Leah's Song

by Daphne James Huff

  I still had AP English with Lilly, which was making things awkward. We had chosen seats next to each other at the beginning of the year. Before, we’d spend class giving each other significant looks and hiding our giggles whenever Ms. Farmer was being particularly longwinded. Now we did everything we could to avoid looking at each other. She even started getting to class a few seconds before the bell rang, so we didn’t have to sit next to each other in an uncomfortable silence for too long before it started.

  About two weeks after the dance, Ms. Farmer announced a joint project that would be part of our final grade. My stomach was in knots as she went through the class list, paring us off. I knew she’d put us together; teachers always did.

  “Leah and Lilly, Walden,” she said.

  I groaned. We were doing a project on the different texts we had been reading all year, and this one hadn’t been my favorite. I should have waited until next year to do an AP English class. I liked fiction a lot better. Reading all of these speeches and nonfiction and memoirs was making me analyze my own life way too much. Plus, none of them had any advice on how to make your best friend stop hating you.

  I sighed and looked at Lilly with a hopeful smile. She turned slowly to glare at me, an eyebrow arched.

  “Is it even worth it to discuss this?” she said with a sneer. “You’ll just do whatever you want anyway without thinking about me.”

  The bell rang. She stood up and walked out so quickly, I could almost feel the wind as she passed by my desk. I was left in my chair, tears prickling at my eyes. I walked up to Ms. Farmer’s desk.

  “Is there any way I can switch partners?” I asked quietly, my voice unsteady.

  She looked up, and blinked at me behind her thick glasses.

  “I think everyone else has already started discussing the way they’ll organize their work,” she said with a small frown. “I’m sorry, Leah, you’ll just have to make do.”

  She did look sorry. After all, she had been a high school girl at some point in her life.

  I took a deep breath and headed to my locker, deciding to stop by the music wing on the way to try to talk to Lilly again. English was our last class of the day, and I knew she always preferred to take her time getting her things to wait for the student parking lot to clear out a bit.

  I passed Luke in the hall, his head down and his hands in his pockets. He was walking alone, not noticing anyone around him.

  “Hey!” I called out to him. He didn’t hear me. Or did, and was just ignoring me. “Hey!” I grabbed the back of his jacket.

  “Get off!” he cried, turning around, his hands balled into fists. I held up my hands. I didn’t really think he would hit me, once he knew it was me, but he seemed to be really out of it. Would he hit first and look later?

  “Calm down, it’s just me!”

  “Oh.” He visibly relaxed, his fists unclenched. “What’s up?”

  I pulled him into an empty classroom. I could hear everyone milling around in the halls, leaving for the day.

  “Why’d you tell Lilly that Josh kissed me?” I didn’t realize this was what I wanted to ask him until he was there in front of me. His presence had been scarce at home lately, keeping to his room except for meals. I had been so upset about Lilly that I didn’t have the energy to deal with him and the role he had played in all of this. But suddenly, I did.

  “Well, he did kiss you, right?” Luke didn’t look surprised that I was upset.

  “Well… yeah,” I admitted, blushing. Talking to my little brother about kissing boys wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted from the conversation. “But why’d you tell Lilly?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “She was going on and on about Josh to someone after school in the parking lot,” he said. “I thought she needed to be reminded she wasn’t the super hottie she thinks she is.”

  The angry part of me was pleased to hear the insult. The loyal part wanted to tell him that was mean. The angry part won.

  “So what did you say?”

  “I just said I was surprised that she thought she had a chance with him since he’d kissed you and everything.”

  “What did she say?” Again, the angry part of me was winning.

  “She just looked at me, surprised. The girl who was with her, too. I didn’t stick around to hear them chatter on about it for hours.”

  In all the ways that I had thought about telling her, I hadn’t imagined it could have been this hurtful for her. I had pictured sitting down with her, after watching one of our favorite movies, or after ice cream or something. Telling her how sorry I was, explaining that I had tried to avoid him since then.

  Not that it mattered now.

  “I wish you’d have told me you told her,” I said finally, falling back against the wall with a sigh. Would that have really changed anything? At least, I could have anticipated the fight at the dance. Or we would have fought three days before, and I wouldn’t have gone at all. I wouldn’t have danced with Josh. Did I really regret doing that? Not as much as the kiss.

  “Don’t stress about the past, Leah,” he said. “And don’t stress about Lilly. She needed to be taken down a peg.”

  “Why do you and Jenn hate her so much?”

  “Why do you like her so much?”

  When an immediate answer didn’t pop out of my mouth, I frowned. We had been friends for so long. We liked almost all the same movies, the same music (well, mostly), found the same things funny (mostly)… there were a lot of ‘mostlys’ in there. And our taste in clothes was definitely different. We liked the same kinds of books, but she didn’t fall in love with them the way I did.

  But was I supposed to be exactly like my best friend? I thought it was good that we did different things. She had baking and clarinet. I had choir and… what else? Babysitting? Reading?

  She laughed at my jokes. She came up with the plans when I had ideas. She listened to me when I moaned about classes and my siblings, not making (too many) comments. She was my friend. My best friend. Did it even matter why?

  Luke had gotten bored in the time it took me to think through all of this. He was picking up pieces of chalk and breaking them into tiny pieces, crushing them in his hands.

  “Stop that,” I said in my best big sister voice. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

  Without his bike, and with strict instructions from our parents not to use mine, I’d been stuck driving him most days while Jenn rode in with her friends. She’d finally gotten her license back but didn’t seem to be in a rush to reclaim her car. I guess she realized how much nicer it was being the chauffeured versus the chauffeur.

  He shook his head.

  “I gotta go meet someone.”

  “Luke! You’re already grounded until summer. Don’t make it worse.”

  He shrugged and headed out the door.

  “Be cool, Leah, please? I’m sorry about your bike. But I gotta go do this one thing.”

  I held back a scream of frustration and watched him walk out the door. Was there seriously no one that would let me help them? Did everything have to be such a mess right now?

  I had to at least try with Lilly. I still wanted to find her, to talk to her. But she wasn’t anywhere in the now-empty hallways. I rushed to my car, thinking about how to approach her at home. Should I call? Ring her doorbell? Both left me open for the possibility of her refusing to talk to me. But, at least, she’d know that I tried.

  Just as I was about to open my car, keys in my hand, I heard my name. I turned to see Josh coming up to me, his breath coming out in clouds of white in the February cold.

  “Hey,” he said.

  I didn’t respond, too stunned to know what to say. Why was he talking to me? Didn’t he know he’d ruined everything? It was hard to feel much anger though, looking at his beautiful face. I settled on annoyed, with my arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.

  “I heard about what happened at the dance,” he said. His hands were shoved into his coat pockets, and he was kicking his feet back
and forth trying to stay warm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you and Lilly to fight. I just thought it was a dance.”

  I blinked, taken aback. I hadn’t been expecting this. He realized what he’d done. It was kind of sweet that he’d come to apologize, even though it didn’t change anything.

  “Thank you,” I said, starting to copy his feet kicking. It was seriously cold. “But it kind of made things worse.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” he said. “She wasn’t the only one who was mad. Madison was pretty pissed, too.”

  “Why’d you go with her?”

  He shrugged. It was hard to tell in the cold, but I thought I could see a blush.

  “When the hottest senior cheerleader wants you to go to the winter formal with her, you say yes, I guess?” I supplied for him, so he didn’t have to say it himself.

  He gave me a half smile that, despite everything, still managed to melt my heart.

  “Are you guys going out now?” I asked before I could change my mind. I didn’t really want to know the answer but, at least, that would make things a little easier with Lilly.

  He shrugged again.

  “Kind of,” he said. I didn’t ask what that meant. It didn’t really matter. Even if he was available, I still couldn’t have him. That would be the ultimate seal of death to my friendship with Lilly.

  I sighed. I was starting to lose feeling in my hands. I’d forgotten my gloves at home. He reached out and took them in his own, rubbing them together. Positively electrified by his touch, I quickly warmed up all over. Why did he have to be so sweet?

  “I need to go,” I said after a few minutes, pulling my hands away. I was suddenly very close to tears and didn’t want to let him see. “Thanks for trying to make things better. But I think I’m the only one that can do that now.”

  He nodded and headed to his truck. As I watched him walk away, I saw another figure in the parking lot. The blue Ford was familiar even in the semidarkness. It was Lilly. She’d seen us talking and seen my hands in his. Great. My job was now going to be a million times harder.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I tried both calling and going over that night, but Lilly ignored me. Mrs. Jansen was even a little rude to me at the door, telling me I’d really better leave Lilly alone for a while. It was like she took it personally that Josh had chosen someone other than her daughter. It wasn’t even me that he’d chosen, I wanted to scream. It was Madison! We’d both lost our chance! Instead I nodded politely and walked slowly back to my house, trying my best not to turn my head to see if Josh’s truck was in his driveway, but peeking anyway. Of course it wasn’t there.

  I was grateful it was President’s Day that weekend. The school closed Tuesday as well for teacher training so I wouldn’t have to see anyone until Wednesday. That gave me four days to think about how to make things right. Four days to make a plan to apologize, make her not hate me, and get my best friend back.

  What I actually did for four days was watch every single Meg Ryan movie back to back.

  Well, not all of them, just the good ones. And I took breaks to eat and sleep and go buy more chocolate, and return the eight movies I had grabbed for eight new ones. This time I went with Drew Barrymore. I only got through a few of those, however, before I realized that the blonde is always the lead and gets the guy while the curly, dark haired friend is the comedic backup.

  Was that what I was to Lilly? I wasn’t really that funny, so I guess I was just boring backup to her starring role in her own life.

  I wavered between feeling sorry for myself, being angry with her at putting me in this situation and feeling horribly guilty. I didn’t see a way out. I dreaded going back to school on Wednesday. I spent most of Monday evening at dinner looking tired, and coughing a bit, trying to set things up for a sick day, maybe two, to extend this break from everyone and everything.

  I didn’t think it would work as well as it did. My parents seemed to register my fake illness and my mom called the school without hesitation on Wednesday morning to tell them I’d be out. I made a pitiful show of sitting on the couch balled up in blankets, looking miserable. Which wasn’t a total lie.

  Once my parents were off to work, I spent the morning finishing the movies I had and headed to Blockbuster after lunch, confident that I wouldn’t run into Lilly. I’d rushed in the previous two times, anxious that I might see her. But today, I took my time, looking at several different movies I knew she didn’t like that I’d never been able to consider before. What else had I been avoiding because she didn’t like it? While I was also tempted to go shopping at all the stores she never wanted to go to, I really was still feeling pretty tired and blue.

  Hot Blockbuster Guy was working. It must have been Spring Break at the college since we normally only saw him at night.

  “Hey, you’re friends with that Lilly girl, right?” he said as he rang up my selections.

  I hesitated before nodding quickly. It was too complicated to get into, and he probably didn’t care.

  “Was she serious about that dance thing?” he said while putting the movies into a bag. I sighed. She was so enticing that he was asking about her over a month later. She could seriously have anyone, and she was mad about one kiss with Josh?

  “It was a few weeks ago,” I said, taking my bag and zipping up my coat.

  “I hope she isn’t too upset I couldn’t go with her,” he said. “I’m kind of with someone. She hasn’t been back since, so I thought she might be embarrassed or something.”

  Lilly, embarrassed? Not likely.

  “She hasn’t been in since just after Christmas?” That was still weird. Had she been going to the Blockbuster on the other side of town to avoid him or to avoid me?

  “Yeah, I hope she’s okay.”

  He looked genuinely concerned. I realized I had never talked to him all that much; it was normally Lilly who took the lead. I usually tuned out once she turned on the Anna Nicole voice. He was actually kind of nice, not just hot. So of course he was already with someone.

  When I walked out, I spotted Lilly through the window of the pizza place in the same shopping plaza as the Blockbuster. It was where we would go sometimes, too, after picking up movies.

  I’d spent more time browsing than I’d meant to and school was already out. She was sitting there with Amanda and Jason and Jeff. She looked so happy with Jeff. I didn’t get it. She so upset with me but she already had a great guy. I felt heat start to rise to my face. She just wanted everything I had. Was that the way it had always been?

  I turned away before they saw me and grumbled about it the entire way home. Sure, some of it could be blamed on the only child thing, but that couldn’t be an excuse for being a jerk. There were plenty of others I knew who weren’t total egotistical maniacs.

  Okay, that was kind of harsh.

  She was just used to getting what she wanted, though sometimes it didn’t turn out the way she’d hoped. She was probably just a little wary of Jeff, after the Troy incident freshman year. She did kind of pick unavailable guys or straight up jerks. But Josh... He was a nice, normal, perfect guy. It was totally understandable how crazy he was making both of us.

  Besides, she was always there for me when it really mattered. She had been at the concert in December, which was more than my family had done for me. I wondered if things would be different if I had a sister who wasn’t so wrapped up in her own life and parents who actually paid attention to me.

  I’d decided on a high school theme for this stack of movies, to remind myself these four years sucked for most people. As I settled down to watch Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, it suddenly came to me. Lilly wasn’t the problem. She knew what she wanted, and I just went along with it, until now. I had been caring about what everyone else wanted for so long, I had forgotten how to ask myself what I wanted.

  So, Leah, what do you want?

  To sing, came the unexpectedly quick answer.

  Why?

  I let myself think about this one a litt
le longer.

  Because it was something just for me.

  Sure, I hated letting everyone down in December. But now that the pressure was off, I was so happy to just sing every day and have the music surrounding me. It was adding something to my life I hadn’t realized I was missing.

  Ok, great! So, just singing? Do I want anything else?

  Josh. Even after all this time, I couldn’t seem to let go of him. It looked like Lilly had moved on, despite everything, and I wished I could too. Did Josh even still like me? Did I want to try to find out?

  Well, Lilly was already mad at me. Would staying away from Josh make things better? Maybe, maybe not.

  He was with Madison. That kind of sucked. She was older and prettier and cooler, and everything else –er than me.

  So would I try? Maybe we could at least be friends again. He had tried to apologize, after all, so it’s not like he hated me or anything. It would be nice to stop avoiding him in the halls.

  “Hey,” I said, approaching Josh’s locker. I was finally back at school after one more sick day to watch the rest of the movies and come up with a plan.

  He looked up and then around. He was still trying to look out for Lilly for me. He didn’t want to make things worse. I didn’t think it was possible to like him more, but I could feel my heart melt just a little bit.

  “Hi,” he said, daring a small smile. “Finally back at school? How was your extra long weekend?”

  I shrugged, but my heart did a little flip. He had noticed I had been out.

  “I didn’t really do much,” I said. “Just hung around the house.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t see you out much,” he said, then blushed. My melting heart fluttered.

  “Did you go anywhere?” I kind of knew the answer to this already, having stalked his truck just as much as he’d apparently been stalking mine.

  “We went late season skiing. It was pretty great.”

  “You and your family?”

  “Uh, yeah, and Madison.” He looked down. Why was he with her? Oh yeah, perfection personified.