“Oh God, L,” she said, sounding bored. “Look who it is.”
If I hadn’t been having a lovely day all on my own, maybe I could have let the dismissal go. But I’d found gifts and had delicious hot chocolate and people-watched, and here she was ruining the happiest few hours I’d had in months. So I didn’t. I settled my bags back on the steps and looked right at her.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I said.
“Ugh, nothing. It’s just that you’re everywhere. Like a cockroach.”
Oh no, she did not.
“Jesus, Sloane. What is your problem with me?” I asked, and my voice sounded annoyed and pleading all at once. Her vitriol couldn’t all be because of the Halloween party. The more I thought about how awful she’d been to me, the less I understood.
Sloane crossed her arms. “You still don’t get it, do you? I don’t have a problem. I just don’t like you. And frankly speaking, Layla doesn’t either.”
I was shaken even though I shouldn’t have been. I felt a pain in my stomach, quick and sharp like a blade of truth. Layla looked guilty for a split second, before her face contorted into an expression I’d never seen her make before. It almost looked like pride, but it was a twinge darker than that. Layla looked self-satisfied. Layla looked almost smug.
“It’s true,” Layla said. She jutted out a hip and twirled a piece of her hair. “I don’t.”
Sloane laughed. “Tell her about London, L,” she said. I swallowed hard and my eyes slid from Sloane’s face to Layla’s and back again.
“London?” I asked. What could she have to tell me about London? But then Layla started talking.
“Ms. Novak wrote me a recommendation for the Shakespeare summer p-p-program t-too, you know. The one at the G-Globe in London?”
This was a turn in the conversation I hadn’t expected. My eyes traced Layla’s face, slowly. I felt my hands start to shake, so I squeezed them into the tightest fists I could make and shoved them hard into the pockets of my coat.
“Why would you even apply to it?” I asked.
“There’s a Young Actors Summer School, j-j-j-ust like there’s a Young Scholars one. I applied when you d-did, b-but I wanted it to be a surprise that I’d b-be coming with you if, by sssome miracle, I got in.”
I knew exactly where this was going, and even though everything in me was screaming run, I was rooted to the spot in front of her. I had to hear it out loud to believe it could be true.
“After y-you ssssaid what you said, I asked Novak if I could w-w-withdraw my application. I d-didn’t want to chance it—getting in and b-b-b-being stuck there with you. But she said it was t-too late.”
Sloane was loving every second of this. So were Sage, and Melody and Cadence, who were suddenly there too. They were surrounding me, like we were a fistfight waiting to happen. But Layla and I had only ever been a war of words.
“I wasn’t g-g-going to t-tell you,” she said. “Because Novak t-t-told me you d-didn’t get in and that you were really d-d-disappointed. But I g-guess the head of the program was really moved by my statement of interest.”
Sage crossed her arms. And Melody and Cadence looked at each other, grinning, like the words Layla was saying were lyrics to their favorite song. I could feel it getting harder and harder for me to breathe, harder and harder for me to listen—to keep my mind where my body seemed to be stuck. The girls, they turned into monsters around me, and the park turned into my own personal hell. I was surrounded by flames, hot and burning, and there was no way out.
“In my statement, I t-t-t-told them that I st-st-stuttered, but that I’d gotten a lead p-part in the school musical; that I knew I’d probably st-st-stutter onstage, but that I was d-d-doing it anyway.”
They weren’t moving, but it felt like everything was closing in on me. And my heart was breaking all over again. I knew what Layla would say next, but I still wasn’t ready to hear the words.
“I g-got in, Cleo,” she said. “I’m going to London this summer.”
As she’d been talking, my eyes had filled with tears, and at the sound of those words, I blinked and it all spilled over.
Layla started crying too. I knew it was because she cried when she was angry, but I convinced myself, just for a second, it was because she felt as awful as I did. She swiped the tears away hard and fast.
Sloane put her arm around her shoulder. But Layla didn’t stop glaring at me. Her dark eyes were the same ones I’d looked into for years. Even with the makeup she was wearing, and with the super-straight hair, her eyes still looked the same. When she spoke, though, she was New Layla—a complete stranger.
“I’m so damn glad you won’t be there,” she hissed.
Then I was completely broken.
Then I was gone.
now
STORMY SKYE
Right before I get to my stop, it starts to pour. Raindrops pummel the top of the train, so that it sounds like pennies being shaken in a tin can above our heads. Other passengers dig around in their bags for umbrellas, but all I can do is tuck my braids into the collar of my coat, and my phone into the front pocket of my jeans. I wrap my scarf around my head, hoping my hair won’t get too wet.
I run up the stairs at the stop closest to Dom’s house and Dolly’s, and burst through the diner doors wet and laughing.
“What are you doing here, Sweet Pea?” Dolly asks.
“I thought you weren’t feeling well,” Pop says.
I pull my scarf from my head and shake my braids loose from my collar. “I know, but I wanted to help you close up if you needed me.”
“Well, ain’t you the sweetest?” Dolly intones. She grabs a clean bar towel and pats my braids dry.
“Is Dom here?” I ask, tossing the bar rag into a bucket with other used ones. Pop shakes his head. “I told him to head home and close the windows since I knew it was supposed to rain. Dolly likes to sleep with them open these days. That woman loves the cold.” He glances over at her and smiles.
I help lift the café chairs, stacking them on top of the tables, and then I sweep and mop the dining room floor. I turn on a song I know Pop likes and he nods as he wipes down the counter, humming to himself. When I head for the stacks of cloth napkins and clean silverware to start rolling them, Dolly comes over. She places one of her warm, soft hands on mine to still them and leans a little closer to me. “Dom has seemed pretty down these last few days. Have you two made up yet?”
I lift my eyes to meet hers. They’re brown, but I don’t think I noticed until now that there’s a cloudy circle of blue around her irises. “Not yet,” I say. “To be honest, I was hoping he’d close the windows at the house and then come back here,” I admit.