

“he had to show himself at some party, he should be here any minute. But don’t worry, I’ve been watching the kids.”

“well then we’ll have two swirls. Might as well wait for him since he has keys to the car.”

I smile and nod, making up two swirls and quickly handing them the cones. They thank me and walk into the couples room. The night had slowed down by then. The people who were going to come were already here, except for few stragglers who didn’t have anything better to do on a Saturday night.

Half an hour or so after Lydia and Rick came, Ryan showed up again. Looking upset like I had guessed before. I already knew what happened, so I didn’t ask. Instead I made him a swirl and put a pink sprinkle on it before walking over to the table he sat at and handed it to him, taking the seat to his right.

“thanks,” he mumbles, smiling a little when he notices the sprinkle. But the smile quickly fades.

“Rick and Lydia are here.” I say. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys, handing them to me.

“If they’re drunk, don’t give them the keys, but otherwise they can have them.” I laugh before going into the couple room. I already knew they weren’t drunk.

“hey you guys, here are your keys.” I say, handing them the set Ryan had give me.

“oh, he’s here?” Lydia asks.

“yeah, just showed up. We’re going to go out some though, so you don’t have to wait.” I say. Even though I hadn’t talked to Ryan about it, I just knew he would want to talk at some point.

“great.” Lydia says and then turns to Rick, “lets go get the kids, I’m exhausted.”

Rick nods and they head into the other room to get the kids. As they leave they wave a goodbye to us.

“what did you tell them?” Ryan asks, his yogurt gone.

“just that we had plans for later, so they didn’t have to wait around. Plus, I need a ride home.”

Ryan laughs, but I could tell it wasn’t filled with emotion, “what if I didn’t want to give you a ride home?”

“I know you do. I’ll be off in ten minutes.” Ted’s wife finishes the story and a group of kids leaves that area. She smiles over at us and I smile back. We had met before, but weren’t really that close. “hey, how did you know I was Cinderella? No one else got it.”

“Sort of guessed. It’s supposed to be the dress she makes in the beginning right? And then wears it and her step-sisters tear it to shreds?”

“exactly. Ted wanted me to be Cinderella but didn’t think it would work to serve soft yogurt in a gown.”

“well I like this a lot better.”

We were silent after that, just sitting there looking around.

“you can go now, Sky!” Ted tells me.

I look up at him, “oh, thanks. And thank you for the costume, I actually like it.”

“good to hear. See you Monday.” I nod and then grab Ryans hand and pulling him out of the store. I had had enough of that place for the day.

“in a rush are we?”

“I’ve been there for twelve hours, I needed out. I also need out of this dress.” I slip it above my head and see Ryan watch. I don’t know exactly what he was waiting for since I had clothes on underneath. “Ryan, I’m not naked underneath, you don’t have to stare.”

He shakes his head and looks away, blushing. I fold up the dress and put it in my bag, pulling out my sweatshirt. “where did you park?” I ask.

“just around the corner.”

He walk there in silence and he opens my door for me before sliding in. I expected him to drive, but he didn’t. we just sat there with quiet music playing in the background.

“She was cheating on me.” He finally admits.

“I know.”

“With Blake. One of my best friends. I walked in on them and-and she didn’t even try to hide it.” His knuckles were turning red from gripping the steering wheel so tight.

“hey. It’s going to be okay.” I rest my hand on his shoulder but he shakes it off.

“how do you know!?” he practically yells at me. I move a little more to my side.

“I don’t. But I’m here, aren’t I? and you still have all your friends at school and your family.”

He turns to me, looking sad, “why are you doing this?”

“doing what?”

“pretending like you actually care?”

well that caught me off guard, why was I caring? “I-I guess because I realized that if I lose you I don’t have anyone else. You at least have other friends and a family that cares about you. But I don’t. and now that you decided to be a part of my life, I’m not letting you just ditch me like people have in the past.”

He doesn’t say anything in reply and just drives straight to my apartment building with the music playing. Ryan parks and I start to get out, but before I can he’s already around, opening my door for me. He walks me up to my floor and I take out my key to open up. I start to say bye but he covers my mouth with his. I drop my hand from the doorknob and wrap them around his neck, pulling him closer.

Ryan reaches around and opens the door, pushing us in and I kick closed when we’re fully through it. He pushes me against the door while his hands linger at the edge of my sweatshirt. I knew he was about to take it off and for some reason I was fine with that.

“Blue Sky?” I hear my moms voice call from the other room, “is that you?” Ryan pulls back shocked and drops his hands, jumping back as we hear footsteps coming toward us and the light flickering on.

“mom? Dad? What are you guys doing home?” I ask, my voice slightly ragged from the kissing.

“The club wasn’t very active tonight, everybody had other parties to be at.” I gulp and glance at Ryan. They weren’t drunk, or high. They weren’t even tipsy. I knew they had some drinks, but nothing that really affected them. All in all, they were pretty sober.

“oh.”

“who’s this?” my father motions toward Ryan.

I didn’t know what to say, hoping that Ryan would cover for me and he did. “I’m Ryan Richards sir, a friend of Sky’s” he says.

“we were practicing for the play we’re in.” I add. Ryan smirks knowing that was a complete lie.

“really? I wish our plays were like that back in the days, don’t you Danny?”

“yeah. Then we might’ve actually gone to them.” My dad replies.

“well, you two have fun. Don’t be too loud and don’t stay up too late. Nice meeting you Ryan.” My mom says and they both head back to their bedroom.

Ryan returns to his spot next to me, “practicing for the play?”

“I had to think of something.”

“they totally didn’t believe you.” he says, laughing, “I really don’t want to go home right now.”

I slip my hand into his and pull me to my room where there was the bigger t.v. I didn’t dare set that in the living room, my parents didn’t deserve it. “lets watch a movie.” I say, going over to the shelf to choose a horror movie. I slip out Poltergeist and put it in the VHS player while Ryan sits down on my bed.

The rating flashes across the screen and Ryan looks at me like I’m crazy, “what did you put in? Scooby-Doo?” Poltergeist was an old 60’s horror film that was rated PG.

“That would have been a good idea, but no.” I lean back against my headboard.

The movie itself starts and the light from the tv shows across our faces.

During certain parts of the movie, I jump and Ryan laughs at my reaction. Then, when the kid is being pulled through, Ryan jumps with me.

“did you really just jump Ryan?”

“no.”

“I think you did.”

“you’re imagining stuff Sky.”

“that was defiantly a jump. Are you scared?”

“I think you’re the one that’s scared.”

“I’ll admit, ghosts in tvs are scary.”

Ryan laughs, “where’s your bathroom?” he asks.

“to the left of here, you can’t miss.”

I see him nod a little and the bed moves when he gets off. The scariest part of the movie was coming up, in my opinion, and part of me wished Ryan was back so that I could hide. The door in the movie was creaking open and just as the woman screams on screen, I hear a ‘boo!’ and scream myself.

Ryan was bent over laughing when I finally came from hiding. I glared at him as he took his seat back on my bed. “that was priceless by the way.” He whispers.

“I’d be the youngest person to have a heart-attack.”

“aw, don’t think that way.” His hand went up to caress my cheek.

“Ryan…” I trail off and before I can continue his lips are on mine. He licks my bottom lip and against my will my lips part, allowing him entrance. This was a whole other playing field, but I wasn’t quite arguing. After about a minute of that I pull away to breath and Ryan moves his lips down my neck. I take in a sharp gasp as he kisses right below my bottom jaw. I feel Ryan smile and work his way back up to my lips.

I knew this was wrong, but at the same time I didn’t want to stop it because it felt so right.

I pull my lips off his a second time and somehow get “no” out. Ryan, to my surprise, instantly pulls back so that he’s now hovering above me. He was breathing heavy as was I.

“you okay?” he asks finally, his voice a little ragged still from the making-out.

“I am, but you’re not.”

“of course I am.”

“Ryan, your girlfriend cheated on you barely two hours ago. You’re just trying to get back at her.”

He sighs and rolls off me, staring at my ceiling. “I like you, okay?” my eyes widen even though he couldn’t see it. Did he really just say that out loud? “I have for awhile. That’s why I never asked you questions or bothered you. Because I wanted to be on your good side.”

“not now Ryan.” I whisper, “please, just not now.” I felt the bed move under me and then my door close. The credits to Poltergeist was the only thing lighting up my room.

The first time in ages, I cried myself to sleep. I liked him, but didn’t want him to leave like my parents did.