Healing Rain (19 page)

 

 

My trance was broken when I realized what she had just witnessed. I stared back at her, trying to decide what to say, feeling my heart pound out of my chest. Before I had the chance to say a word, she spoke. “Well, well. You're a busy girl today, huh?”

I sighed. “Alexis, it's not what you think…”

She interrupted by putting her hand up in the air. “You don't have to explain yourself to me. I'll keep your dirty little secret from Ethan and everyone else if you want me to.”

“Seriously, Alexis, it's not what it looks like. I'm not cheating on Ethan.”

She smirked. “Yeah, last I heard, kissing another guy wasn't actually cheating. So this is what you and Aiden's little ‘class project' has been?” Her voice was thick with sarcasm and made me want to curl up into a little ball on the ground and cry.

“Please, Alexis, let me explain. Nothing is going out with me and Aiden. We are seriously just friends.” Though I could hear the desperation in my voice, I didn't care. I needed to erase the last five minutes from her brain.

“Right, friends. I kiss my guy friends on the mouth in the middle of the hallway all the time, especially right after my boyfriend tells me that he's falling in love with me.” She was obviously getting a lot of pleasure out of my misery, and I was suddenly so mad at her that I couldn't control my fists as they clenched and it took everything I had not to punch her in her tiny face.

“I don't need to explain my personal life to you, Alexis. Please just let me take care of my own business,” I said through gritted teeth.

She gave me her innocent smile. “Like I said, I'll keep your secret. I actually just wanted to tell you that I talked to Coach Franklin today and she's going to have the emergency tryout next Friday. There will be an announcement about it later this week. There will be meetings every day after school next week to teach you guys the tryout routine. You're going to have to do a short dance, a cheer, three jumps, and a tumbling pass of your choice.”

I couldn't even concentrate on what she was saying. “Alexis, can we talk? Please?” I didn't really want to involve her in my love life, but I felt I had no choice. She had witnessed two huge moments that had both taken place within minutes of each other.

She laughed. “I thought you didn't need to explain your personal life to me.”

I put my head down, feeling suddenly like I was going to pass out. I was completely overwhelmed, and could feel my face getting warm and my mouth getting dry as the dizziness washed over me.

“Rain? Are you okay?” The joy and sarcasm in her voice were replaced by real concern.

I tried to nod, but I couldn't. All I could do was plop down on the ground right where I was standing to try to keep from fainting. I leaned over to let the blood rush to my head and focused only on breathing.

After a moment, Alexis put her hand on my shoulder. “Rain, I'm going to take you home.”

I looked up at her and shook my head yes one time, and let her take my hands and pull me to my feet. She walked me to her yellow sports car slowly and even helped me get inside. She started the car, which was one of the only ones left in the parking lot, and then turned to me. “If you want to talk, go ahead. I will pass no judgment.” She didn't sound hateful and snooty the way she often did when she talked to me. Instead, she seemed genuinely concerned.

I made eye contact with her, finally finding my voice. “What you saw today was a first. Both of them, actually. And they both took me by surprise. That was the first time Ethan had ever called himself my boyfriend, and definitely the first time he had ever told me he loved me.” I paused to gauge her reaction, but she was listening intently with a neutral expression. “And Aiden and I have been hanging out, as you already knew, but it's not what you think. We have class together and we've become good friends, and he just started teaching me to play guitar. That's what our ‘class project' was. I hadn't really told anybody about it, but I swear it was totally innocent. Or, it was until today. He got me a ticket to go see Caged Lion and then he just admitted that he liked me and then…you obviously saw what happened from there.”

“Caged Lion!” she squeaked. “I love them!”

I looked at her, feeling exhausted.

She smiled and looked down. “But that's not the point,” she said meekly. “The point is, you just had your world completely rocked in a matter of, like, five seconds.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “That pretty much sums it up.”

“Well, it's simple. Do you love Ethan?” She looked down as she asked me the question. I knew it was hard for her to give advice, especially when it concerned the guy she had been (and possibly still was) in love with.

“I don't know,” I said truthfully. I was crazy about him from the first day I laid eyes on him, but that little pit in my stomach kept me from being able to say it was love.

“Okay,” she said, seemingly unfazed by my answer. “And how do you feel about Aiden?”

I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don't know. I mean, I've gotten really close to him and I really wouldn't want to hurt him. It's hard to explain. I care about Aiden, but it's in a totally different way than the way I care about Ethan. It's like I'm one person when I'm with Ethan, but I'm someone else when I'm with Aiden. And I like being both of those people.”

She stared at me. “Wow, Rain, that's really…deep.”

I stared back at her for a moment, and then out of nowhere, we both burst into laughter. “I know it sounds complicated and ridiculously stupid, but I don't know how else to explain it,” I told her between giggling outbursts.

She shook her head. “It's not ridiculous or stupid. It makes sense.”

I sighed. “I just…there was some craziness in my life before we moved here. In fact, it's what caused us to move here. Anyway, I haven't really figured out who I am since it all went down.”

She hesitated slightly before she practically whispered, “Does it have to do with your dad?”

“He committed suicide,” I blurted out. I expected to feel regret as soon as the words came out of my mouth, but surprisingly, I didn't. I hadn't told anyone about my father, and I sure didn't expect the first person I told to be Alexis.

“I'm really sorry,” she said with a gasp. “Were you guys close?”

“Yes,” I said as I choked back the tears. “He was a great dad, but he had some problems he couldn't handle.”

She looked away from me and stared out the window. “Well, at least you have some good memories with him. I can't think of one good memory that I have with my dad.”

I looked at her, surprised to hear those words come out of her mouth. “Is your dad gone too?”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, no. He's still around. But my dad decided me and my mom weren't a good enough family for him, so he decided to start a new one. He has a completely different family in Old Haven. A girlfriend and two more kids. I've even seen pictures of them.”

I shook my head in disgust. “So he left you. I'm sorry to hear that.”

She laughed again. “No, you don't understand. He didn't actually leave us. In fact, he and my mom are still married. He spends part of his time with us, and part of his time with them.”

I couldn't help it when my mouth dropped. “What?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding grimly. “My mom won't leave him because she would rather live in comfort than try to make it on our own. So, she pretends to believe him when he leaves on ‘business trips' and conveniently ignores all the evidence of his other family. She's so stupid. She doesn't even care what I think about the situation.”

“Wow,” I breathed. I didn't know what to say to comfort her. Finally, I knew what Anna had been talking about when she had told me that Alexis had a bad family situation. I suddenly saw her in a whole new light.

After a few minutes of silence, Alexis put the car in drive and left the school parking lot. We drove to the elementary school, where poor Tyler was waiting with his teacher. I could see that they were the only ones left at the building.

“I am so sorry!” I said as I jumped out of the car. “I got caught up in something after school. I promise it won't happen again.”

“That's okay,” his teacher said warmly. “I almost just gave him a ride home myself, but he said your mom was at work and I didn't want to leave him there alone. Plus, he said it wasn't like you to not show up so I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I'm fine. I really should have called the school to let him know I was running late,” I said guiltily.

“No worries,” she said. “Have a good night.”

Tyler gave me his usual grin. He obviously wasn't upset that I was late. “Who's that?” he asked, nodding over to Alexis who still sat in the car.

“That's my friend, Alexis,” I said with a smile. It was the first time I had ever referred to her as my
friend
, and I really meant it.

Tyler accepted that explanation and jumped in her car with no further questions. We rode silently back to our apartment. When we finally arrived, I turned to Tyler. “Ty, why don't you go ahead and go in? I'll be right behind you.”

“Okay,” he said happily as he jumped out and bounced inside our building.

I looked at her nervously. “Please don't repeat anything I told you today. This may seem weird, but you're the only person here that knows about my dad.”

She rolled her eyes. “I told you I'm not going to share your secrets. But the same goes for you. Unfortunately, a lot of people know about my dad here because we live in a small town where people thrive on other people's misery just because it's good gossip, but I don't exactly go talking about it on a regular basis.”

“Alexis, people are like that everywhere,” I told her truthfully. “People like to hear bad news, even in bigger places like St. Louis.”

She smiled a little. “So you understand what it's like to have people talking about you behind your back for things you can't even control.”

I nodded. “I won't say a word. Also, I promise I'm going to clear all this Ethan and Aiden stuff up right away. I just need to think a little.”

She put her hands up. “I told you – no judgment here. It's your life.”

“Thanks,” I said gratefully, giving her a weak smile. “Hey, do you really like Caged Lion?”

“Yeah, they're, like, one of my favorite bands of all time!” she squealed. “Why do you seem so surprised by that?”

“I don't know,” I said with a shrug. “They're not, you know, popular. Or, I mean, they're popular I guess with their fan base, but not like on-the-radio, top-forty popular.”

“I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, Rain. Not just pop,” she told me with a frown.

I grinned. “I learn something new about you all the time. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye,” she said casually.

I turned and began walking into the building. When I was halfway inside, I heard her shout my name. I turned around to see her looking at me with her window rolled down. “What?” I asked.

“Happy birthday,” she said with a huge grin before she drove away.

I just smiled and rolled my eyes as I turned to walk inside. I had forgotten all about the fact that it was my birthday. Was it possible that it even still was? It seemed like days had passed between the fantastic breakfast celebration I had with my family and Ethan until now. I thought about the wonderful morning I had and longed to be able to go back and enjoy it all over again, leaving out everything that happened after school.

Thinking about my birthday made me realize that Ethan would be arriving at my house in just a couple of hours.
He wanted to celebrate my birthday even more
, I thought sadly. I didn't know if I was up for that just yet, and if he found out what had happened after he went to football practice, he probably wouldn't be up for it either. I picked up the guitar sitting by my bed absentmindedly and began strumming the strings as I thought about how to handle the situation.

Finally, I realized I couldn't put on a happy face for Ethan to come over. There was just too much on my mind – too much to figure out. I decided to break in my new cell phone to call him. He answered after just a couple of rings.

“Hey, Ethan,” I said, trying to sound like myself.

“Hey. I was just about to shower and get ready to come over,” he said, sounding surprised but happy to hear from me. “What's up? Did you decide you want something different than pizza? Because I haven't ordered it yet if you want something else.”

Pain shot through my chest. “No, it's not that. Actually, I was going to see if we could postpone our dinner to another night.”

He was silent. “Why?” he finally asked after what seemed like an eternity.

I coughed. “I'm just not feeling very well.” I was a horrible liar and I knew it, so I was trying to be as vague as possible.

“What's wrong with you?” His voice sounded concerned but also slightly suspicious. When he had seen me just two hours before, I had been fine.

“I…I don't know. I started feeling faint after school,” I said, which was not actually a lie. “Alexis found me in the hallway before I passed out and gave me a ride home.”

“You passed out?” he asked, the pitch of his voice higher with worry.

“Well, sort of,” I said. “It was a good thing Alexis was there.”

“Yeah, I guess so. So she gave you a ride home?” he asked, still sounding a little suspicious.

“Yeah. Remember when she said she wanted to talk to me? Well, she came back and I got sick in the hallway and almost passed out. She helped me up and took me out to her car.” My voice sounded surprisingly strong. I guess it was because I was technically telling the truth; I was just omitting parts of the story.