by Sadie Allen
My cheeks had flamed, but I had played ignorant and asked, “Did what?”
“You know what,” Elodie had chimed in.
I had simply shaken my head and gave them my big, innocent-eyed look.
“Yeah, the innocent act won’t work this time. You actually have to be innocent to pull it off.” Elodie had cackled.
That was when my whole face had gotten hot, and I knew I had been blushing crimson, so I had ducked my head and avoided their eyes when I had replied, “I have no idea to what you are referring.”
“Yeah,” Blake had said. “Deny, deny, deny.”
I was the last one packing up my stuff backstage Saturday night when I heard muffled voices toward the back curtained area. Both shows had been a hit, and I knew there was no going back to hurdling after this experience, even if my hip was stable enough to go back. I loved the lights, the stage, the ensemble of people coming together to play their different roles. I knew I had fallen in love with the theater.
The voices grew louder as I screwed the lid back on the eye makeup remover I had just liberally used all over my face. Literally. Nothing could remove stage makeup like this stuff.
I slowly got up from my cross-legged position and crept my way back toward the sound. It was a guy and a girl arguing, but then it went quiet just as I had my hand on the blue velvet fabric of the curtain. I pulled it aside to reveal a guy and a girl in an embrace, but what almost brought me to my knees in agony were the identities of the people.
Raven.
Sterling.
They said hearts couldn’t physically break, but that was a lie. Mine had just freaking shattered. The shards stabbed into vital organs as they fell. That was the only explanation for why I felt the hurt all over my body.
I tried to suck in a breath, but I couldn’t. It was stuck in my lungs. The pain in my chest was so sharp, so agonizing my eyes watered.
I pressed my hand hard against my chest to see if I could feel a heartbeat, because it shouldn’t be possible. You couldn’t have a heartbeat if the organ wasn’t even in your chest anymore.
I didn’t know if I stood there for seconds or even hours as a silent observer before Sterling’s eyes darted to mine then widened in horror as he tore his mouth away. He jerked back and put his hands between their bodies to get Raven, who had practically climbed him, away from him.
The scene was achingly familiar. I had heard the arguing; had he kissed her to shut her up, too? Was that something he did with every girl?
“Sterling?” Raven asked in a breathless voice that was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Then she must have noticed where his gaze had gone because she looked over her shoulder. Her eyes didn’t widen in horror like his had. No, they glinted with victory.
Had she heard me coming? Had she planned this? Did it matter? Or had they been carrying on together all this time behind my back?
I shook my head at the thought. It would have been impossible. We had spent almost every waking moment together.
Raven laughed as she turned to face me. A hand on one hip, she tilted her head to the side, making a face of fake concern, pouty lips and all. “You didn’t think your relationship with him was real, did you?” Her tone was patronizing, and she ended her question with a cruel smirk. If I hadn’t been so numb, I probably would have flinched.
My eyes automatically went back to Sterling. It hurt to even look at him. His face was pale, and his eyes looked dazed. Dazed by Raven’s kiss? His lips did look slightly swollen.
Disgust churned in my stomach and bile rose in my throat.
After a moment, he seemed to shake himself out of it. “Princess—”
“Tell her, Sterling,” Raven cut him off, her voice hard. “Tell her how I’m knocked up with your kid.”
Sterling’s mouth went flat, and he closed his eyes. He didn’t move toward me or refute her words. He just stood there stiffly with his fists balled at his sides.
Shock had me rooted in place, so I couldn’t escape her next words.
“Yep, princess”—she popped the p—“Sterling was just using you to get back at me.” She said this like she was trying to explain quantum physics to a kindergartener.
“What?” I whispered.
“That’s not true.” Sterling finally found his voice, but it was gruff with emotion.
I looked at his tortured expression and knew what she was telling me was the truth. He had used me, and I had let him. Was I just so desperate for love and acceptance that I hadn’t seen the signs? I gave myself to him on a silver platter, thinking it was love, when it was nothing but a game between him and her.
“Come on, Sterling; it wasn’t a coincidence that the week before you started things up with her, you broke things off with me because you caught me with her boyfriend.”
Horror washed over me, and my eyes shot back to Sterling. Oh no. No. No. No. Please tell me that Miles and his wandering penis wasn’t responsible for another of my life’s disappointments.
When Sterling’s face twisted, I knew.
Miles freaking Thorpe.
“That’s not what—”
“Then what was it? You caught Miles and me going at it in his truck, and then the next week, you steal his girl and rub that in my face? Puh-lease.”
I couldn’t breathe. That oh-so-familiar storm I had finally gotten rid of was back with a vengeance. I dug my fingernails into the fleshy part of my palms until I broke skin and sucked back air. I drew it into my lungs and held it for the count of five.
Sterling took a step toward me, hand outstretched, and I shrank back from him, not wanting his hands anywhere near me.
“Ally, baby, please—”
“D-don’t touch m-me,” I stuttered on the exhale … One, two, three, four, five.
He was moving closer, both hands in front of him like he was trying to get close to a wounded animal.
I looked frantically around the backstage area for a door, a hallway, an escape … I had to get out of here.
“It’s over, Sterling. You played your game, and now it’s time to come back to where you belong. She needs to go back to her own people and quit pretending she actually belongs here when all she’s doing is slumming.”
If she had stabbed me with a knife, it wouldn’t have hurt as much as the words that were spewing from her mouth.
I shook my head violently before I turned on my toes and took off, running for all I was worth. My leg was probably not ready for such strenuous movement, but I didn’t care. My stupid hamstring be damned. I was a fool.
I ran blindly, not sure where I was going. I just knew I couldn’t stay here.
“Ally!” I heard yelled in the distance.
I had to move. I had to leave. However, I didn’t realize until I was outside and in the parking lot that my keys were still in my bag.
Freezing with that realization, I then took off running to the only place I could think of, hiding in the shadows and behind the cars that were still in the parking lot.
I made it inside the fenced-in area of the football field and behind the bleachers, still tucked into the shadows. At one time, this was going to be the last place on earth that I ever saw. Now I was using it to take refuge.
I knew I couldn’t go on the bleachers because that would be the first place he would look, so I crept along the fence, past the home bleachers, and to the side gate behind the scoreboard. The rodeo pens were toward the wooded area behind the field, down the path, and across another field through there.
I ran through the gate and made it halfway across the small field when I started to get winded. Me winded? I wanted to laugh and would have if I didn’t feel like my insides were on fire and being torn apart at the same time.
It was so dark I could barely see, the stars and moon hidden behind an overcast night. Or maybe my tears were obscuring my vision?
I tripped over the uneven ground and sprawled in the grass. I lay there a moment, forehead pressed into the pillow of new grass, and wondered how my life had come to this.
Inhaling the scents of earth and pine, I inventoried my body, noting my hamstring felt fine, but my knees and hands stung. Then I rolled over onto my back and tried to look at my palms, but it was too dark. I ran my fingers over one and winced at the torn, sticky skin.
Dropping my head back, I stared up at the night sky that looked how I felt. The light inside me had been overtaken and held hostage by the murky dullness of self-loathing and shame.
Why was I so weak? I should have known he was too good to be true. That his love hadn’t been real. It had been too easy.
When I heard a deep voice yelling my name in the distance, I wanted to fuse to the ground beneath me and disappear. Why did the bottom always drop?
With the back of my hands, I wiped at the wetness that was still spilling down my face in torrents. That was when an odd thought struck me. Should I follow through with my plans from before? Wasn’t I back to square one?
I searched within myself and found the answer surprised me.
Did I want to die?
No.
No, I did not.
I didn’t want to die, even though it felt like I was right at this moment. The hurt in my chest was so acute.
I took a moment and tried to put it all in perspective.
So … my life wasn’t the musical we had just performed come to life. Rizzo was pregnant with Danny’s baby, and it didn’t matter that Sandy had become a greaser’s dream girl—she was still crying on prom night.
The one thing I hadn’t given to Miles, knowing he wouldn’t value it for more than a moment, I had given to a guy who hadn’t valued it at all. Stupid, stupid Ally.
A feeling of hopelessness sat heavily on my chest, making it hard to breathe. It was time to review. How did I survive this? Was there anything I could salvage?
Everything with Sterling might have been fake, but the lessons I had learned weren’t. He and Raven might have gutted me, but I wasn’t the girl I had been before. I had real friends now who weren’t just Sterling’s friends anymore. They were mine.
Had they been part of the plan? No, I didn’t think they had any clue what was going on. I felt that in my bones. Blake was too honest for subterfuge, and Elodie just didn’t have it in her. She was too good, too sweet.
I had family, even if it was just my mom. And she was actually my mom now, and not a robot. My dad wasn’t in the house anymore, but that also meant his shadow didn’t cast over all the good I had built over the last month and a half. I also had a million other little things to live for. Twenty-nine thousand, one hundred and eighty-three more sunsets to see. Sterling had shown me that, even if it had been part of some nefarious scheme. That was all I needed. It was a brilliant moment of clarity that helped the fog clear and reignited my will.
I felt my pants for my cell phone so I could text my mom at least, but I quickly realized I was still wearing my bad girl Sandy costume.
I dropped my head back on a sigh. She had come to watch both performances but had left right after the final curtain drop tonight. She wouldn’t be looking for me unless Sterling called her. Just thinking about him made my heart hurt again, not that it had stopped.
I heard a crashing sound and lifted my head to see a dark form moving toward me … fast!
“Stop!” I cried before they ran over me.
“Ally?” Sterling gasped.
I dropped my head back and closed my eyes.
“You have to let me explain,” he panted.
I wiped the wetness from my cheeks with my fingertips. I couldn’t look at him. It just hurt too much, so I kept my eyes closed and concentrated on the sounds around me, like the cicadas and leaves rustling in the wind.
I heard movement to my left, and then felt his body next to mine in the grass. He tried to lace his fingers through mine, but I instantly jerked my hand out of his and glared at him.
“Princess …” he started hesitantly.
“Do not call me that.”
“It wasn’t what it looked like—”
“Says every two-timing dirtbag.”
“She kissed me, and I froze.”
“With your eyes closed?” I scoffed.
“Reflex? I don’t know. It wasn’t that long, and I was in shock. One minute I was yelling at her, and the next, she was on me.”
“It looked like you were participating,” I seethed.
“I wasn’t,” he reiterated firmly.
“You still lied to me.” I couldn’t hide the hurt that laced my tone.
“When?”
I shot up to a seated position, twisted, narrowed my glare, and yelled, “What do you mean when? Everything you did and said to me was a lie!”
He sat up, too, and even though I couldn’t see him well, I could feel the heat of his burgeoning anger meet mine.
“How could you think that? How could you even say that to me after everything? You would trust her word over mine?” His voice was harsh and had progressively gotten louder until the last word came out as a yell.
“I don’t know what to think!” I cried as I flailed my hands out and hit the ground. “You haven’t explained anything to me. All I know is that you’re going to have a baby with that … that … ugh! I don’t even know what to call her. She’s awful,” I spat as tears welled in my eyes again.
I clenched my fists and relished the sting of my wounds. It distracted me from the nausea that churned in my stomach at the thought of them having a child together. It was unbearable because everything inside me rebelled at her having any piece of him, even his baby.
For a moment, the only sound was that of our rapid breaths. Then Sterling asked in a much quieter voice, “Are you going to let me explain?”
Was I? Well, it didn’t look like I was going to get up anytime soon, so I replied, “Yes.”
He again reached for my hand, lacing our fingers together, and I winced. The skin was still tender and bloody. When I went to pull away, he stopped me.
“Don’t. I need to feel you; have some kind of connection to you while I try to explain this twisted mess.”
“My hands are a mess,” I muttered in a watery voice.
“I don’t care. We’ll get them cleaned up in a minute.”
I quit tugging at my hand and reveled in the warmth of his hand in mine. I didn’t want to, yet I craved it at the same time. Would this be the last time we held hands like this? The thought sent a pang through my hollow chest.
“I didn’t think the baby was mine,” he stated.
“So, you knew?” I hissed.
“Shh … let me finish.”
I swallowed whatever I was going to say, and even though I doubted he could see me, I nodded for him to continue.
“The reason I didn’t think the baby was mine was because I always used protection. Never forgot, not even once, and never had a condom break.”
“Okay.”
“On the day …” He paused, and I heard him swallow, then his voice hitched when he tried again. “On the day you tried to kill yourself, I caught Raven with another guy. That’s part of the reason I acted so rude to you on the bleachers.”
I remembered his parting shot at me that night. It had been harsh yet effective. It had lit something inside me, reignited my will. Now I didn’t know if the emotion in his voice had been for me or because he had caught her with someone else.
“Miles.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
“Yes,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“So, you started sending me Snapchats for revenge?”
“No,” he said quickly.
“But—”
“I started sending you snaps because I wanted to help you. People take their lives because they’re depressed and don’t think they have a choice. It’s an act of desperation. I probably should have told an adult that day, but … I wanted to be the one … I wanted to be the one to give you reasons to live. To show you how beautiful life can be.”
My breath caught, and a lump formed in my throat. He had done that, but the
n he had taken it away …
“And I always …” He stopped, and I heard him swallow before continuing, “This is going to sound lame, but … I always had a thing for you,” he confessed.
A spark of hope lit, dispelling the blackness that had overtaken me, but I smothered it out. We had to finish this.
“So, you caught her and Miles that day?”
“Yeah, and Miles and I almost got into a fight. What stopped us was the fact that Raven started crying and saying she was pregnant, and she didn’t know who the father was …”
A light bulb lit in my brain, and the pieces of the puzzle started coming together. I squeezed his hand lightly, mainly in reflex, and shifted more toward him. “That was what you and Miles were talking about in the cafetorium that day when he wanted to talk to me! When you asked him if he wanted me to know …”
“Yes.”
“So?” I urged, leaning forward, needing to hear the rest.
“So, I knew it wasn’t mine since I used protection and, well … Miles is known to like not using it.”
My head rocketed back, and my mouth dropped open. Say what? Ew.
“Is he stupid?” I asked incredulously because, I mean, what the heck? It was modern times. Everyone knew to use protection.
“You have to ask?” He chuckled, but his voice held no trace of humor.
“He could catch something!” I cried.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Thank God I didn’t do anything with him!” My lip curled in disgust at the thought, but then another struck me …
“Have you been tested?” A sick feeling knotted my insides.
“Yeah, I went to the walk-in clinic the day after I caught them. It had been a while since I was with her, but still … I got tested. I’m clean.”
I blew out a relieved breath. Thank God.
We were both quiet, lost in thought, and I was thinking that things still weren’t adding up.
“So, wait, why was Raven saying you were the father of her baby if y’all used protection? When was the last time you were with her? You said it had been a while.”
He sighed, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say next.
“She said I was the father because”—he pulled in a breath—“she poked holes in all the condoms she found in my car when we were together.”