Be Free, Be You

I squirmed a little in the driver’s seat of Valarie’s car, kind of nervous about what sort of end we’d see to this experiment. “Are you sure I should do this?” I mumbled to her. “It’s kind of illegal for me to drive with just my permit with someone who’s under 21.”

She picked her head up from its resting place against the window and looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Look, Steph, my head is throbbing, and we don’t have any other choice. You’ll be fine.”

Sighing, I stared back out the front windshield. I can do this, I told myself. I’ve taken a couple of driving road lessons. I know I can drive fine. Yet, all I could think about was crashing into a tree and killing the both of us.

I jumped as Val’s voice broke through my thoughts. “The sooner we get home, the sooner I can take some aspirin and recover from this. So, really, any time you’re ready would be great.”

The sarcasm in her voice made it evident that it was no longer up to me how long I could take. Drawing a deep breath, I put the car in reverse and twisted my body around to see out the back windshield.

Once I pulled out of the parking space successfully, I felt a little more confident. After all, that was the worst part, going backwards. Forwards was infinitely easier.

We got home without anything noteworthy happening, good or bad. Right when I put the car in park, Valarie grabbed her bag from her feet and went immediately into the house.

After circling the car just to make sure that no stray rocks I didn’t notice had made any scratches (there hadn’t been, thank God), I took my backpack from the backseat and headed into the house.

Val was nowhere to be seen, which made me think that she escaped to her room for some recovery. If I had been a different person, I might have tried to hunt down whoever was jealous enough to drop her and give that person a piece of my mind. But I consciously knew that wouldn’t turn out well, no matter how good my intentions were.

I took a bottle of water out of the fridge and let the door close itself as I walked into the living room. Once I settled on the couch, I pulled out the book I had been reading in the library when Valarie arrived and started to dive into it again. It had been right in the middle of a really good part, so I was glad I had the opportunity to finish it.

The next time I looked up, I saw that it was past six o’clock, which meant that both of our parents were working late, leaving it up to us to make dinner.

Sighing, I got off my butt and scampered up the stairs. Instead of knocking, I just walked into Valarie’s room.

She was sitting at her desk, the light from her laptop screen setting her face in a creepy blue glow. Her eyes were half-glazed over, like she wasn’t blinking very often.

“Hi,” I greeted softly, since I didn’t want to aggravate her headache if it was still around, “what do you want for dinner?”

She thought for a second before shrugging. “I don’t know. Just not pizza, like last time. With Nationals just around the corner, I can’t afford those extra calories right now.”

I coughed. If we didn’t order out for pizza, then I didn’t know what we were going to have, since my cooking knowledge included cereal with milk, peanut butter and jelly, and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Val realized what I meant and rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “It’s alright, I’ll cook. I’ll be down in a couple minutes to start.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “So how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine now. That bitch is going to pay tomorrow, though.”

I let out a laugh. “As she should.”

I went down the hallway to my room and climbed into my bed, turning on my TV. For the next forty-five minutes or so, I was engrossed by a particularly dramatic repeat episode of America’s Next Top Model. Even though I was supposed to be the smart one in the family, I couldn’t help but have trashy little indulgences, like Seventeen Magazine and shows like ANTM. Sue me.

“STEPH!” I heard Val scream from downstairs. “DINNER!”

Shooting a sad, parting glance at my television, I shut it off and made my way downstairs. When I sat down at the table, I noticed that Mom and Dad had both come home in my absence.

Mom smiled at me, setting small wrinkles in the corners of her light green eyes that matched Valarie’s. Val had taken after Mom, look-wise, while I had taken after Dad. “Doing homework?” she asked me, just figuring that had what I’d been doing, holed up in my room.

“Uh, not really,” I laughed. “I was kind of watching TV.”

Dad rolled his eyes at me. “Please tell me it was the History Channel.”

After a hesitation just long enough for him to know that I would be lying, I grinned and said, “I was definitely watching the History Channel.”

“You guys are pathetic,” Val joked as she put down the large platter in the middle of the table.

The food looked delicious, as it always did whenever Val cooked. Sometimes, it seemed like Val could do just about anything perfectly without much effort at all. The dish was some kind of whole wheat spaghetti recipe with lots of different vegetables and skinless chicken breast.

“This looks great, honey!” Mom granted cheerily.

“And great for keeping up your athletics for Cheerios,” Dad seconded. “How’s that going, by the way? And when’s your next game?”

Soon enough, the two of them started in on an enthusiastic conversation about different sports and cheerleading, as they did at least once a week.

Mom and I shot glances at each other, not able to follow along with all the sporty talk. The most we knew about sports was that basketballs were orange, and footballs were brown, and in baseball, there were bats and gloves involved. Once, I had asked Val during a basketball game we were watching on TV if one of the players scored a touchdown yet, and she laughed so hard, I thought she was going to kill herself from lack of oxygen.

I was listening enough to their conversation, however, that I realized Val didn’t say anything to Dad about how that girl had dropped her on purpose at practice earlier that day. I spun the pasta around on my fork, wondering why that was. Didn’t our parents have a right to know?

But I knew it wasn’t my place to tell them, so I focused on chewing the food in my mouth and stared down at my plate, so it at least looked like I wasn’t nosy and eavesdropping.

“Stephanie,” Mom started. I looked up to face her. “How was your day today?”

“Alright,” I shrugged. But then I thought about the book I finished and was filled with a newfound energy as I explained to her enthusiastically basically every detail about the characters and the plot.

Because even though Dad and Val were on the same wavelength, sports-wise, I was glad that Mom and I had our own little secret club of book-loving.