Page 14 of Tell Me Softly
I cursed, thinking about my phone. I didn’t know what he was after, but I wasn’t going to play his game. He was going to give it back, even if I had to break into his house and steal it.
I was in a bad mood as I walked out of the gym. Ellie was there waiting for me, leaning against her car and finishing one ofthe day’s many cigarettes. I had already quit; I hated the smell of tobacco on my clothes, in my hair, and in my mouth.
“Were you flirting with the new assistant coach?” Ellie asked, looking like she wouldn’t have minded doing the same.
“You wish,” I said, getting in and looking in the mirror, trying to get a hold of myself and my quivering body.
“He’s hot as hell,” she said, starting the car and taking off toward Aaron’s house. “But for real now, what were you doing talking to Thiago?”
“He’s my neighbor; he just wanted to know if I needed a ride home,” I lied, knowing that was the last thing Thiago would ever do for me.
“Some of the girls told me y’all used to know each other when you were little,” she said, turning a corner and stopping at a stoplight.
“I used to play with his brother, Taylor,” I said as though it wasn’t important. “Thiago was just my neighbor, nothing special.”
“Oh, he wasjustyour neighbor?” She turned from the road to stare me in the face. She did that all the time, and I hated it; she could do it forever without even blinking. The smile on her face couldn’t have been more malicious.
“Yes, Ellie. Just a neighbor. In fact, we always hated each other.” I mean, that wasn’t true. He hated me for what I’d done, but we’d been close before that. Especially the year before he left.
“There’s a thin line between love and hate…” She laughed.
“Yeah, you’ll find out how thin if you keep pushing me,” I said.
“Man, you’re in a mood tonight,” she responded, turning into Aaron’s subdivision, which was full of giant, fancy houses.
“I have to tell you something, though,” I said, remembering one of the reasons why my palms were sweating. “Apparently Danny was mouthing off in the locker room and told his friends I’m not a virgin anymore.”
Ellie stomped the brakes and looked at me open-mouthed. “You’re kidding, right?!”
I shook my head. I’d always hated the way boys talked shit about what they did with girls at parties or in their cars behind the school, but Danny had been my boyfriend for two whole years, and for him to just betray my trust like that…why was it so different with boys and girls? He’d been a virgin before he was with me too, and I hadn’t told the whole world about it.
“Victor came up to me during the game and said some shit about how I was a woman now and was part of some club…”
“Fuck Victor,” Ellie said, driving and looking forward again. “He’s an idiot. Danny probably told Aaron, and Aaron told everyone else in the locker room. I can’t imagine Danny spreading your business around like that.”
“Danny can be cruel when he wants to,” I said, remembering our fights and what he’d said to me a few hours before in his car.
“So what are you going to do?” she asked me.
“Dump him,” I responded, looking out the window. “Actually, I already did.”
“Get out!” she shouted, astonished.
“I did it before the game. I should have before I went on vacation, but I thought maybe if we had some time apart…I don’t know, that we’d miss each other and things would go back to how they had been…”
“Did you miss him?”
I shook my head.
“I like Danny, I really do, but I’m not in love with him anymore.” This was the first time I’d admitted it aloud.
Ellie nodded.
“You being back on the market, you know that’s all people at school are going to be talking about, right? Are you ready for it?”
At that moment, I couldn’t have cared less about people at school or what they thought.
“What I’m ready for is to get trashed and forget how horrible this week has been.”
