A Real Disaster (20 page)

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Nash and I sat together a lot quieter
than two people that are dating should. I just couldn't get the thought of
Turner's sister and Nash out of my mind.

“You’re a little quiet tonight,” Nash
said as he rubbed his hand up and down my back. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” I lied. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just
a little tired.”

Tired was an understatement. I wasn’t
sleeping at all; instead I was lying up night after night. Every time I tried
to sleep and close my eyes all I could picture was Nash and Turner’s sister
together. I kept imagining them wrapped around each other, Nash caressing her
body as she kissed his mouth. If I did manage to sleep I would wake up in a
cold sweat.

“You’re not sleeping?” he asked.

 
He looked concerned which made me feel worse
than I already did. I kept picturing the red headed girl talking to Nash at the
bar; the ‘fan’ he claimed. I was becoming paranoid
.
I was creating stories in my head instead of talking to Nash.

I needed to ask him, flat out, whom she
was. Ask him if Turner’s sister is really here or if Turner was just trying to
ruin what we had.

“Not very good.
I have a lot on
my mind… Can I ask you something though?”

I looked up at Nash and nearly melted at
the concerned look in his eyes. His mouth was puckered in to a frown. He curled
a piece of my hair around his finger slowly.

“What’s up? You can ask me anything you
want.”

“The redheaded girl at the club the
other night,” I said slowly. “Do you know her?”

A look passed across Nash’s face but it
quickly disappeared and he smiled.

“She’s just a fan, Lily.”

“But you seemed like you knew her.
Like she was more than just a fan.”

Nash shook his head, the amused grin
still on his face.

“She’s a fan, only a fan,” he repeated.
“She has come to my shows before I ever met you. I think that she’s been coming
to the shows since the band started.”

I knew his words were supposed to comfort
me but it made me feel worse.

“Can I ask you something else?” I
ventured. “Of course…”

“I heard that Turner’s sister was back
in town.”

Another look passed across Nash’s face
but it was only a second

“Where did you hear that?”

Now it was the moment of truth. Should I
tell Nash about Turner or keep my mouth shut? I didn’t want to cause a bigger
fight between the two but if I didn’t tell Nash and he found out he would be
mad at me.

“I saw Turner at the library the other
day,” I admitted. “I didn’t plan to see him there, believe me. But I was about
to leave and there he was. He told me that his sister was in town and she was
looking for you. He made it seem like it was something you already knew about
and weren’t telling me.”

I lowered my head and waited for Nash to
flip out.

“He’s lying,” Nash said, surprisingly
calm. “He’s trying to get to you. He despises the fact that you chose me and
didn’t choose him. He would do anything, and I mean
anything
to break us up. If his sister was here I would tell you. I
have nothing to hide from you.”

“Really?”
I asked
doubtfully.

I figured that if Turner’s sister was
here and Nash knew about it he would do whatever it took to keep me from
knowing about it. Especially, since I knew the background of the two of them.

Why’d I even ask?

“Of course.
Why would I
risk everything to keep a stupid secret? I’d rather be up front with you.”

That calmed me down enough. I thought
about the ‘I love you’ Nash murmured in his sleep and wondered, for a second,
that he knew that he said the words but didn’t want to admit it. He could have
been scared, nervous, or something else. I love you was a big step and Nash may
not have been ready to take that step.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

It felt like all I was doing lately was
apologizing.

“I’ve just been a little…
Crazy.
I really like you and… Well I feel like everywhere I
turn there’s something or someone who is trying to get in the middle of
everything. It’s…
Exhausting.
I didn’t think that it
would be this hard.”

“It won’t be this hard forever. Do you
want me to talk to Turner?”

Nash put his hands up.

“I promise that it will be only a talk.
I’ll see what’s really going on with him and try to figure out how we can make
it better.”

I shrugged.

Confusion swept over me. Nash and Turner
were
enemies, that was
something I knew. After
Turner’s blow up in the cafeteria, the gap widened between them. Nash didn’t
care what was going on with Turner. So why was he offering to help? Why was
Nash so willing to talk to him, try to reason with him?

“You don’t need to talk to him,” I told
him. “There’s no point and I honestly don’t think it’s going to change
anything.”

I sighed.
 

“Alright, now if you’re done with your
line of questioning, I have a question for you.”

A question?
For me?
My heart dropped to my stomach. What type of
question could Nash have?”

“Shoot,” I said, trying to stay calm.

Why do I always go to some horrible
place? It’s a simple question. It can be any question… So why panic?

“I was wondering…” Nash said.

“Wondering what?”

“What do I have to do to convince you to
come to dinner with my family tomorrow night?”

There was a knot in my stomach.
Dinner?
With his family?

“Why?” I blurted out and Nash laughed.

“Because you’re
my girlfriend.
I talk so much about you that they want to meet you.”

“Who’s going to be there?”

“My father and
probably my sister.
They really want to meet you and get to know you.
To be honest, I think they’re starting to wonder if you’re real or if I’m
making you up. They are convinced that you’re a figment of my imagination.”

“Your family,” I repeated. “You want me
to sit down with your family?”

“And eat,” he added. “Eating would be a
big help. But it’s not going to be this whole big thing… It’s going to be a
barbeque, in the backyard. What do you think about it?”

“I think that it’s nerve wracking. I’ve
never met any boy’s family. I wouldn’t know what to do or how to act. I… I
don’t want to embarrass you.”

“You’re not going to embarrass me. Please?
This is really important to me. My family is so curious about you.”

“Okay,” I said finally, knowing that was
the only answer I really could give.

I might not have met a boyfriend’s
family yet but I’ve seen the movies. The dinner with the parents was almost as
important as actually going out with the person. If the family didn’t like you
well then you might as well kiss the relationship goodbye. But what else could
I do? If I said no, Nash would be crushed. I didn’t want to do that to him; it
wasn’t fair.

“I promise you won’t regret this. And I
promise that I’ll meet your family too.”

“No!” I cried. “I mean, no. No, you
don’t have to meet my family.
At all.”

Nash cocked his head to the side but
didn’t say anything. I smiled weakly. I hadn’t told my family about Nash at all
and I was trying to keep it a secret for as long as I could. It would be bad
enough to admit that I had a boyfriend, there was no way I would be able to
tell them that Nash was a musician. In my parent’s eyes, a musician did nothing
but smoke weed and drink all day while fucking all night. Musicians didn’t have
girlfriends, according to them. Instead musicians had groupies that they fucked
whenever they wanted to with no conscious. They had personal whores who were
around only to make the musician happy. No, telling my parents about Nash’s
career path would be the spark that ignited the bomb.

“Why not?”

“My parents… Well they’re old school. And
I kind of promised them that I wouldn’t have a boyfriend during school. They
don’t think that I can juggle a boyfriend and schoolwork. To them, school was
the
most important thing; nothing else
stands up to it.
If they found out about you…
Well
they might take me out of this school and enroll me in an all-girl school.”

“They wouldn’t.” Nash said, aghast.

“They already did with my sister. She
got caught going away for the weekend with a boy she was seeing. By the end of
that month she was out of the school she enrolled in and in a catholic college.
Trust me, when my parents want something one way, they get what they want. None
of us want to cross my parents or make them angry.”

“Wow, it sounds like your parents are
tyrants.”

“Not tyrants. They just want the best
for their children. Unfortunately they think that they’re the only ones who
know what’s right for us. Trust
me,
it’s frustrating
and sometimes ridiculous. But how can you get mad at them for caring?”

“I guess.”

“Doesn’t your dad worry about you?”

“If by worry you mean criticize then,
yes, he worries about me all the time. Every single time I see him he’s
worrying about me.”

I frowned at the bitterness in Nash’s
voice. If his relationship was so bad with his dad, why were we going to see him
for dinner? The answer was obvious. TO this day, Nash still wanted to make his dad
proud. He wanted him to see how great he was doing making his own decisions.
He, like everyone else, wanted his dad to be proud of him.

“So,” I said, trying to lighten the
mood. “Should I wear a dress or pants tomorrow?”

“Pants,” he said with a smile. “They
make your ass look better.
And a sweater.
It will make
you look sweet and innocent.”

I grinned.

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I ran up the three flights of stairs and
down the hall, skidding to a stop in front of my dorm room. My hands shook as I
grabbed the key and inserted it into the door.

“Sabrina you’re never going to believe
what happened,” I said as I swung the door open.

I looked up and my bags fell to the
floor with a thud.

“Mom?
Dad?”

In front of me stood my parents, side my
side, identical grins on their faces. My mother wore a fitted dress, ending at
the calf, with matching peep-toe pumps and her hair was blown out behind her.
My father wore khakis with a button down shirt and a cigar tucked in his
pocket. His salt and pepper hair was slicked back, ending right above his
collar. My mother stepped forward, her arms outstretched, waiting to embrace
me. I stepped forward and let her arms curl around me in a loose, dainty hug.

“W-What are you doing here?”

Blood rushed through my ears as I ran my
hand through my disheveled hair. It was nine in the morning and I crossed my
fingers praying that my parents wouldn’t ask where I was or why I looked the
way I did.

“We were waiting for you to come back,”
my mother said. “Your lovely roommate told us that you went out for a run.”

Behind them, Sabrina winked at me.

“We wanted to see you, dear,” my father
said. “We missed you and wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

“I’m fine, see?” I said and did a little
dance in a circle.
“Nothing to worry about.”

If my parents noticed how desperate I
was to get them to leave, they didn’t show it. My father took a seat on my desk
chair while my mother chose my bed. They both stared at me, waiting for me to
say something.
But what?
What could I tell my parents?
There was no way that I could tell them what was really going on at school. I
couldn’t mention Nash, or the music, and I definitely couldn’t mention the
drinking.

“How long are you here for?”

“Just tonight,” my mother said. “We were
in the area and wanted to check up on our baby girl.”

Just in the area? Yeah right. But I
sighed with relief. At least I would only have to cover my tracks for a little
while.

“So tell us all about school.”

Sabrina stood up and slipped around my
parents.

“Well, I’ll let you guys catch up,” she
said. “I’m going to go get myself some food and then maybe see what Elizabeth
is up to. Catch you later, Lily?”

“Definitely,” I said. “Thanks,” I added
softly as she passed.