It’s not hard to tell that her idea ofbeat-upis crying or blubbering. The forlorn tone of her voice and the way her gaze drifts farther and farther away is enough to show it affects her enough. To be among the ones left behind when the person doing the leaving is stillright therewithin reach does a number on someone. Being the one not important enough to remember unless it affects them. That hurts.
She looks at me. “I mean it. It’s fine. When we talk, we get each other. It’s not some dramatic sob story of abandonment and neglect. We have our own lives, and they don’t always cross,but I know he’s there if I need to reach out to him. I can feel you analyzing my psyche over there. Stop it.”
I force a smile and try to stop because while I am technically analyzing her, it’s almost too clear I’m doing so in order to connect her situation to how I feel about my own dad. In reach but too distant. Right there but forgotten.
I have no business linking our traumas in a cheap effort to pretend I’m closer to her.
“Sorry, sugar. I guess I’m just trying to understand your character.”
“Well, unless you’re planning to audition for me, you don’t have to do that.” She huffs. “Unfortunate that the position is full. If only I’d known the contract I was signing up for was a lifetime commitment.” One leg leaves my car, and she’s inching ever closer to standing, leaving, saying goodbye for now.
“I think you manage the role perfectly. A thousand years wouldn’t be enough time for me to learn how to be you quite as well.”
She pushes strands that have strayed from her braids aside, smiling gently. “Isn’t that the fun of people? Every one of us is just that complex. Even the greatest writers only manage a brush of something imitable.” She finds me, and I feel my heart stumble the moment her big blue eyes reach mine. “It’s amazing what we all can create, what we manage to pour into the world. It’s beautiful. And no matter what we do, it’s still only revealing the barest sliver of ourselves. We spend our whole lifetime trying to share mere fractions of our souls, always, always asking—do you seeme? And, somehow, somewhere, knowing no one ever will.”
The air pulses with her words, painting pictures around me that are exactly what she described—full and empty, mere slices of what could be endless. Then, as soft as a mother’s caress, the feeling fades off her face. She presses her lips togetherand stands, hanging her backpack off one shoulder. “My mom’s going to be coming home soon, so you better scoot. Thanks again, though. And don’t forget about—” Her eyes skitter off me, the familiar blush warming her cheeks in the yellow light of my headlights. “—our date.”
She shuts the door and walks up the sidewalk promptly, lifting her hand in a fist. “For muffins!”
I watch her until she disappears past what I can see into the little covered patio concealing the front door.
“For muffins, huh?” I whisper to myself, put the car in drive, and back out. Running my fingers through my hair while I backtrack out of the little maze that is her neighborhood, I sigh.
Exactly how many muffins will it take for her to forgive me for sneakily inviting her to my house? Sorry.Castle. Probably a lot. While my house isn’t exactly a castle, compared to the quaint world she knows, it might as well be. And the part about my tricking her is absolutely going to get me in trouble.
A lot of trouble.
Maybe muffins won’t cut it.
Maybe I should invest in a horse.
Calypso
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A date. Okay. Not a real date. The kind of date that friends go on. Except we aren’t friends. Friends don’t pay people a contractual weekly bribe, after all. What are we?
It feels like I’m on fire as I ditch my backpack in my little room and go out to the kitchen to distract myself with making dinner. Mom will be home soon, and I need to continue business as usual. Rehearsals will look like I was at work, so as long as Mom doesn’t say or suspect anything different, nothing has changed.
Except everything has.
A chill shoots down my spine, and I can feel Agatha looming over me, sneering in ways I know all too well. I know I can’t let her get to me. Whatever truths or lies she spouts, it’s my literal job to keep moving forward. Until opening night.
Something stings in my chest. That’s the understanding I started with. That changed when I saw Agatha was Harriet’s understudy. My running away from opening night is exactly what Agatha wants and maybe she’s right about it being exactly what Mr. D’plume expects. Whether he madehermy understudy because she’s the best actress in the class or because he can see the friction between us and knew it would act as an extra layer of deterrent to keep me from choking I don’t know.
I don’t have the mental energy to fall into what ifs right now.
I pull some leftover veggies out of the fridge and start some rice to make a stir fry. Mom will be home soon. I can’t let her assume something is wrong. It was another normal day at school and “work.” That’s all she needs to know.
I wasn’t cornered in the bathroom by the one person who already managed to make so many years of my life horrible. Iwasn’t saved by a man who takes my hand and pretends to be different people. I didn’t ask that man to take me home. I didn’t invite myself out on a date.
My face burns in the steam coming out of the frying pan.
That’s what I did, isn’t it? I invited myself out on a date with Lex.
Stomach swirling, I barely register adding soy sauce to the vegetables and may have added too much.
What kind of creature am I? Whotellsother people to take them out? Even now, I have no idea what possessed me. He didn’t seem at all bothered, but when have I ever seen Lex bothered?
