Page 23 of Talk Nerdy To Me
As we take a familiar turn, I pull out my phone and google Fatal Attraction and Jeepers Creepers.
Trying to piece together her pop culture references, I say, “Most all fairytales were derived from a more morbid, less shiny tale. The dark undertones are always overshadowed by the happily-ever-afters by the optimists.”
After realizing what Jeepers Creepers is, I frown. I’m not sure how a man-eating, humanoid monster has anything to do with this, but I’m guessing she meant it abstractly.
Anything too abstract sails over my head.
When she pulls up to a very familiar house, my stomach twists in those horrible metaphoric knots.
“I suppose you’re right,” she says.
At the exact same time, I ask, “Why are we here?”
I’m not sure why my heart is hammering, but I suddenly feel like running. Fast. Why am I panicking? The potential for conflict is low, so there’s no reason to panic.
She frowns as she looks over. “This is where the party is.” She gestures to all the cars. “Something wrong?”
Yes!
“No,” I blurt out, since this should be okay and I’m irrationally panicking.
“Great. Then let’s go in,” she says as she pushes open her door.
I take a few more seconds to breathe, which I’m having to think about. I’m a girl who can’t forget anything, and yet I’m struggling to remember how to perform simple, typically unconscious, cognitive functions.
Shakily, I push open the door and try not to overthink it. Krysta is already walking toward the steps that lead up to the pool, but she turns to wait on me.
Just as she opens her mouth to speak, I hear, “The Sterling girls have arrived!”
Her eyes widen, almost as though she wasn’t expecting anyone to call her that. I assume. She also doesn’t look too happy about it.
My eyes dart up to see Taylor and Sticks grinning down at us, and Krysta offers them a tight smile as she starts making her way up the steps. I follow, my eyes darting around the second I can see the pool, searching for a face I can’t find.
Sticks grabs my hand, pulling it into his, and then makes a dramatic show of kneeling in front of me. I’m not dressed like the Valkyrie princess and this isn’t a LARP session, so I have no idea why he’s kneeling.
That’s the only time people ever kneel before me.
“We had a Sterling at our house, and we didn’t even know it,” he says, grinning broadly. “We most graciously apologize.”
He kisses my hand, then winks as he stands. As he goes to drop his arm around Krysta’s shoulders, he calls out. “Grab yourself a drink, Britt Sterling. Tonight we find out all your secrets.”
“I don’t have secrets,” I tell Taylor, who is standing beside me and smiling.
“Good. Then you won’t mind telling us how you came to be a Sterling. Nothing in the gossip columns about that.”
That makes me bristle. I don’t have secrets, but I see no point in talking about things before my happily-ever-after came to be. I’m an optimist these days, and I’d like to forget all my darker undertones.
Fortunately, I have needs to attend and a logical reason for deflection.
“Can I use your bathroom to freshen up?” I ask, remembering Tria’s wording about these situations.
“Sure. The one inside the door has a sink, but the can is out-of-order—”
“Of course it is,” a girl groans near us. “That one is always messed up.”
“I’m actually—” I pause, remembering the words considered rude to use among strangers when referencing this issue: menstruating, bleeding, having my period, raining red… “—shedding the extra lining that went unused when my uterus didn’t receive a fertilized egg,” I tell him.
There’s an immediate realization that I’ve used too many words because he has a fast reaction.
