by Nessa Morgan
No truer words have ever been spoken.
She follows me across the room. “You’re here with Zephyr, huh?” she asks, sounding… different. Alexia sounds curious, and that weirds me out. Now my body is on full alert for anything dangerous.
Alexia doesn’t just talk to me.
She walks to the nearest sink and sets her clutch, which is silver and matches the heels she was wearing earlier, by the mirror. Quickly, she turns the faucet, turning on the water. The sound filling the silence between us. But she doesn’t do anything with it. She just lets it run.
Weird.
“Zephyr and Harley,” I tell her. Her eyes lift up to mine. There’s something in her stare, something intense and un-Alexia. I just can’t identify it. “I’m having fun with my friends. That’s all that matters for me.”
She opens her mouth to say something but she’s cut off before any word can leave her lips.
“What’s taking you so long?” Harley asks as she walks into the bathroom. She spots Alexia and immediately comes to my defense. “What are you saying to her?” she demands of the other girl, her hands finding her hips.
“Nothing, Harley.” I look over to Alexia; she just looks away and turns off the water. Whatever I saw earlier is gone. She’s just Alexia now. Prim, perfect, bitchy Alexia. “Let’s just head back out there.”
I pause before following Harley through the door. I pause long enough for Alexia to say what she needed to say—it looked like it could’ve been important to her, and I would give her the chance to say it despite my better judgment—but she just snapped her clutch closed and focused on her face and makeup.
Ignoring the random moment in the bathroom, we spend the rest of the time dancing and making fun of each other’s dance moves—mostly everyone else making fun of me and my two left feet—I feel like a disgrace to my mother’s dancing memory, but what can I do? I even have a conversation with Ksenia Ivanov, which doesn’t normally happen. She’s a lot nicer than I thought, though the strain in my neck from looking up at her is too much to handle. Ksenia’s nearly six-foot-two, a star forward on the basketball team.
Did I mention her Russian accent is just downright adorable?
Although, people kept giving me weird looks when I passed, and I don’t mean the usual looks I’ve received throughout the years, new ones. Disturbing ones, even.
I ignore them for the most part. I’m not going to let them ruin my night.
At midnight, the dance officially ends, and Avery walks us out to the car. Though, I suspect it wasn’t to see all of us out safely. Only Harley. It was cute, really. They were inseparable. Soon, we’re heading home and Harley is repeatedly sighing like a little girl in love with a teen idol she saw on television.
Aww, young love. So beautiful when it blossoms.
“I never thought I’d ever say this,” Harley starts when she turns onto my street. “But that was fun.”
Hmmm, the dance or Avery?
I bite my tongue.
“We should definitely do it again next year,” I tell her, genuinely meaning it. I wouldn’t mind going to another school dance this year, even.
“Yes we should!” Harley exclaims as her car pulls into my empty driveway. “Same time next year,” she adds. “I’ll see you two at school on Monday.”
I slide out of the car, Zephyr behind me, and walk up to my house. At the door, I lean against Zephyr as he drapes his arm over my shoulder and slink my hand into his jacket pocket to take out my keys.
“I think someone replaced my friend.” I walk into the living room, tossing my keys on the table by the door. Now that I’m inside, I don’t feel the need to wear shoes, so I lean forward, fighting gravity to unbuckle the strap of my sandal.
“That was fun,” Zephyr tells me as he grabs my hips to prevent me from falling flat on my face. “I usually avoid dances.”
“Me too.” As if he didn’t already know that.
I successfully tug off my sandals, lock the front door, and start my ascent up the stairs. I launch my sandals into the closet, letting them join the others that clutter the floor with a soft thud.
Yanking up the top blanket, I take a seat on my bed. After all the movement, all the dancing, I did tonight, it feels good just to sit down, lie back, and relax.
“We didn’t get to dance together that much.” Zephyr’s still standing, leaning, in fact, against the frame of my door, his hands stuffed in his pockets, as I lie back on my bed.
I apologize as my hands start to remove the bobby pins from my hair. “Yeah, they kind of kidnapped me for most of the songs, huh?” I giggle sheepishly.
I wouldn’t have mind a dance with him. The thought of our bodies pressed together, swaying to music, is enough to make me flush in nervous embarrassment.
He takes a few steps into my room, holding out his hand. “Come here.”
After letting my hair down, I place the pile of pins on my nightstand. “What?” I ask, standing up from the bed and taking a step closer to him. Something about me, something that I’ve never felt before, starts to heat. Something lower than my cheeks. “You want to dance… now?” I ask, letting a little nervous giggle escape my mouth.
“No better time than the present.” He takes my hand and pulls me closer to him slowly. He takes one of my hands and places it on his shoulder while one of his finds my hip. Our other hands clasp together.
“There isn’t any music playing,” I tell him quietly, pointing out the obvious. I mean, I have no rhythm with music; I don’t want to see my dancing without music.
Shaking his head, I see the smirk cross his lips. As if he can’t believe who he’s talking to. Zephyr walks to my nightstand, clicking on my iPod, selecting a song, and placing it on the dock of my iHome. The Pretty Reckless’ You starts playing quietly through the tiny speakers.
“You’re weird,” I tell him as he walks toward me, taking my hand again.
Gently, we resume our position, and start to sway to the music. He’s leading, of course.
At this moment, I take in his scent, woodsy, soapy, and him, and I feel home. I know I’m home when I’m with him. And that calms me.
He pulls me closer to him, tucking my head beneath his chin.
“How is this?” he asks quietly.
“Nice,” I tell him, breathlessly.
I can’t even begin to express how nice this is, just to be with him like this.
We continue to dance through the rest of the album, staying so close through the fast songs, and I realize that I never want to lose Zephyr. I don’t think I’d be able to survive without him.
And there’s something more, more feeling than I can describe. I just need to find the words.
Eight
Sunday morning and I wake up with a wide grin on my face. Last night was so much fun, I’d be happy to relive it again. And again. I’m on such a high; I’m not sure what can knock me down. So I decide to make myself useful around the house and clean. Throughout most of the morning, I clean the living room—because that disaster is my fault, the kitchen, and the upstairs bathroom. I never remember the downstairs bathroom and no one ever uses it, so I’m happy to leave it untouched. Then I tackle some homework I’ve been neglecting—there isn’t much. I practice my violin and the pieces for class, playing through Brandenburg three times before I’m bored. Next thing I do is walk into the living room and plant my butt in front of the standing piano, playing through a piece I learned when I was ten.
Hilary walks from the kitchen into the living room carrying her favorite coffee mug—it’s painted to match the TARDIS—spotting me at the piano. Her face breaks into a smile.
“I didn’t know you still played,” she says, a yawn punctuating her sentence. “I’m not here so much I don’t really know what you do, or like to do, anymore.”
“I play occasionally,” I tell her, pressing down on a key. The sharp ping of the note floats through the air. “When the violin bores me.” I poke at another key, hearing the low bong.
&nb
sp; My aunt takes a sip from her mug before asking, “What about that old guitar?” she asks, holding the mug in front of her face.
“Mom’s?” The pale pink acoustic guitar my mom used when she was a teenager—her first guitar. It’s sitting in my room near the closet, collecting dust. “I still play that, too. It makes me feel like she’s here.”
“Is that why you still play the piano?” Hilary asks as her hands press down on the keys.
My brows knit together in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“She taught you how to play. You don’t remember that?” Her eyes widen, the green of her irises disappearing when she catches what she said. “Of course you don’t, I’m sorry, sweetie, that was insensitive of me.”
I ignore that. “I thought you got me lessons?”
“No, you were continuing lessons,” my aunt clarifies, setting her coffee on top of the piano next to a plant that hasn’t been watered in a week but is still thriving. “When I would visit you when you were a kid, Keisha was always at the piano with you on her lap.” She smiles at the memory. I wish I could see it in her mind, see what she remembers. I wish I could remember it. “Ivy hated the piano and Noah would rather have played with the trucks I brought him, you were the only one that wanted to play.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say, hitting a chord.
“I know.” She stares at her hands, silently mulling over something in her head. “I haven’t been telling you much, have I?”
“I understand why you don’t,” I tell her, my hand hitting a minor chord. The sound fills the silence growing between us. “She was your sister, your best friend, you miss her a lot.”
“Oh, honey,” Aunt Hil starts. “She was my sister, yeah, but she was your mother. She gave birth to you. You need to know about her.”
“I know all the important things,” I whisper. “She loved me and my brother and sister. She was taken, as were Noah and Ivy, way too soon.” I lean my head to the side. This is too much emotion for Sunday.
“Honey, even I don’t know all the important things.”
I nod my head slowly.
“Oh, how was the dance last night,” she asks, a poor attempt to change the subject, but I’ll take it. I have yet to fill her in.
“Great. It was great,” I tell her, filling her in on all the jumping around we did, the shopping beforehand, even how Zephyr surprised us with wrist corsages. I even told her how Harley might have an admirer of the sexy kind.
With that little bit of information, she takes her coffee mug and escapes up the stairs to get ready for her next shift at the hospital.
I had to call Jamie to tell her I was now riding to school with her in the mornings, but she already knew. She saw Zephyr with me at Homecoming so she put two and two together, correctly guessing we made up. She asked me what happened with Ryder and I told her that things just didn’t work out.
That didn’t stop her from pressing me on Monday morning.
“That sucks,” Jamie whines. She fixes her hair in the rearview mirror as we sit at a traffic light. I’m in the backseat—first time in a long time.
“It’s… whatever, you know?” I shrug my shoulders but she can’t see me. I wish we were already at school. It’s easier to hide.
“Oh, yeah,” she drags out, giggling. Little does she know what happened with Ryder is in no way funny.
I catch Zephyr’s eye when we exit the car in the student parking lot.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asks, leaning close to whisper so Jamie doesn’t overhear. She knows he had to come get me, he needed her keys, but she doesn’t know why. “You know, about you and Harrison?”
I take a deep breath. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I wouldn’t expect you to.
Quietly, I answer, “I know,” and leave it at that. We walk through the doors and I leave Zephyr to walk to my locker.
“Shhh, she’s coming,” someone, I think a sophomore based on her short stature and overuse of eye shadow, whispers as I pass her and her little friends. They’re all wearing too much makeup—where do they learn this?—and way too much perfume; I could smell their sickly sweet scent at the entrance to the hall.
They avert their gaze when I walk past; turning their eyes toward the lockers their standing by, like that’s inconspicuous.
Great, now they know who I am.
More people stop talking when I walk near them. They try to act like they’re not obvious. Others bolt down the stairs or into nearby classrooms, anything to avoid me.
This is new.
Someone standing near my locker stares at me—his eyes wide and his mouth open—when I walk up and open my locker. While I’m stacking my books on the shelf, while this guy stares at me, and I mean really staring at me. He isn’t blinking.
Annoyed with all the attention, I snap, “WHAT?” I forget the books and stare back at him until he does something.
He squeaks—must be a freshman—and bolts down the hall, running into someone before he turns the corner.
I roll my eyes. “Weird,” I mutter under my breath, turning my attention back to my locker.
“Hey,” Harley slides up to my locker, leaning on its neighbor, a wide smile on her face. Her eyes take a wistful appearance as she stares at me. That’s new for her, being happy at school I wonder if Avery has anything to do with her sudden change.
Ignoring it—even though I really want to ask—I shake my head. “Are people acting weird to you?” I ask, confused. “Well, not to you to you, I mean, like, in general, you know.”
“Actually, yeah,” Harley answers, continuing with, “but it started when you walked in. Like the literal moment you walked through the door.”
Just what I need right now.
“Great,” I say, deadpan.
Kennie walks up, wearing her tiny uniform—there’s a soccer game tonight—holding her books in front of her body. Her blue eyes dart from Harley to me. She’s obviously nervous about something, the only thing she needs is a hand in her mouth as she bites her nails. That’s always the giveaway.
“I have a question,” she whispers, leaning in close.
I look around us, searching for anyone else in this dead-end part of the hall. We’re very much alone, what’s with the secrecy?
Still, I lean in closer. “Okay,” I whisper back, jokingly mocking her. Just like a normal Monday.
“Did you sleep with Ryder at Jennifer Long’s party?”
“Did I WHAT?” I yell, my voice raising an octave, ending in a squeak, as Harley yells, “Did she WHAT?” Our voices echo.
“That’s what Ryder’s saying,” Kennie informs us. “That you both hooked up at her party in her dad’s den, on his imported white leather sofa.”
I drop my open backpack on the floor, completely shocked. Pens and pencils fall from the large pocket and roll away along the tile.
It makes sense, really. All the weird looks, all the whispers, even the dance. At the dance, people kept looking at me weird. It just makes so much sense now.
“I think I might kill him,” I tell them, dazed. Harley bends to retrieve my scattered belongings. “I might actually kill someone today. The probability is very, very high.”
“I’ll help,” Harley offers, showing how far her friendship runs with me. “I’ve seen Criminal Minds, Law and Order, and all three versions of CSI. I think I can get away with murder by now.”
“That’s not all,” Kennie quietly continues.
“What else could he be saying about me?” I nearly scream.
“Well…” she trails off.
“Kensington Renee Strait,” I seethe, wondering if steam can really blow from the ears like the cartoons. “You better start talking or so help me—”
“He’s saying that even though you’re a great lay, you’re as crazy as everyone thinks.” My mouth drops open. “I’m sorry, Joey, if I had known that he’d do something like this, I’d never have pressured yo
u to go out with him.”
The tears begin to well, threatening to fall. I’ve heard some stories about me. None of them were true. But there was nothing like this. No one ever said anything like that before.
“You didn’t pressure me to do anything, Kennie,” I tell her. It’s true. This was my own idea, my own mistake. I willingly let him into my life and look what I have to show for it. “It was my mistake.” A mistake, indeed.”
“ZEPHYR!” I hear someone down the hall yell.
Oh, crap…
“Just leave it alone, man!” Avery yells from the end of the hall. The other voice must’ve been Jackson.
That’s not going to end well.
Not at all.
I start to run toward the voices, hoping to catch Zephyr before he does anything stupid. Kennie and Harley follow behind me. I find him as he pushes his way through the crowd, trying to get to his main destination. If it was possibly, he has murder in his eyes.
With Zephyr, anything’s possible.
I literally bump into Avery, stumbling until he catches me. “Where is he going?” I ask, trying to keep up with him. I can’t see him through the crowd; all I can see are faces—faces everywhere—and none belonging to Zephyr.
“He saw Ryder walk down here,” Avery tells me, letting Jackson ahead of him. He turns to me, stopping me. “Joey, I’m sorry for what Ryder’s saying about you. We all know it’s bull.”
I nod. I can’t speak. I just need to get to Zephyr. That’s for whom I’m worried.
“ZEPHYR!” I call when I see his familiar brown hair through the crowd.
“Hey, Harrison,” I hear Zephyr say. I push my way through the crowd, catching a few elbows here and there. Everyone knows there’s about to be a fight and everyone wants to see it. It’s been a long time coming between these two.
I see that cocky smile flash on Ryder’s perfect face. This would be the perfect time for me to wipe it away, but this isn’t about him, it’s about Zephyr and preventing him from doing something stupid, like shoving Ryder’s face through a locker.
