“No, we are going to Spinner’s,” Aria said before Riley had a chance to say something, which I’m guessing was not what he was going to say.
“Aria, how about you stay home sometimes, huh, like tonight?” I gave her a knowing look.
She ignored me. “Nah, we’ve had a shitty day, I need greasy fried food and skates in my life tonight, Dac.” She started pulling Riley toward the back door.
“Curfew, A!” I called as the door slammed shut.
I got in one bite of pizza before he pounced. “So you want to tell me what happened today?”
I swallowed loudly. “Can I eat first?”
He showed his dimples again. “Sure, you know I won’t object to that.” He watched me eat my one slice of pizza while he ate his four and, once I was done, pounced again. “So what happened today?” He leaned back in his chair.
“This isn’t an interrogation, you know.”
“I want to know what made you cry today.”
“Why is it so important to you? It’s not like you can help,” I said. “No one can,” I added to myself.
He crossed his arms over his chest, making his biceps strain against the fabric of his shirt. Maybe he needed bigger shirts.
“Because I don’t like it when...” He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. “Just tell me, please.” He leaned forward and grabbed my hand across the table.
Feeling taken aback and unreasonably guilty by his sudden show of affection, I removed my hand quickly from his, causing him to immediately start apologizing.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head, feeling the need to explain. “It’s stupid and twisted. I just still feel like...”
“Like you are still tied to him?” he supplied, leaning back in his chair and taking off his baseball cap.
“And when you grabbed my hand, I felt guilty, which is fucked up because god knows what he’s been grabbing, and here you are just being nice and—”
“Dacey, stop,” he said firmly, stopping my rant.
I looked over at him, leaned back in his chair, and locked onto his autumn-colored eyes, and my breath caught. The way they were fixed on me, with a mixture of sadness and something else I didn’t want to admit was there, I turned away.
“First, there is no reason to feel guilty because we are just friends and when I touch you or hold your hand, it’s strictly platonic,” he said resolutely, making me look back at him. “Second, it’s not fucked up to feel the way you feel. Your heartache is still fresh. You can’t just turn off the love you felt for someone. If you were truly in love with that person, you can’t just move on so quickly. Ever.”
The message in his statement wasn’t lost on me. “I don’t think I’ll ever move on,” I said honestly.
“You don’t see what I see.”
“What’s that, a weak and miserable girl who is still pining for her jerk of an ex who dumped her for her dorm mate and whose Mom’s sleaze of a brother may be plotting to sell the one thing my dad has worked his whole life to build from the ground up?”
“He’s dating your dorm mate now?” His brow furrowed angrily.
“Yeah, he didn’t go far in his search for love,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm off of the word love.
He leaned forward slowly and reached for my hand, looking me in the eye to let me know his intentions.
I let him grab my hand and squeeze, and I noticed how soft and warm his hands were for a cop.
“If I ever see him on a dark street, just for hurting you this way...” He trailed off as a muscle in his jaw flexed.
“Thanks, but you’d lose your job. You’re a cop. You can’t just go beating people up for the hell of it.”
“Yeah, I’m a cop,” he sighed, and I got the feeling I was missing something. “I’d get away with it, you’d be surprised,” he said. He gave my hand one last squeeze and leaned back in his chair, removing his warm softness. “Now tell me about this sleaze of an uncle.”
We moved to the living room, and I proceeded to tell him everything about Mick and the will and the agreement. I told him about Mick’s past with Mom and how he had robbed her out of her inheritance money and how he didn’t even come to the funeral and how he had run off with the things from Mr. Eugene’s house—everything.
“Do you have any idea where he is now?” he asked, concerned.
“No, none. Aria doesn’t even know about him taking the things from Mr. Eugene’s house. We just know he’s going to try and sell Dad’s shop and we don’t have ten thousand dollars, Justin. We’re going to lose my dad’s shop,” I looked over at him, tears filling my eyes again.
“Hey, hey, we will figure something out.”
“We?” I raised an eyebrow at him.
“I don’t abandon my friends.”
“Justin, I didn’t tell you all of that to ask for your help. I told you so that...I don’t know why I told you, actually,” I sighed.
“I didn’t say you did, but I want to help. Or are you too good of a Southern belle to get help from the likes of some lowly commoner like me?” He smiled.
“Well, I suppose I should be polite.” I fluttered my eyelashes and dialed up my Southern accent.
“That’s better. I’ll look into tracking down Mick for you and see if we can work something out with your father’s shop.”
I wanted to say “fat chance,” but Justin looked so sincere and eager to help, I didn’t want to shoot him down. “Thank you, really.”
“It’s not a problem, really.”
It was getting late, and Aria had ten minutes before curfew. I was just about to text her when the front door opened and she and Riley strolled in.
“You’re cutting it close,” I tapped my wrist with my finger.
“I still had ten minutes,” she beamed, then noticed Justin. “It’s not like you were lonely.” She giggled.
“I had better be going, I still have a forty-five minute drive ahead of me,” said Justin, standing up and stretching just enough so that his shirt rode up, showing a stretch of chiseled abs.
“Hey, Officer Parks?”
“I’m off duty, Aria. You can call me Justin,” he said, turning to her.
“Oops, sorry. Anyhoo, do you like plays?” She smiled suggestively at me, and I knew where she was going with this.
I tried looking to Riley for help, but he was looking every way but in my direction. Traitor.
“Justin, just say no,” I warned.
“You hush, Dacey,” Aria shot over his shoulder, causing him to look questioningly between us.
“I’m in a play at school this Saturday, and I was wondering if you would like to come?”
“I didn’t know you were into acting,” he said, looking back at me accusingly, like I should have mentioned this to him.
“Oh, I’m sorry, that totally slipped my mind to tell you, what with all the million other things going on,” I said sardonically.
“Fair enough.” He held his hands up in surrender, and then turned back to Aria, “What’s the play about?”
“Oh, it’s so good. It’s called The Frost, and it’s based on a collection of poems by Robert Frost. I’m doing the poem ‘Fire and Ice,’” she told him excitedly.
“Interesting. I happen to like Frost. ‘The Road Not Taken’ in particular is my favorite.”
“Oh, Dacey got a C on a paper about that poem,” Aria supplied, subtly giving me the thumbs-up sign like she was putting in a good word for me.
“Yeah, thanks. We covered that, A,” I said giving her my middle finger behind Justin’s back, which she promptly ignored.
“So can you come?” she pressed.
He turned around and looked at me, his eyes silently asking if it was okay that he come. Part of me knew it was because Aria had this perverse need to make this love connection that was never going to happen, and the other part remembered back to the day she told me she had gotten the part and I told her she would have a mob of people there in her section t
o make up for the two most important missing ones.
“If you don’t mind hanging out with a bunch of college kids all night, you’re welcome to come,” I said, making it clear that if he did come, it was not a date.
Aria’s smile was visible from space. “Yay, so you’ll come?” She clapped her hands.
“He didn’t say yes, A.” I rolled my eyes at her exuberance.
“But I didn’t hear a no,” she looked at him with hopeful eyes.
He smiled at her, much like an older brother would smile at his kid sister. “Sure, I’ll come. What time?”
“Yay! Seeeee, Dacey!” She stuck her tongue out at me. “You can just meet Dacey here since I have to be there before her,” she told him.
“Is that okay, for me to pick you up here?” He turned to me.
“Uh, sure. What time is the play, A?”
“It’s at seven, so you should leave here by six-fifteen to get good seats,” she explained.
“Okay, sounds perfect,” he said, then turned to me to state he was leaving. He said his good-byes to Aria and nodded to Riley and headed toward the door, as I followed.
“Thanks for agreeing to go. We don’t have a lot of family, and she wanted a lot of people in her section, you know.”
“I understand, but you don’t have to thank me. I genuinely wanted to go.” He smiled down at me and moved to push a lock of hair behind my ear that had fallen into my face.
“Thanks,” I said lamely, bowing my head.
He chuckled. “Platonic, Southern belle, totally platonic. See ya Saturday.”
I looked up to see him walking down the driveway to his police cruiser. “Bye,” I called back and went inside. If it was platonic, why did he look at me in that way that I knew was not platonic? In the least, I couldn’t have a relationship with him, with anyone right now. My heart was shattered, first split with my parent’s death, then Trevor’s “revelation,” and it wasn’t near healed. And the large gaping hole that Trevor had gouged out with a rusty spoon had no intention of loving or even liking someone anytime soon, and that left no room for Justin and his incredibly sexy body and kissable dimples. Yeah, I noticed. I was in mourning, not blind.
The next morning, I was awakened early with a phone call from Dr. Pfeiffer’s office. While she was rattling away about the tests she had done, I went to wake Aria and put it on speakerphone.
“Your aunt has what’s called hypocalcemia, which just means she is not getting enough calcium in her blood. Usually it’s caused by hyperparathyroidism, but in your aunt’s case, it could be because by her diet. Does she eat regularly healthy meals?”
Aria and I looked at each other and refrained from laughing out loud.
“Our aunt has an eclectic taste bud when it comes to eating,” I said, stifling a laugh.
“I see,” said Dr. Pfeiffer, seemingly catching on.
“Wait, so is this fixable?” I asked with a spark of hope.
“Yes, this is fixable. She needs to be on a high dose of calcium supplements, and her diet needs to change, ASAP, or it will get worse, but the memory loss should correct itself and as long as she follows doctors orde—”
The rest of what she said was drowned out by me and Aria’s screams of joy at the first piece of good news since, since I couldn’t even remember, it had been so long. Opal was going to be okay, and she was going to be Opal! Aria and I hugged and cried and hugged some more.
“—a pharmacy in town?”
Shit, I forgot about the doctor on the phone. I gave her the pharmacy number so that she could call in the needed prescription, then I hung up and just stared at Aria for a minute.
“AHHHHHH!” she screamed and jumped out of bed.
“Where are you going?”
“You know what this means, right?” she said, as she headed for her radio.
“A, it’s nine in the morning. Don’t you think it’s a little too early for a dance party?”
“One, it’s never too early for a dance party, and two, we haven’t had one since before Mom and Dad, and I’d say this calls for one, don’t you think?” She found a song on her iPod that talked about being young and setting the world on fire, and as I let the good mood wash over me about Opal, I thought maybe life had decided to stop throwing everything at us for a change. I let a small kindle of hope spark inside of me and I danced-partied my ass off.
Chapter 20
After our morning dance party, we showered and Aria went to school early, no doubt to go to the bookstore and spend her morning with Riley. I went over to Opal’s to share the news with her and, hopefully, Mr. Eugene. I noticed his car in the driveway, so I knocked on the kitchen door instead of using my key and waited.
“Good morning, Dacey, my dear,” Mr. Eugene greeted me as he opened the door wide enough for me to pass.
“It’s not your morning. What brings your by?” He went over to the stove to turn over the pancake he was making.
Since my absence, he had taken to coming by every morning, or maybe he had he taken to just staying over certain nights? I closed my mind to those thoughts because I did not want to think of that, ever.
“The doctor called this morning,” I said simply.
“I see,” he said, flipping his pancake and calling out to Aunt Opal in the process.
She came around the corner in a silk robe I had never seen before and paused before going to the cabinet to get out three plates.
“Oh, chile, whatcha doin’ here? It’s not your day.” She placed the plates next to Mr. Eugene so that he could dish out the pancakes.
“Your doctor called me this morning, Auntie, about your results, and I’m not staying for breakfast. I have class.” I nodded at the third plate of pancakes and eggs.
“Well, what am I s’pose to do with the third plate of food now? It’s already on the plate,” she said, ignoring the more important issue at hand.
“Give it to Rufus.” I leaned down to pet him. The dog had come into the kitchen to beg when he smelled the food.
“Auntie, about what your doctor said, she said you have this condition called hypocalcemia and that it’s treatable with these pills,” I started excitedly but stopped when I saw she didn’t share my excitement.
“Well, where are they, chile?” She held out her hand expectantly.
“Where are what?” I asked, confused.
“The pills to make me better.”
“They just called this morning, Auntie. The pharmacy hasn’t gotten them ready yet. I can pick them up this afternoon on my way home from school.”
She cut her eyes at me and withdrew her hand but seemed satisfied with my compromise.
I explained to Mr. Eugene everything that Dr. Pfeiffer had told me and Aria and that Opal would be back to being Opal very soon.
“Well, this is wonderful news,” Mr. Eugene beamed over his pancakes.
“What do you mean I can go back to being me?” Opal asked. “What’s that s’pose to mean?”
“Not a thing, Auntie.” I chuckled as I leaned down to kiss her good-bye. “Not a thing.”
“How about I take you girls out to eat after Aria’s play to celebrate this wonderful news?” Mr. Eugene called out before I made it out the door.
“Sure, we have one more though,” I said, remembering Justin.
“The more the merrier. This family needs a night of laughter. I’ll see you then.”
I’ll say, I thought, as I headed out the door and to my car. My phone buzzed right before I was about to pull off with a text from Tina asking me if I’d had any luck with the MTD problem. After texting her no, I switched gears, asking her about tomorrow.
What time u coming 2morrow?
Daddy has surgery; mami and I will B there @630
I’ll save u seats then, we’ll be there B4 that
“We’ll”?
Shit.
Justin and I
Aww shit I knew it!
It’s not like that
Sure
We r friends
Platonic
Pla-what?
Never mind, C U 2morrow
Manana
I put my phone away and drove off to school, praying that she wouldn’t embarrass me on Saturday with Justin. Who was I kidding? She was going to totally embarrass me. Great.
I had done a pretty good job at avoiding Kelly since the whole you’re-dating-the-ex-love-of-my-life thing by arriving to class seconds before the professor started and then hauling ass seconds after he dismissed it. Today, however, she was waiting outside the class before it started, nervously looking around until her eyes landed on me.
“Dacey, I know I’m the last person you want to talk to, like ever, but can I please explain to you that I never meant to come—”
“Stop,” I said, cutting off whatever pathetic explanation she was about to give me. “Whatever he is telling you or will tell you about being ‘the one’ or whatever or about how he feels something different with you, just know that he said those same things to me a year and a half ago, and look at where I’m at now. You’re a smart girl, Kelly, so you can make up your own mind about who you let in your heart and who you don’t. Just don’t end up like me,” I said firmly, and I went inside and took my seat, not looking back.
I didn’t have any ill feelings toward her. I realized I never did. I mean, I should, but she was never really someone I called a friend, so she didn’t back-stab me or anything. Whatever he had said to her to make her go out with him, I’m sure it was smooth. Trevor was smooth. He got me to fall in love with him.
As I sat in class listening to the professor talk about the final, I came to the realization that Justin was right: I was in the grieving process over Trevor, and although they weren’t in order, I sped through denial and bargaining and spent an unhealthy amount of time in depression, and now I think I was coming to the angry part. Now, I was angry because how dare he take my love for him for granted and just throw it away like it was nothing? I knew Kelly would tell him what I said, she was that type of girlfriend, and it would only be a matter of time before he came to me pissed. And I was ready.
After class was dismissed, I was ready to do my haul-ass thing when Professor Harris stopped me before I got to the door.
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