15

Holly

The anticipation of seeing him again today, as friends, kept me awake for most of the night. I kept peeking out my window after he dropped me off, wondering if he was still out there. I wouldn’t mind if he was, to be honest. I liked his attention, fleeting as it may be.

Earlier, while I waited for Feather to get out of the shower, I called Maria, the taxi driver. She apologized frantically, telling me she had gotten a call on her cell that her two-year-old son was sick and she’d had to leave quickly. She had no way of calling me, so she had no choice except to just leave. She told me she had worried about me all night, wondering how I would get home. I could actually hear the relief in her voice when I told her I was fine and would like another ride today.

“I’m going shopping, want to come?” Feather asks, coming into our small kitchen, where I’m drinking a cup of tea and eating a blueberry muffin.

“I can’t… I’m going to see Poppy today. The driver will be here in about an hour.”

“You mean you’re going to see Tyler,” she comments with a grin, grabbing her car keys off the heart-shaped key rack on the wall. The hook next to hers is empty, mocking me and my carless life.

I shift uncomfortably at the small wooden table. “Of course he’ll be there too.”

“I saw him drop you off last night. I can’t believe you got on that bike with him.” She leans against the doorframe, her long hair flowing down her shoulder and over her chest.

“You were watching me?”

“You can hear his motorcycle a mile away, Holly. I heard it in the lot and looked out the window, and there you were, all googly-eyed, staring up at him while he played with your hair. He’s actually pretty hot from a distance. The arms on him…damn, girl.” She pops the gum in her mouth and flashes a teasing smile at me. “I can see the appeal.”

“Feather…” I shake my head at her and tuck my hair behind my ear. “He wasn’t playing with my hair. There was a leaf stuck in it. I was embarrassed having foliage on my head, I wasn’t googly-eyed.”

Or was I? I certainly felt all googly and woogly.

“It’s okay to like him. You don’t have to get all embarrassed and nervous. I’m just not sure he’s the best guy for you to be crushing on, but he’ll do as a stepping stone.”

“Stepping stone?” I repeat.”What’s that?”

She lifts her hand to inspect one of her chipped nails. “Someone you see while you’re waiting for the next one to come along. Like training wheels for dating.”

My mouth falls open. What a horrible way to treat someone. “He is not a stepping stone.” Rising, I grab my dishes and bring them over to the sink to wash later. “Is that what Steve is for you?”

She actually stares off, contemplating her answer. I’ll be disappointed in her if she says yes, and I’ll feel sorry for Steve, who seems to really care about her.

“No,” she finally replies. “I really like Steve. I always have. We have a history, and we started as friends. I suppose, in a way, I wanted him to be a stepping stone, but he turned out to be a lot more.”

“I have a history with Tyler,” I say with slight defensiveness. I get to have a past with people, too, even if it’s not quite perfect and only started a year ago. It’s still my history.

“Pulling you out of a hole isn’t quite the kind of history that’s going to lead to everlasting love, Holly.” She turns before I have a chance to reply. “I’ll see you tonight. Have fun but be careful,” she calls out just before she closes the front door behind her.

I file our conversation into the messy backroom of my mind, with the other things I don’t want to think about, and take a quick shower with what’s left of our hot water. I should know better than to let Feather shower first if I don’t want to end up with lukewarm water. As I’m toweling off, I slowly inch the towel away and reveal my reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door as the fog slowly dissipates.

I’m not used to looking at my body. I had one tiny, compact mirror while being held by the bad man, so I was only able to see two circular inches of my body at a time. He only gave it to me so I could put the awful red lipstick on, but sometimes I stared into it when I was alone and watched my lips talk to myself. Other times, I could angle it just the right way to see the cigarette burns he’d branded into my skin and the thin red slash marks the knife had made when he threatened me.