“Don’t make me say it, it’s embarrassing.”I cover my face.
“Are the‘Ls’for me, Ellie?”
“Yes, silly.Who else would they be for?”
“Well I don’t know – your other future husband.”
“There’s no other future husband, just you.”
“Lee, you have a visitor, it’s Maggie.”I heard his mom call out.
“Shit.Sorry, Ellie.”He whispered.“Hey, I didn’t know you were coming over, thought you had practice today.”I heard him say to someone else.
“We ended early.Who are you talking to?”A girl’s voice came, and I felt the jealousy rise into my throat like vomit.
“Just a friend.”He said to her, then to me, “I’ll talk to you later?”
“Sure.Bye Leebie.”I said.
“Bye.”I could hear him smile as he hung up.
I spent the next couple of weeks dreaming about Lee and I woke up every night in a sweat when my dreams ended up with him picking this Maggie girl over me.How is it possible that he has such a hold over me, are you supposed to have this strong of a connection with someone you haven’t seen in two years?
* * *
For my sixteenth birthday, my dad rented out a hotel room for me and the girls, including Steff who had moved in with us the summer before my junior year.We brought a boom box and had been DJ’ing our own dance party with the book of CDs from my collection.We all jumped on the bed, singing karaoke style to the radio late into the night; it was the best birthday I’ve had in a while!That is, until my pager started beeping and I looked down to see “1439914399” on the screen.
Mallorie told me I shouldn’t call him, “Let him wait for once.He doesn’t call you for months and all of a sudden, he wants to be in your life again?No way!”she tossed my pager on the floor and started jumping on the bed with me again.
Steff gave me a knowing look that said she’ll take care of it.She snuck herself out of the room and left the party.It wasn’t until later that I realized she called Lee from the hotel lobby phone.
“Hello?”Lee answered.
“Hey, it’s Steff.”
“Hey!What’s up buddy?”
“What’s up is that I’m at a hotel with Ellie and her friends, celebrating her birthday where she’s having a great time and you paged her out of the blue.Dude, that girl had beenpiningover you for months when you called before summer and then disappeared again.She was just starting to be okay until she saw your message.What’s wrong with you?”She lectured.
“Damn.I didn’t realize.”He stammered.
“I know you didn’t.And I’m not trying to be mean but if you’re gonna call her, you can’t just vanish after you hook her again.”
“Do you think I shouldn’t talk to her then?”he asked.
“That depends.”She snorted, “are you still dating Maggie?”
“We’re kinda broken up.”
“Kinda broken up means you’ll probably be back with her next week, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t just call Ellie when your flavor of the week is out of the picture.”
“But that was our deal.Ellie made me promise that we would still call each other when we weren’t dating someone.”He came back.
“Maybe she didn’t realize how much that would hurt her though.”
