Page 81 of Just Playin'
Iwatch Elvis’s retreating frame with my heart in my stomach and tears in my eyes. I want to go after him. I want to pretend the words he yelled at me were just his way of dispelling built-up anger, but something stops me. No matter how much my heart commands my feet to move, my head shuts it down. I’m not in the wrong here, so I’m not the one who should be groveling.
With that in mind, I close the door as tightly as I plan to lock down my heart. Resting my head on the door, I suck in several deep breaths, only spinning when the heat of Skylar’s gaze becomes too much for me to bear. Her eyes have narrowed into thin slits and her hands are on her hips. She looks as upset and as angry as me.
“How long?”
“I wanted to tell you—”
“How long?!”
Her voice is so loud, it rattles the first tear from my eye. This is the exact reason I didn’t want to tell her. I knew she’d be upset. She’s so infatuated with Elvis, she could sense his presence through the door. He didn’t even speak, yet she knew it was him by the way he knocked. Like, what the hell? So how wrong would it have been for me to shatter her dreams over something I didn’t even have a grasp on?
I have feelings for Elvis—way more than I care to admit—but we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. He’s moody, handsome, and successful. I’m eccentric, average, and poor. We’d never work out in the long run. I guess that’s why I stopped myself from chasing after him. This day would have eventually come, so why not get it out of the way before words are spoken that I can never take back?
Furthermore, his comment about my dancing career cut through me like a knife. His words utterly gutted me. I grew obsessed with dance after my parents died because when I twirled really, really fast, I swore I could hear my mom’s giggles in the wind wafting into my ears. So for Elvis to treat it like it’s worthless truly devastated me. If it weren’t for ballet, I wouldn’t be half the person I am today.
I’m snapped from my thoughts when Skylar storms across the room. Unappreciative of my delay in answering, she throws the doors of our shared closet open. My brain scrambles for a response when she yanks down her overnight bag to pack.
“It didn’t mean anything. It was just a bit of fun.” Even if Skylar weren’t my best friend, she’d still hear the dishonesty in my tone. “I wanted to tell you. I toyed with the idea for weeks, but this, right here, is what stopped me. I didn’t want to hurt you, Sky.”
My use of her nickname doesn’t weaken her frustration in the slightest. “Weeks? So it’s been weeks?”
Having no plausible defense, I nod.
“Jesus Christ, Willow. I thought we were sisters?”
“We are,” I defend myself, stepping closer to her.
I lose any ground I gain when she locks her eyes with mine and sneers, “Family don’t lie to each other.”
Her reply pains my heart, but it doesn’t stop me from saying, “This isn’t about me lying. This is about me finally getting something you wanted. Why can’t you be happy for me? For years, I’ve cheered you on from the sidelines.”
“This is different, Willow, I didn’t place you on the sidelines. You put yourself there with that stupid ‘oh pity me’ excuse you just gave him.” She slings her arm to our dorm door. “You think your bubbly personality hides your insecurities, but guess what, it doesn’t! You’re just as insecure and self-doubting as the rest of us, but up until ten minutes ago, you did a better job of hiding it.”
I don’t have a reply. Not one. She’s right. I didn’t have a personality before my knee replacement, much less the eccentricI love lifeone I have now.
When Skylar moves to her bed to gather her electronic devices, I trace her steps. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Sky. That was never my intention. I love you like the sister I never had. Look, I’ll prove it.”
Her hand freezes halfway to her cell when I hand her the playoff finals tickets Elvis gifted me before he realized our clash in schedules.
“I don’t want stupid tickets, Will. I want my best friend back, the one who’d never lie to me like this.” Her quivering words reveal she’s mad, but also hurting.
Her hurt is amplified when she snatches the tickets out of my grasp and dumps them into the bin. After swiping her hands across her cheeks, she locks her moisture-filled eyes with mine. “I think we need some distance. I can’t think straight with you right there.” She thrusts her hand my way.
“Okay. How long?” I adored solitude until a little firecracker with blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes stormed into my life. Now I’ll do anything not to be alone with my thoughts.
Skylar shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe a few days, possibly a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” I pace closer to her, my eyes begging. “Not weeks. I can’t do weeks without you, Sky.”
She squeezes my hand, her words not malicious when she says, “You should have thought about that before lying to me. I’ll always love you, Will, but I don’t have to like you right now.”
AS YOU CAN IMAGINE,the next two weeks are an extremely lonely time for me. Skylar is so mad, even with our RA rooming her with Michelle Lester, she’s maintained her distance. No one wants to bunk with Michelle because everyone over the age of six knows it’s gross to pick your nose, roll your boogers then fling them across the room—everyone but Michelle.
Add Skylar’s distance to the dismal losses her beloved 69ers team has endured the past two weeks, and you’ve got the ultimate recipe for disaster. I’m hating life so much at the moment, dread fills me instead of happiness when I strap on my shoes.
Some of my anguish could be fixed by answering one of my heart’s many pleas to make contact with Elvis, but with my inbox as empty as my heart, I’ve yet to give in. I want to call him—more to tell him to pull his head out of his ass than anything—but I won’t. I’m not stubborn. I’m too jealous to throw tenacity into the mix—and perhaps a little bit insecure.
Elvis’s claim that what I saw two weeks ago wasn’t true was proven accurate early one morning nine days ago. While bunkered down with a hot water bottle and a bucket of cookies and cream ice cream, an infomercial interrupted the black and white movie I was watching. I nearly lost my cookies when Elvis and Lillian pranced across the screen. The only reason I held them down was when I watched Lillian’s finger trace the exact vein she did in the storage closet days earlier.
