Page 67 of Facing Off
Her honesty is a gut punch. Today, it somehow hits even harder. I’m still recovering from it when she leans back and finally looks at me again. Dark eyes are scrutinizing hard. Lingering.
“Do I, um, have something on my face?”
Sonya continues staring. “You seem…down.”
“I’m not,” is my automatic denial. “Let me finish myjoke. It’s funny,” I insist, internally wincing at my tone because I sound more than a bit desperate.
Sonya waves a fry in the space between us. “What would you be doing if I hadn’t shown up?”
Not talking. Struggling.
“That doesn’t matter. You’d get bored?—”
“Answer the question,” she demands in that familiar forceful way of hers. Her shoulders seem to have gone all tense. Her boots thump on the concrete, a fidgety tempo.
“I…”
She elbows me. “No, you’re trying to make something up. I can sense it.”
She can? How?
I try to wipe my expression clean. My brain continues to scramble, trying to find the right answer. Because I can’t tell her the truth. About the misery and frustration that’s been swirling through me ever since we lost tonight.
“Stop being difficult,” Sonya orders, letting out a frustrated exhale.
“I didn’t realize I was…”
“You are. Youalwaysare.”
“That’s. New.” Confusion washes through me. “I’ve been told I’m the least difficult person that people know.” It’s true. I will accommodate anything and everything I can for the sake of others. I pass every decision through this matrix of consideration, before making it.
Except…tonight.
Get it together, Adrian.
Once again, I’m telling myself to shake these feelings off and get back to being normal.
Sonya makes a derisive noise, then flicks me with her free hand. “The Wings lost badly. You can admit that sucks.”
“We’ll get back to being…”
My sentence fades off. Seriously? I can’t even come up with anything positive. Why, though? What makes tonight any different?
“Fine. Don’t tell me,” says Sonya, crossing her arms. “But save the jokes for next time, Hughes.” As if she can’t sit still and something is bothering her, she uncrosses her arms. Then she pushes the take-out bag closer to me. “Eat some fries.”
She doesn’t let me argue. A fry is forcibly pushed into my hand. I have no choice but to eat it. It’s crispy and delicious. And it makes me have another. Then another.
We continue eating together. Quietly.
And that makes everything a hundred times harder. Because I don’t experience a lot of them, but no silence has been like this one. It feels intimate. Safe?
Normally, I’m one of those people that always tries to keep the conversation going, but all I want to do is lay my head on Sonya’s shoulder and sit here.
I can’t.
Though, in lieu of that, words seem to unlock inside me.
“It did…suck,” I admit slowly.
