Stay With Them Tonight

I heard mumbled anger as I cracked open my eyes. It was still gray outside, not light yet. So who was talking? As quietly as I could, I turned and looked at Cass, who had crawled in with me earlier.

“I haven’t told anyone yet, but it’s not like you can just decide to not come.” She was speaking directly into the phone, and I had a little trouble understanding her. She paused, but cut off the other person before they replied.

She was facing away from me, but her shoulders were set in angry tension. I stared at her back, wondering if I might “accidentally” find out who it was.

“Whatever. I’ll talk to you when I get back. Maybe.” She shut her phone and turned around, curling into a ball under the blankets. She was surprised when she turned and saw I was awake, but continued pulling the comforter up to her chin.

“What happened, Cassie?” I asked, still tired. Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, I tried beaming into her mind. Tell me, Cass.

She stared back at me, not showing anything.

“Someone was supposed to come meet everybody,” she admitted finally. “Can’t come anymore, though.”

“Why can’t he come?”

“He- How did you know it was a guy?”

“It seemed obvious. Where is he?”

She sighed. “He’s still in Arizona. He was supposed to be here tonight.”

“Why?”

“I was too angry to pay attention.” She closed her eyes. “He promised.”

“Tell me about him, Cass. What’s his name? And what’s he like? What is he in school for? Where’s he from?” I was bubbling over with questions about this guy, but I held back about 99.342% of them.

Cass usually chose bad relationships to be in, and I always made sure to know as much as I could. It was a good thing she wasn’t serious about a guy often, because the ones she did frequently date always turned out to be assholes that slept around.

I hated guys like that.

“Sorry, Allie, not right now.” She flipped onto her back, so she wasn’t facing me anymore. I frowned.

That was what she did when the guy wasn’t a good one, or she didn’t want me knowing about him. I huffed, turning over and pulling the covers over my head. I only asked five questions, and none of them were answered.

Cass was quiet, and I knew she wasn’t going to sleep.

*****

I woke up again later, when the sun was shining directly onto my face. I had forgotten to close my curtains earlier, so it was only six thirtyish. I groaned, and realized I was alone. I turned over, finding that Cass had gone.

“Stupid stubborn sister,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and collecting things for a shower. I took a freezing shower, trying to wake myself up after sleeping for a long time- almost twelve full hours- and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

My dad was in the kitchen, and he looked about as awake as I had been twenty minutes before. His hair was a mess, and he had his giant cup of coffee in his grip like a lifeline.

“Nice hair,” I commented, loading up on the sugar, milk, and creamer in my coffee.

“I worked all night for it,” he joked groggily. He sat down on the other side of the counter, at the breakfast bar. I leaned on the counter across from him, drinking my coffee slowly while he drank his quickly, probably wanting a second cup. This is a guy who drank a whole pot of coffee by himself, daily.

“You went to bed pretty early,” he hinted after a minute.

“Yeah, I was pretty tired.” I lied easily. I did not want to tell my overprotective dad that my seventeen year old neighbor had kissed me and then I went and had a nice talk with the guy that rejected me at fourteen.

I knew this was all mostly my own doing, but my dad would probably rage at everyone else for it. I was his little girl, and he still thought I was twelve or something. He was one cool customer, and could be angry at you without you ever knowing until he squashed you like a bug. My face scrunched up as I imagined Ryan’s and Tyler’s heads on little ants and my dad’s shoe coming down on top of them, making this squish noise and green goo flying-

“I heard Ryan came by yesterday,” he tried again, interrupting my disturbing thoughts.

“Uh, yeah, he came to give me a movie I took over.” I washed my cup and went to give my dad a quick hug, getting ready to leave.

“I’m going to see Kelly for a while. And Tyler’s back,” I added quickly, walking away already. He started to say something, but didn’t.

“Okay, sweetheart. I’ll see you when you get home. And Haley called last night, and she and Rob are going to go on vacation the second weekend of September. We thought we’d do the barbeque the week before that, so they’d be there.” My dad couldn’t call Mr. Luce “Bob,” said it just sounded too weird, and it was more Mrs. Luce’s nickname for him. His real name was Robert, as I had guessed.

I came back, putting on a light jacket. “Okay, then. And tell Cass I’ll be back around noon if she wants to do lunch, and we can hang out before she leaves tomorrow.”

He called out a response, also telling me that he and my mom would be gone until ten thirty.

I walked over to Kelly’s, wondering if I would run into Tyler. Had he already moved? Kelly would leave for work soon, and I would grab a ride with her. I had talked to Cass about having lunch before, so I figured she would pick me up from the movies.

I ignored the doorbell or the thought of knocking. Knowing me, I would just wake somebody up anyway. I had a spare key of my own, so I made use of it and waltzed right in. I went up the stairs, dramatically tiptoeing through the house.

A door opened ahead of me, and I froze. Tyler was coming out of the bathroom, shirtless. He was walking towards his room, at the other end of the hall. So far, he hadn’t seen me, but I also didn’t want to talk to him in the morning when he was shirtless.

I looked around frantically, seeing the door to my right. I jumped in, knowing it was a closet. I winced as the door made a slight clicking noise when it closed, and tried to stop my breathing.

One, two, three, four, five . . . I counted to one hundred in the dark closet, not daring to turn on the light and risk my hideout.

After my counting, I cautiously opened the door, peeking out and looking around. The hallway was deserted, so I came out all of the way and dashed to Kelly’s room.

I startled her in the middle of pulling on shoes, and was glad I had taken that extra detour. It’s not like I had a phobia of naked bodies, and it’s not like I hadn’t seen her before, but it’s easier to say “hi” when you don’t walk in on someone getting dressed. At least I thought so- it was why I had avoided Tyler, anyway.

“Hey, Kells.” I said casually, bouncing a little.

“Hi, Alls.” She grinned up at me. “What’s up?”

“I’m coming to keep you company,” I smiled at her, but a troubled look passed over her face.

“Will you talk to me about whatever would hurt me if I knew?” she asked hopefully.

“Uh, I hoped you wouldn’t be interested in that.”

“No, you hoped I had suddenly had a complete change of character overnight, becoming the type of person that wouldn’t be interested in that. That’s what you thought I might do?”

She gave me the look she had perfected over time, the one that said “did you seriously just say/do/think that?”

I got the point- I couldn’t ask her to be something she wasn’t. She would wonder until she found out, which knowing my luck wouldn’t be long.

“Sorry,” I didn’t know what else to say, and I didn’t want to tell her. “I’m being selfish by not telling you, but I need to see if you really need to know first.” She slanted a glare at me and sighed, but shrugged and walked past me to the door.

“I’ll find out sooner or later, Al. Which is better?” she asked as I walked behind her.

“Uhm, not right now. Later, I guess.” She sighed, going into the kitchen and pulling out orange juice and a bagel. She gave me half of it, and we slathered strawberry cream cheese over the blueberry fabulousness. Strawberries and blueberries are both berries, right? And it’s delicious.

I hoped Kelly and I would continue sharing them, and that I wouldn’t make her hate me.