This Ain't a Fairytale

Sidney

“Leigh? Come on, I haven’t seen you in almost a month and a half,” I sighed, rubbing my temples. It seemed like no matter what I did, how hard I tried to work around the schedules Leigh couldn’t hang out.

“I know Sid, I’m just really busy – I’m sorry. Exams are coming up, so I have to get those ready, and papers to grade…” I half tuned her out as she continued coming up with reasons why she couldn’t come over to my place for dinner tonight. A couple of the guys and their girlfriends were coming over, so I didn’t see why she and Joshua couldn’t come.

“Leigh, at least let me take you for lunch then,” I insisted, and after a few minutes of debate she caved, allowing me to pick her up and take her to the Subway just down the street from the school.

Practice seemed to drag on forever, the prospect of seeing my best friend for the first time in months making the time pass slowly. The guys seemed to notice my lack of attention for practice and were curious as to why.

“Come on Sid, what’s up?” Jordy asked, giving me a playful elbow to the ribs. I rolled my eyes, not sure whether or not I should indulge them in the information because they would probably blow it out of proportion and not believe me that we were just going to dinner as friends.

“Leigh and I are just going to hang out, that’s all. I haven’t seen my best friend in months, all right? Ever since her and Josh had that bit of an argument,” I answered, and he stiffened up a bit.

“Is everything okay with them?” Jordan asked quietly, and I debated on answering him or not. I knew he hadn’t quite moved past the first impression crush he had on her, so I wasn’t sure what his motive was.

“I don’t know, it seems like she hardly talks to me anymore,” I sighed, and he gave me an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

“I’m sure things are fine Sid; there’s probably a lot to adjust to, they haven’t been in their apartment very long, it takes a long time to adjust to moving in with someone and the move probably put her behind with school stuff, everything’s probably fine,” he reassured me with a small smile. I let myself relax a little bit then, knowing that if even Jordan was sure things with Josh were okay I must be just overreacting. But something about the past month and a half and how she seemed to become a recluse just seemed wrong… Leigh could be quiet and could keep to herself, but this was an extreme, even for her.

By the time I’d showered and finished with the media I was running behind on time and I was trying to get there as quickly as possible without actually speeding.

I parked out front of the school, adjusting my cap to pull it down to hide my face. I slumped in my seat, and was glad when I realized I kind of blended in with the seniors heading to their vehicles or waiting for their friends to go somewhere for lunch. Finally I spotted Leigh, her dark brown hair with caramel highlights heading towards me, a long forest green sweater wrapped around her frame. She looked like she’d lost weight since I’d last seen her, and she hadn’t been keeping up with her hair. While she’d never been a girly-girl whenever she’d dyed her hair she’d always made sure to keep up with stuff like that.

“Hey,” she looked timid and almost out of breath as she slid into the passenger seat of my Range Rover. I leaned across to give her a hug and she all but flinched, before finally hugging me back. That sent off warning flags in my mind, but I was too afraid to say something in case I upset her.

“Hey, I missed you,” she said, her smile tired. I nodded, and her eyes seemed to light up a little, making her look more like my best friend again.

“I missed you too. So, does Subway sound all right?” I asked as I turned the car on and signaled to move into traffic.

“Sounds great,” she nodded, her smile growing a little. It had always been our favorite place to get something quick to eat. I found the closest parking space in sight and pulled in, and after zipping up my jacket we went in. Just like we always used to, Leigh ordered for me, letting me stand back and try to blend into the crowd, hoping no one would recognize me. It had been like this ever since I was sixteen; whenever we hung out we did basically everything we could to not get recognized and be normal – because once people knew who I was a mob started, then people asking for pictures or an autograph, and then the questions started to fly about Leigh. Then the rumours. More than once she’d phoned me in tears because of the things people came up and said to her, the rumors she saw online about the two of us… it was something I didn’t ever want her to go through again. They’d been bad enough when we were fifteen and sixteen, I can’t imagine how vicious they would be now.

We got our sandwiches and headed back to the school; after Leigh spoke briefly to the principal he assured her that it was fine for us to use a classroom to eat our lunch in. I followed her to her classroom, and she closed the door, before turning a desk to face the one I’d squeezed into. We sat down and started to eat, and before long we were visiting just like old times.

“He-ey…” we looked up to see Josh standing half in the doorway, looking somewhere between shocked and angry. Immediately Leigh seemed to withdraw a bit, looking uncertain.
“Hi honey, what are you doing at school?” she asked, and he huffed.

“I was going to take my girlfriend out to lunch, because she didn’t take one today…” he trailed off, raising an eyebrow and causing Leigh to lower her head. I felt ridiculously uncomfortable, because there’s no way she should be acting like this over something like this.

“I haven’t seen her in like a month in a half, I just wanted to catch up and not be interrupted by fans,” I explained, but his expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“Well I’ll just leave you to it then,” he sneered, and closed the door loudly. Leigh was nearly trembling when I looked over to her, and after giving me a fleeting look she went after him. I followed as far as the door, and heard their argument. Soon there were students coming back into the hallway, and Josh abruptly ended the argument, and stormed off. Leigh came back to the classroom, looking close to tears. I went to pull her into a hug, but she dodged me, which hurt just as much as I knew it meant something was wrong.

“Leigh…”

“Please just go Sidney, I’ll text you later, okay?” she asked, her voice shaking as she attempted to hold back the tears.

“Leigh—”

“Please Sid,” her voice was just a whisper, and with that I took my sandwich bag and wrapped an arm around her quickly before leaving. Something was not right in their relationship, and I needed to find out what it was before my best friend got hurt.