by Mia Archer
Probably because of the chance that Allison would show up. The idea of talking with her, of confronting everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, was terrifying.
Not that Amy was going to give me a chance to slip away. She leaned down and fixed me with a glare that said in no uncertain terms that I was either getting out of the damn car or she was going to drag me out of it kicking and screaming and creating a scene before I’d even had a chance to talk to Allison.
I sighed and got out of the car. Nothing good had ever happened to me out at this damned lake, and it was insanity to think things were going to be any different this time around. Still, Amy was there and she wasn’t going to take any crap from me. She could be just as bad as Samantha when she set her mind to something.
I looked around one more time and I felt like my heart was stopping and I was falling over though of course I was fine. I had the door to steady me, at least. She was here. Allison was standing next to a keg much like she’d been all those years ago, only this time around she was standing there with her boyfriend rather than that chick Darcy was with.
I couldn’t help myself. I saw him standing there and the scowl came to my face without a second thought. One minute I was smiling and my heart was all aflutter like in some silly romance and the next I was thinking about how this guy was the thing standing between me and my happily ever after and all I wanted to do was claw his eyes out as though he was some girl at the bar who just moved in on a chick I’d been hitting on all night.
I realized Allison was staring at me and I quickly looked away. Damn it. She probably saw the look on my face and thought I was scowling at her which couldn’t be farther from the truth, but it was too late to do anything about it now. I really needed to maintain better control of my emotions if I was going to go over and talk with her and try to clear everything up.
“So are you going to go talk to her?” Amy asked.
I turned and grimaced at her. “I suppose I should get it over with, shouldn’t I?”
Amy rolled her eyes. “You’re talking about it like you’re going to go get your teeth drilled and not going over there to confess your feelings to the love of your life.”
“Yeah, I guess I should try to be more positive, shouldn’t I?”
“I’d say. Many more looks like that and I’ll start to understand if she doesn’t want anything to do with you.”
I sighed and turned back to the party, fully prepared to go over and talk to her whether or not her boyfriend was standing there. I could figure out a way to get her away from him for a minute. Only by the time I’d turned back around it looked like lover boy was dragging her over to a beach volleyball game. I saw her glance over her shoulder towards me and I tried to smile ,but I wasn’t even sure if she saw it. Then she was in the middle of the game and I was out of luck.
“Okay, so you can talk to her when she’s done playing her game,” Amy said.
“Thank you for the permission, oh great one. Now why don’t you go bother somebody else instead of hanging around coaching me on my love life?”
“Nah. I don’t know anyone here. They’re all way older than me,” she said.
“You don’t even know Sheriff Creepy Jr.?”
Sure enough he was standing by one of the kegs trying to hit on a girl from our class. Amazing. Apparently all it took was a party at the lake for him to manifest. At the same time it was also a bit of a relief. At least he wasn’t going after high school girls if he was at this party.
Amy made a funny face. “Ugh. That asshole is here? Does he just live in the lake and come out of the water like some pervy lame ass monster or something? Seriously, he’s always here.”
Well if I wasn’t going to talk to Allison right now then I could at least see what was going on with Sam and Darcy and whoever Darcy’s girlfriend was. I really hoped her name came up in the conversation because it was going to get really awkward if I was talking with them for awhile and I couldn’t even remember her name.
“Well look who decided to join us after ducking out of the reunion early last night,” Darcy said as I got close.
“Is it true you left with Allison?” Darcy’s date asked.
“Valerie!” Darcy hissed. “You can’t just ask her something like that!”
Valerie looked annoyed even as I was breathing a sigh of relief. I repeated her name over and over in my head so there was no chance it was going to leave. At the same time I was relieved that they weren’t going to pry too much into what happened with me and Allison last night, though if they were asking me I was sure everyone at the reunion had noticed by now. It was probably the talk of the town. Damn it.
That relief was short lived, though. I don’t know why I thought I was going to get away from that question when I had Samantha there. She was the queen of not minding her own business.
“Exactly,” Sam said. “You have to be her friend to be that nosy. So what happened with you and Allison last night? How’d it go?”
I sighed and set my jaw. This was not a conversation I wanted to have with anyone other than maybe Amy. Not that she was going to be any help pulling my bacon out of the fire. Despite her protests that I was the only girl she’d know at this party she’d still managed to make her way off and was chatting with a guy who I suppose was cute enough if you were into that sort of thing, but I didn’t recognize him.
He looked a little younger. Maybe it was some guy who’d wandered into the party. There wasn’t exactly a strict entrance policy at these shindigs. It’s not like there was someone from our class walking around the beach making sure there were only people from our class in attendance.
The more the merrier, and all that.
I was distracting myself from the problem at hand, though. How to best sidestep the question I desperately didn’t want to answer. Even if I could condense the entire complicated fucked up evening into a short sound bite it’s not like it was a sound bite I wanted to share. Claire falls for a girl, again. Claire gets jilted, again. Claire shows up at beach party where all the trouble started in the first place, against her better judgment, only to probably get her heart broken.
Again.
“That’s none of your damn business and you know it,” I said.
Samantha shrugged and fixed me with an infuriating smile that I knew all too well. A smile that had a lot in common with the smile Felicia used when someone was being difficult and she knew she was ultimately going to get her way, come to think of it. I wondered if it was even worth it to put up a token resistance or if I should give in now.
“I know it’s none of my damn business,” Samantha said. “And that’s exactly why were so curious about what the hell happened. If it was my damn business then it wouldn’t be so interesting in the first place! Now I didn’t press too much about the rumors last night, but you bet your ass I’m not keeping quiet today after you walked out the door with Allison and didn’t come back! Spill.”
“She’s got a point, Claire,” Darcy said. “Everyone’s burning to know what’s going on there. The rumors, you two disappearing together, her showing up with a guy this morning. You can’t leave us hanging!”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. I turned to Valerie, though I don’t know why I thought I was going to get any help there. “You were Allison’s friend. Why don’t you tell them everything?”
Valerie shrugged, though she didn’t look like she was quite as interested as my friends. Interesting. If anything she seemed almost cold.
“I don’t know anything. She sure as hell didn’t tell me. I heard about the rumors of… well, you two, through the rumor mill just the same as everyone else. She couldn’t even be bothered to tell me,” Valerie said. The next bit came under her breath and I barely caught it. “Would’ve been nice to know she swung that way though.”
Huh. Suddenly the reason she’d been so frosty became apparent. She was here with Darcy now, and of course she must’ve had some inkling of how she really felt about girls even back in schoo
l. I’d probably swooped in and poached her early girl crush when I was busy fulfilling my own first girl crush fantasy.
Not that I could’ve had any idea what I was doing at the time considering she hadn’t told the world. Not that I gave a flying fuck today. Things were complicated enough with Allison without thinking about her more recent former best friend. One who’d apparently already gotten her happily ever after with Darcy, even if Darcy did pick up on what she’d just said and was giving her an irritated look. I wondered if this wasn’t the first time Allison had come up in their relationship.
Again, not my problem. It also made me feel less inclined than ever to actually spill anything. Not when there was competition, however marginal and nonexistent, standing right there dying to know the full story.
“Yeah, I think that one will have to wait for drinks or something later Sam,” I said.
“We have drinks here. Now’s as good a time as any.”
I shot her a warning glance and for a wonder she actually backed down. That was a first. I’d have to remember to use that look more often, not that I figured I’d have much of an opportunity to use it again unless I showed up to the ten year reunion which was looking increasingly unlikely considering just how well everything had gone at this one.
I looked over towards Allison again. It looked like the game was staring to wind down. At least Kyle was doing some sort of weird dance and pointing at Derek who was on the other side of the net with a sullen look on his face. I wondered if Allison told her current boyfriend that they were playing a game against her old boyfriend. The posturing certainly looked like a man who was trying to assert his dominance in the most lame ass way possible considering he couldn’t get a sword or pistols and settle things the old fashioned way in this day and age.
I smiled as I wondered what sort of display I might have enjoyed earlier this morning if he’d realized what the real threat to his dominance was. I couldn’t decide which was more amusing, the way he was carrying on, the annoyed look on Derek’s face, or the even more annoyed look on Allison’s face.
I figured this would be as good a time as any to approach her. The boyfriend was distracted. If there ever was an opportune moment this seemed like the one, so I started towards them.
“Go get’er Claire!” Sam yelled, perhaps a little too loud.
A few people turned towards me, including Allison. Only instead of glaring at me, which I figured was the least I deserved considering some of the things I’d texted Felicia and the girls the night before, she actually fixed me with a small hesitant smile that had hope fluttering inside me. I was probably imagining things, projecting how I wanted things to go between me and Allison onto the clusterfuck that was the reality between me and Allison, but a girl could dream.
Unfortunately the dream was going to have to go on hold once more. I thought Allison might’ve achieved escape velocity from the boyfriend, but the yelling stopped and then he was right next to her even as I was only about ten feet away.
Motherfucker.
I could still talk to her. I could just go up and say we needed to chat. I could ask her to step away from boy toy for a little while and we could hash everything out between us. Surely boy toy wouldn’t mind because something told me if Allison wasn’t willing to tell her best friend about the tryst we had back in the day she certainly wasn’t the type who would’ve worked up the nerve to tell her boyfriend about us in the here and now.
Besides, I figured that if she had told him he wouldn’t be here in the first place. Only once more I was thwarted in a way that had me feeling sick to my stomach.
“Excuse me! Could I have everyone’s attention please?” Kyle announced.
I felt my stomach do a somersault. No. No way. This was not happening. Strangers didn’t ask to get everyone’s attention like that unless there was a big announcement in the offing, and there was only one big announcement I could think of that would compel a guy to call out for everyone to look at him while he was standing there with his girlfriend. This was not happening, damn it!
My only consolation was that Allison looked like she was feeling the same as me. She didn’t look happy that he was calling for everyone’s attention. That everyone was looking over to them. That the music stopped, though there wasn’t a record scratching noise that would’ve been the perfect topper to that moment if this was a scene in a cheesy romance movie because of course stopping a digital file from playing wasn’t going to result in a record scratching.
I felt helpless. I cast around, looking for a friendly face somewhere in the crowd. I landed on Amy who was looking right at me. I was imploring her for advice with the pained look on my face and she just shook her head. Her meaning was clear. Whatever was happening here, it was too big for me to interrupt.
I turned back and watched the wreck unfolding. Threatening to destroy the small sliver of a chance at happiness with Allison I’d been clinging to.
Everything went quiet. Too quiet. The only sound was people shuffling in the sand and the sound of the lake. I thought I could hear a boat buzzing in the distance. How I wished in that moment that I could be out in the middle of the lake and preferably deep under it where I’d be put out of my misery pretty damn quick.
That wasn’t going to happen, of course. The misery kept piling on.
“So I came out here this weekend against my girlfriend’s wishes because I had a big surprise I wanted to share with the people she grew up with!” Kyle said with a goofy smile on his face.
He dug in his pocket and I wanted to puke. For that matter Allison had a look on her face that said she wanted to throw up as well. Yet I couldn’t look away from the unfolding disaster.
If he asked what I thought he was about to ask would she go along with it? Would she find herself trapped in a marriage that had nothing to do with who she was because she was afraid of being publicly shamed? Or would she do what she probably should’ve done a long time ago and finally dump him?
I had selfish motivations for wanting to know the answer to that question. One path would put Allison off limits for good, or at least until the inevitable divorce in who knows how many years. The other meant there was still a chance.
The anticipation was killing me.
“A couple of years ago I met the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known, and even though there have been ups and downs in that time, there’s no one I’d rather spend the rest of my life with!”
I couldn’t help but notice the way Allison rolled her eyes as he said that. Yeah, this guy was having trouble reading the situation. If I was planning on proposing to someone and they were looking like Allison was then I’d be seriously reconsidering my plans. Not this guy, though. He was forging ahead with that goofy smile on his face. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.
He was the competition, after all.
Kyle pulled something out of his pocket. A box. Of course it was a box. He opened it and something sparkled in the sunlight. I heard a couple of people gasp, but if they were gasping then they weren’t looking at Allison. Or maybe they were looking at Allison and they could see the hurt that was about to come bearing down on this poor son-of-a-bitch.
And yet I couldn’t be sure that hurt was coming. Not entirely. There was still that chance the she’d give into the peer pressure of a big public proposal like this. I held my breath.
“Allison, we’re here in front of all your friends. Would you do me the honor of being my wife?”
24: Stupid Question, Nasty Answer
This was not happening. This couldn’t be happening. And yet when I looked at Kyle he was standing there with that goofy look on his face and he was holding the ring up making sure it sparkled nice and good in the sunlight so everyone could see.
Of course he’d be holding it up for everyone to see. There was no point in doing anything if there wasn’t a big crowd gathered around to watch, right? I wanted to smack it out of his hands, but that might send the thing flying and get it lost in the nearby bonfire or on the sand a
nd that was the last thing I wanted.
Kyle might be an idiot who absolutely couldn’t read a situation, but I didn’t want him to be an idiot who was out however much it cost for him to get that ring in the first place.
I looked over to Claire. I guess it was sort of appropriate that she’d be standing there while this was going down. I was sure she’d been coming over to talk to me about everything that happened and I was so relieved, only now that relief was being tossed out the window because of Kyle.
Suddenly a lot of the stuff he’d been doing since he got here first thing in the morning was starting to make more sense, damn it. Showing up in the first place when I specifically told him not to. Insisting on staying when I told him I’d feel much better if he went back home. Trying to get to know people, though I could’ve done without that ridiculous display on the beach volleyball court. Like poor Derek had a chance at beating Kyle who’d actually stayed in shape over the years.
I was starting to regret ever pointing out that Derek was an ex of mine. I was really glad I hadn’t pointed out what went on with Claire last night yet, because I had no idea what he’d do then.
I glanced around at the crowd surrounding us. Some people were smiling, but mostly people seemed confused. For some reason people seemed to be alternating their attention between me and Claire. As though they knew something.
Even twenty-four hours ago the idea that everyone here might know something, that what happened between Claire and I had hit the rumor mill despite my best efforts to keep that from happening, would’ve terrified me. Now, though, I was at peace with it. I had zero fucks to give about what everyone thought, whether they were judging me for getting with Claire or judging me for not answering Kyle’s question already.
Kyle’s question. Of course he would pull something like this. Of course he would try and perform some grand romantic gesture in front of a bunch of people. That was the way he rolled. This was the culmination of a trend I’d noticed and been annoyed by countless times before. This was the ultimate extension of his habit of ignoring me and what I wanted if it meant he could make some big production in front of a crowd of people where he was the star and I was an unwilling supporting player.
