Caught Up In You (8 page)

“Hello!” I let out an exasperated sigh.
“Some of us need to get ready!”

“Well, clearly, Angelina’s too insecure
to allow me to come with you guys, so I hope you guys have fun. Just text me
later, maybe I’ll come up here or something. You know, after your insecure
friend leaves.” He says the last part in a low voice like he’s trying to keep
it from Angelina. Which makes no sense because he’s clearly still saying it
loud enough for her to hear him.

This was turning into a big thing and I
was starting to get going a little. I start to bite my lip in annoyance.

“I’m not insecure!” Angelina takes a step
closer to us, I take the opportunity to squeeze out of Eric’s grasp. Yikes.
Angelina’s eyes look a little crazy now. “You’re coming!” She declares much
louder than necessary.

I place my hands over my ears. Gosh.

“No thanks.” Eric doesn’t move from where
he’s standing despite Angelina’s sudden closeness. There two were the worst
right now. I really needed to get this show on the road.

“Oh no, you’re coming alright. End of
story!”

Eric shrugs looking bored. “Okay. I mean,
if you really want me to.”

“Yeah I really want you to!”

I roll my eyes. Angelina could really
lack common sense sometimes. I mean, didn’t she realize she had walked right
into what Eric had wanted her to do? Clearly he was just saying all that to make
her mad enough to let him come with us. He wanted her to want to prove him
wrong and she walked right into it. What a fool.

“Well, okay. If that’s what you want then
who am I to refuse a pretty girl?” He flops back down on my bed and shoots here
a mysterious grin. I expect her to start flipping out on him again but she
stays quite for once. “And I think you’re right. That dress is for sure the
right choice.”

“Thank you!” Angelina says, finally
turning her attention to me. It’s the first time I’ve had her full attention
since Eric walked into my room. She shoots me a look as if to say I told you
so.

“It will really get his attention, trust
me. I’m a guy, I know.”

He says it like he has the best judgment in
the world.

“But I-“

“No buts!” Angelina pushes the dress back
into my face and shoves me in one swift motion into my bathroom and slams the
door shut behind me. “Now hurry up and get dressed! We can’t be late!”

I look down at the dress defeated. I
really didn’t want to wear this dress but I also really didn’t have the time to
sit here and argue with them for the next hour. Angelina’s right about one
thing, I can’t be late.

From the other side of the door I can
hear Angelina telling Eric how it’s like pulling teeth with me sometimes. He’s
laughing.

Jeez, those two gained up on me awful
fast.

I sigh and start to get undressed.

***
    

Eric and Angelina fight the entire way to
the game. Literally the whole entire way that’s all they do, and it’s about the
stupidest things too. First, they were fighting over which one of their phones
we should use to get to the game. Eric was insisting we should use his because
his phone is brand new and just came out less than a week ago. There for it had
top of the line everything. Including the newest version of software for the
GPS. Well, this really pissed Angelina off because there was nothing wrong with
her GPS and Eric was a stuck up snob who always had to show off the best of everything
he had.

I tried to explain to Angelina that this
made no sense since she had only just met Eric, how could she know if he always
had to show off? But that only made her shoot me a dirty look and give me
attitude for “trying to defend him.”

Finally, I told them both to shut up and
put the address in my GPS.

Next it was the music. Angelina tried to
plug her phone in right away, saying she had made a playlist exactly for the
reason of this trip today. She was going on and on about how she had given up
her math period to do it and it was really hard to not get caught. Eric said
all the songs were probably of bad taste and he had over three thousand songs
on his phone to choose from, something for everyone. Angelina said that she
thought he had just gotten the phone less than a week ago and that was really
sketchy that he already had so much music on a brand new phone. She insisted he
probably got all that music in some illegal manner and she wasn’t going to get
arrested for taking part in listening to the songs he felt it was okay to
steal.

Which led to a whole other argument,
where Eric tried to explain to Angelina there was no way she could get arrested
for listening to his playlist even if he had obtained it illegally, which he
hadn’t. Although he kept winking at me every time he said it, so it kind of
made me believe he had done something shady to get the music. I don’t know how
that would make much sense though because it was pretty clear money wasn’t an
object for Eric.

This argument went on so long that we
ended up listening to no music because by the time we were about to pull into
the parking lot of the scrimmage they were still going at it. I couldn’t wait
to park and get out of the war zone. It had been forty minutes of non-stop
bickering. They were both my best friends and I loved them and all that but
they were honestly starting to annoy me. The only time they had even listened
to anything I said in the car was when I was telling Angelina to not miss a
turn because fighting with Eric was clearly more important than watching the
GPS.

I had enough to be nervous about here
without them being so self involved. I mean hello! I needed their support.
Especially because when I had finally texted Nathan after school about the
address, he had replied back “Finally.
Smh
.”

Which really confused me. I mean, had he
sent me the wrong text or had auto correct misspelled what he was saying?
Anyway so I was all “what’s
smh
?” And all he wrote
back was “
smh
” again with the address to the game
under it! So then I asked Angelina what that meant and she said it meant
;
 
“shake my
head.” Which means Nathan was giving me attitude about texting him for the
address to his scrimmage so late in the day!

It’s not like I did it on purpose. I have
a lot going on at the moment. Not to mention it was annoying. He had seemed
almost normal last night when he came over and now he was back to being means
to me. It was starting to be kind of hard to keep track of all his different
personalities.

After what feels like forever Angelina
finally finds a spot and slowly pulls her car into it. “Well, not all of us
have a fancy lawyer to get us out of things like illegally downloading someone
else’s hard earned work! Artists put hours into making those tracks and you
just come around stealing them!”

“TIME OUT!” I snap and wave my hands
around like a wacko. “We’re here! It doesn’t matter who’s right! We aren’t
listening to anything anyway!”

Angelina looks around the parking lot
with a bewildered expression on her face like she’s just realized for the first
time that we’re here. Eric doesn’t look surprised, just amused.

“Look.” I suck my breath in calmly and
try to steady my breath. The last thing I need to do is take out my annoyance
and aggression about the Nathan situation on the only two people who are willing
to be there for me. Especially because up until a few hours ago I had been
pretty much lying to Eric about some critical details in my life. “I really
need you guys to step up and be there for me right now. You can fight all you
want on the way home, I swear. You can rip one others hair out on the drive
back for all I care. But right now, for the next few hours, can you just please
pretend to get along so I can get through this. I really need you guys to help
me through this, I’m like freaking out.”

Angelina cuts the engine off and reaches
for her phone and clutch resting on the center council. “Of course I’m going to
be here for you. Just relax, everything is going to go just fine.” Suddenly
she’s as calm as can be. She props her door open and stands up straight
stretching her muscles from the long drive.

I catch Eric’s glance in the review
mirror and try to read him. He doesn’t look angry. More confused, maybe a
little hurt. I never wanted to lie to him or keep anything from him. I just
never knew how to explain what the deal was with Nathan. He was the only one in
the wellness center who didn’t treat me like I was a total nut case. I guess
deep down part of me was scared that if I told him the truth he would start to
see what the rest of them saw. I wanted to tell him, I did. It was just a
little hard for me to explain how this thing with Nathan wasn’t a joke. He
wasn’t something that 3 months away was going to make me forget. I actually
cared about him. And apparently I loved putting myself through torture because
that’s what it was being around Nathan and knowing I could never have him.
Complete and total torture.

“I’m sorry.” It comes out as a whisper.
Partly because I’m at a loss for words about how I could possibly explain
myself and also because I know Angelina is in close range.

Eric glances at her as if he somehow is
able to read my thoughts. “We can talk about it later.” He reaches out and touches
my shoulder gently. He’s trying to assure me it’s going to be okay. That it’s
nothing we can’t work through, that it’s nothing that would make him leave me.
And the relief that comes with that knowledge is such a sweet and warm feeling.

But it’s replaced right away with a huge
feeling of guilt because I realize then that there’s no way he read my journal.
He got it back from my horrible ex roommate, traveled all the way here, hunted
me down, and came to see me through all this drama that I walked back into and
the whole time he hadn’t even peaked at it. If he had he would have known about
my true feelings for Nathan. That journal was filled with my real intense
feelings, feelings that made it clear that I felt like I would never give up on
Nathan. That made it clear that I would always have hope of having him again.
Here I was keeping things from him and he hadn’t even invaded my privacy. He
was so loyal and I was so awful.

“Oh no!” Angelina’s peering down at me
now from the driver side window. “You’re not going to cry, are you? Because it
took me forever to get your makeup that perfect and I really don’t have time to
do it all over!”

I force myself to breath and push back
all the emotions that are dying to come out at that moment. Angelina was right,
now wasn’t the time to have a break down.

“I’m okay.” I get out and slam the door
to Angelina’s car a little harder than necessary. She shoots me a look but I
ignore her. “Let’s do this.”

***

Exactly what I was worried about is
exactly what’s happening. As we walk across the parking lot and into the lobby
of the huge building where the scrimmage is being held I start to notice what
everyone else is wearing. And needless to say it makes me look like I’m going
to my senior prom while everyone else is heading to a rodeo or something.
Literally. I’m surrounded by jeans, shorts, yoga pants. I even see a few people
in pajama pants. Everyone has on sweatshirts or t-shirts. I don’t know how I
got Angelina to talk me into this. Everyone was staring at me.

“Everyone is looking at me!” I hiss.
We’re standing in the corner of the lobby watching tons of people flush in and
start to head into the gym.

“That’s because you look great!” Angelina
says happily, like this is the best news she’s heard all day, which it might
be. She’s looking around for something as she tells me this, on her tippy toes.
At first I think maybe it’s Nathan but after a second she puts my worry to
rest. “The snack bar is on the other side of the lobby. I’m starved, I’m going
to grab a few things for the game!”

“Oh, good,” Eric says, nodding. “Grab me
a slice of pizza, some nachos, and a hot dog, will you?” Considering how loud
it is in there I surprisingly have no trouble hearing either of them at all.

Angelina just stares at him blankly. I
can tell she’s trying to remind herself that she promised me she wouldn’t be
fighting with Eric for the next few hours. He mistakes her disbelief for
confusion and reaches into his pocket pulling out a wad of bills. “Oh, you want
money! This should cover it, I think.” He holds out a couple of 20’s to
Angelina.

Yikes.

Angelina looks like she’s growing devil
horns as she burns daggers through Eric. I can’t tell if Eric is just being
himself or purposely trying to get under Angelina’s skin. Either way, he’s
pretty much implying she can’t afford her own snacks. Which even I can admit is
in poor taste.

“NO I DON’T –“ Angelina catches
herself and glances at me again. I raise my eyebrows. “I mean, I don’t need any
money, Eric, but you are welcome to come with me and purchase your own food, if
you like.” Angelina plasters a smile on her face afterward trying to make her
whole calm tone more convincing.

Eric shrugs like he was going to go with
her the whole time. “No problem, boo thing.”

“Boo thing?” Angelina looks like she’s
just stepped on a bug.