So Over It

by Stephanie Morrill

  My frown deepened. “But if he’s really in love with me, why would he even consider dating her?”

  “Maybe he thinks you’re telling him to move on. Maybe he thinks you’ve already started the process. That there’s no chance for you two.”

  I gaped at her. “Did he tell you that?”

  “Not so plainly, but I can tell he’s thought it.” Abbie pinned me with a stare. “If Connor wanted to be with Jodi, he would’ve started dating her sometime in the last four months. That’s gonna have to be enough of an answer for you.”

  I turned back to the television and so did she, though neither of us really cared about TBS’s Sunday night movie.

  “Heard anything from Lance since we got back?”

  Abbie shook her head. “Jenna said he’s got a new girlfriend. Some rich chick who goes to St. Teresa’s. Should keep him preoccupied anyway.”

  “I just can’t believe anyone would date him knowing he got a girl pregnant but won’t help with the baby.”

  She shrugged. “I’m sure that’s why he’s not having much luck with Shawnee Mission girls.”

  I thought of Alexis’s ignorance regarding Aaron. “Guys like him should be forced to wear a sandwich board or something.”

  “God knows,” Abbie said. “That’s enough.”

  Okay, why did everyone suddenly seem so much more spiritually mature than me? Even my baby sister. Because of course God knew. Of course that was enough. But how come I couldn’t internalize that? Why, when I looked at Jodi, could I not think anything but, Are you for real?

  I should be better about that. I didn’t want to be her friend, but I could at least be civil. Unless she and Connor really had gotten together. That’d make it harder.

  I sighed. “You know, if you’d told me last summer that I’d be sitting here pining away for Connor Ross of all people, I’d have thought you were deranged.”

  Abbie grinned. “If you’d told me you’d be pining away for anyone, I’d have said the same thing.”

  “A lot’s changed in a year.”

  Abbie caressed Owen’s hair. “And it’s not all bad.”

  Sitting there with my sister, who a year ago had rarely said anything to me outside of, “When are you gonna be done in the bathroom?” I totally agreed.

  My first opportunity to be civil to Jodi arrived Wednesday night.

  I arrived late at the sports complex because I left the house wearing outfit number seven and hairstyle number four. When I finally spotted our church team (Connor had neglected to tell me which field they’d be playing on), I found Jodi seated in the bleachers with Amy Ross and Cameron and Curtis.

  What was Jodi doing here? But her behavior made it pretty clear—she and Amy chatted amicably, their gazes turned toward the field. Jodi looked like a poster child for the perfect girlfriend.

  I took a few steps back, but Cameron noticed me before I could flee. “Skylar!”

  He and Curtis scrambled down the bleachers. They grabbed hold of my hands to drag me to where they’d been sitting, and when I caught Jodi’s eye, victory engulfed me. Quickly followed by shame for feeling victorious.

  “Hi, Skylar,” Amy said with her normal warm smile. “Sorry I missed you at the house Saturday.”

  “I didn’t stay long.” I glanced at Jodi. “Hi.”

  “Hey,” she said, not quite as welcoming as Amy, but much nicer than I’d sounded. “Have a seat.”

  I took a seat on the other side of her and said a very civil, “Thanks.”

  Amy filled me in. “We’re winning two to one. Connor scored one of the runners, Chris lined out, and Brian hasn’t batted yet.”

  “It sucks that you can’t hit them out of the park.” Jodi turned to me. “Brian can crank ’em.”

  Please. Like she needed to educate me on the Ross family. But, okay, I hadn’t known that.

  “Mom, we’re gonna go play catch,” Cameron called over his shoulder as he and Curtis thundered down the steps. “Stay where I can see you,” Amy called after them.

  I scanned the baseball field and found Connor in center. Actually, from that distance, I couldn’t tell if it was Connor or Chris, but no way would I ask.

  “So tell me all about Hawaii,” Amy said. “I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “It was good. Beach, palm trees. Your basic island stuff.” “Now, I thought you were staying until August. Was that wrong?”

  I shifted on my hard seat. “No, I was gonna stay. But I didn’t want to be away for that long. With Owen and all.” “I understand,” Amy said. “They grow up fast.”

  “How’s Owen doing?” Jodi asked.

  “Great. He had his four-month checkup today. He weighs sixteen pounds and is twenty-five-and-a-half inches long. And he had shots. He’s in a lousy mood. That’s why Abbie didn’t come.”

  Amy cringed. “I hated taking the boys in for shots. How’d Abbie do?”

  I thought of my sister in the doctor’s office, stroking Owen’s head and murmuring, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  “She did great,” I said. “She’s able to be really strong for him.”

  Amy smiled, looking as proud as if Abbie were her own daughter. “She’s an awesome kid.”

  The unmistakable sound of the ball connecting with the bat’s sweet spot drew us from our conversation. The ball sailed to the outfield.

  “Come on, Connor!” Amy said.

  So I’d been right. My heart fluttered as he sprinted after the ball. When he dove for it, my breath caught until he raised his glove, indicating a catch. The three of us whooped and hollered, until Jodi and I glanced at each other and dropped our hands to our laps. Talk about awkward. No way could we ever get past the whole mess of last year.

  While the teams switched out, Amy asked, “So did you do anything special in Hawaii?”

  “Not really.” Justin’s image came unbidden. “Laid on the beach. Attempted surfing. Normal stuff.”

  “I ran into your mom yesterday at the grocery store.” She glanced at Cameron and Curtis, still playing catch within view. “She sounded happy to be home.”

  I smiled, thinking of how many times I’d heard Mom say that since Friday. Before our trip, I’d never heard her speak of Kansas as home, as where she belonged.

  “My grandparents’ house is pretty small. It was close quarters.”

  In the dugout, Connor chatted with a teammate. He laughed and shook his head at something the guy said. When he caught me watching, Connor smiled and waved. My heart flipped. I raised my hand to wave back, but then Jodi did the same.

  “Oh.” I dropped my hand to my lap.

  Her mouth formed an O and her face burned red. “Sorry. I’m sure he was waving at you.”

  “No, I doubt it.” My face would’ve been red too if not for my dark skin. “I don’t know why he’d be waving at me, so . . .” I attempted to swallow the lump in my throat. My eyes burned as I battled tears.

  “Cameron!” Amy hollered, seeming oblivious to us.

  I glanced to where the boys had been playing catch and saw they’d shifted. Only Cameron was visible. When he didn’t respond, Amy excused herself and took off down the bleachers, her flip-flops flapping.

  Just me and Jodi. Swell.

  “So,” Jodi said. “We obviously have a problem here.”

  “Obviously.” Though it seemed to me we had a cluster of problems.

  “I was trying to tell you something on Saturday at Heather’s, but it didn’t really come out the way I intended. Actually, it didn’t come out at all.”

  My heart raced. Here it was. Here was where she’d inform me they’d started dating. I formulated my response. “Oh really?” I imagined myself saying. “That’s strange, because Connor didn’t say anything about it when he asked me to come tonight.”

  Jodi glanced at me. “It’s about Connor, which I guess you pretty much could’ve guessed.”

  Down in the dugout, Connor tugged at his collar as he watched us. He knew he should’ve been the one to break the news to me.
Served him right to be anxious.

  “I guess it’s no secret that I like him.” Jodi sighed. “I really didn’t want to, but . . .” She smiled at me. “Well, you know how that goes.”

  AWKWARD.

  “I only came tonight because he asked me to.” I knew I sounded like a total snot, but I didn’t care. So much for civility. “I’m not, like, stuck on him or anything.”

  “Skylar, it’s fine.”

  “I mean, if you guys like each other, you shouldn’t let me get in the way. I certainly didn’t let you.”

  Jodi kinda smiled. “Well, that’s true.”

  “So if you’re asking for, like, my approval or whatever . . . you have it.”

  Shut up, Skylar! This so wasn’t what I wanted to say. Though it seemed better than admitting how head over heels I still was for the guy.

  Jodi glanced at Amy, who thankfully had started back this way. She could put me out of my misery.

  “Look, here’s the deal,” Jodi said in a rushed voice. “I like Connor. I like him a lot. A week and a half ago, we went for coffee and I told him that. He said he’s in love with you.” She held eye contact. “I’m getting out of the way, Skylar.”

  I had no response time since she’d barely gotten her words out before Amy rejoined us. “I’m so sorry about that,” she said. “I’m like, ‘If you can’t see me, then I probably can’t see you.’”

  I wanted to answer, to be polite, but couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything but sit there in stunned silence.

  Jodi never backed down, especially when it came to guys she felt were rightfully “hers.” She’d become a legend for what she did to Sarah Humphrey at a party a couple years ago—she’d heard rumors about Sarah kissing her boyfriend, and when Sarah passed out, Jodi cut off her long, corn-silk ponytail.

  So maybe it was true. Maybe Jodi had changed.

  13

  Jodi didn’t hang around after her confession. She mumbled a lame excuse about needing to get home, then rushed out of there. If Amy noticed Jodi’s odd behavior, she didn’t say anything.

  “We’ve really missed having you around the house,” Amy said as the ump called time.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “We love having Abbie over so much. She keeps us updated on all your goings-on.” Amy’s face brightened. “Oh! We heard you got all A’s your last semester. Congratulations.” Pride swelled in me. “Thanks.”

  “You worked really hard.”

  I’d worked harder in school my last semester than the other three and a half combined. I lost a little ground when I split with Connor but still managed to eke out a 4.0. Of course, it only adjusted my overall GPA by a couple points.

  “I’m gonna take off,” I said, tossing my oversized bag over my shoulder. “I’ll see you on Friday for Curtis’s party.”

  “Okay.” Amy glanced toward the field, where the players lined up and told each other, “Good game.” I thought they just did that in kiddie sports. “Well. I’m sure he—they—appreciate you coming.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “See you later.”

  I picked my way down the bleachers before Amy attempted to convince me to stay and say hi to Connor. It’s not like I didn’t want to see him, but I didn’t know what to say or do when I did. That had my stomach knotted so tight I thought I might throw up.

  At the center of the sports complex, where the bathrooms and vending machines were, I heard Connor calling my name.

  I turned. He jogged toward me, his cleats sounding hollow against the concrete. My breath caught as I took him in—his large, expressive eyes, his hair curling from the humidity. How could I have disliked him when we first met? How had I missed how special he was?

  Connor slowed to a stop a few feet from me. “Hey.”

  “Hi.”

  “Why’d you leave without saying bye?” He panted a couple times. “Or hello?”

  “I need to get home. Owen had shots this afternoon and is really cranky. I’m sure Abbie’s ready for a break.” I said it all so fast, it’d be a miracle if he understood half of it. “And I said hello. I waved, remember?”

  Connor’s ears reddened. Or maybe they’d been that way from playing softball. “Right.”

  “Good game, though,” I said, like an idiot. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Yeah, anytime. We play every Wednesday.”

  “Okay. Well, maybe I could come next week too.”

  “Okay.”

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “So, I’ll see you at Curtis’s party.”

  “And at church,” Connor said. “Although, I guess that’s Sunday, isn’t it? So I’ll see you before. At Curtis’s party.”

  “Right.”

  His eyes skimmed my face, as if trying to determine what went on behind my mask of a calm exterior. He said something in a rush. I caught “invite” and “Jodi.”

  “What?” I said.

  He took a deep breath. “I said, I didn’t invite Jodi tonight. She came on her own.”

  I swallowed. “You can invite Jodi anywhere you want, Connor.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t invite her tonight. And earlier, I was waving at you.”

  My heart fluttered. “You don’t owe me explanations anymore.”

  “I want to owe you explanations.” He blinked rapidly. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “What about Jodi?”

  “She’s just a friend. She was always just a friend.”

  “But in the hospital, you said—”

  “I know what I said, but my feelings for her weren’t like my feelings for you, and I figured that out pretty quickly.” He took a tentative step closer. “You were totally right, Skylar. That she was after me, that I had some weird thing about needing to help her. I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”

  I’d known it already, but hearing it spoken helped to blow out those last flames of anger I’d harbored. I looked around us. “You know what? This is where we met.”

  “No. We met”—he took several paces toward the men’s bathroom—“here. I could barely get words out of my mouth. You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”

  This lured me closer. If nothing else, to keep our conversation as private as possible. Although the other people milling about seemed too preoccupied with their own lives to notice Connor and I having a majorly romantic moment going on. Outside the men’s bathroom.

  “A lot’s changed since then,” I said.

  His fingers trembled as he reached for me. He tucked my long hair behind my ears and studied my face. “But not everything.”

  I think he meant he still thought I was beautiful, but I dwelled on the last few months. Of how easily I’d slipped into my old ways. The drinking, the parties. I swallowed—Eli.

  “I’ve kinda had a rough couple months,” I said, looking at my sparkly toenails.

  He wove his fingers through mine. They fit as perfectly as I remembered. “Yeah, I saw.”

  My face heated at the memory of him knocking on the Land Rover’s door. Of me climbing out of the backseat with Eli.

  “I don’t know how it happened, really. I never intended to go back to who I’d been. But then . . .” I shook my head. “A cigarette here, a drink or two there, and I somehow slipped back into it.”

  “That’s how it happened,” Connor said. “Gradually.”

  “Maybe . . .” I attempted to pull my fingers free. “Maybe we should wait until I’ve got my life back in order. Until I’ve figured some stuff out.”

  He squeezed tighter, wouldn’t let me go. “Or maybe it’s something we can do together. You already know what you want. You know what you’re supposed to do. Now it’s just doing it.”

  I looked at him. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It’s not easy doing it by yourself.” He moved closer. I didn’t stop him. “I won’t let you down again.”

  “If you did, it’d be okay,” I said as his hand rested on my waist, tugged me against him. “I’m stronger now.”

  He l
ooked in my eyes. “I see that.”

  I’d never been told anything nicer.

  And the kiss wasn’t bad either.

  The pocket door dividing Abbie’s room from our bathroom slid open. “You won’t believe who called the house looking for you.” She spoke in a normal volume, which meant Owen must have finally settled to sleep in his own room.

  “Who?”

  “Alexis. And you’re lucky I was the one who answered the phone because she was smashed.”

  I frowned. “Why didn’t she call my cell?”

  “I think she thought she did. She kept calling me Skylar. I could hardly understand anything else she said. It was super loud behind her.”

  In my lovesick state, it took me a little bit, but then I remembered Jodi’s words at Sheridan’s—“You’ll never guess who she’s been hanging around with. I’m not even sure if you’ll remember him. Aaron Robinson?”

  I abandoned brushing my hair and turned to Abbie. “You didn’t understand anything she said?”

  She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure she was crying. And she maybe said ‘Eli,’ but the only thing I heard for sure was your name.”

  My fingernails bit into my palms. “Was it like an ‘I’ve been abandoned at a party and I need someone to pick me up’ kind of call?”

  Abbie shrugged.

  I returned to my room to find my cell. Abbie followed. “What are you gonna do?”

  “Call Alexis, I guess.”

  “Will you go pick her up?”

  My stomach twisted with memories of my one night with Aaron. No way could I abandon Alexis to that. “I don’t even know if that’s what she needs.” My screen glared that I’d missed eleven calls. “Ugh. How long has my ringer been turned off?”

  Abbie considered this. “Since Owen’s appointment?”

  “How is he, by the way?” I asked as I waited for the voice mail lady to prompt me for my password.

  “Fine. I gave him some Tylenol. I guess it did the trick.” She glanced at my clock—10:30. “I need to wake him up for his last feeding, but I’m nervous.”