Page 67 of Under the Influence

“What’s going on?” he asks, noticing the tension.

“Nash is attempting to ask Cori on a date, but he’s rambling like a loser,” I laugh.

Carson’s eyes travel down to Cori like he could devour her and then over to his best friend.

“It’s not a date,” Nash confirms.

The three of them standing there awkwardly makes dinner with my parents look like a piece of cake. No one budges.

“Well,” Carson huffs. “Coach T will have our ass if we’re late.”

Nash grabs his bag of catcher’s gear from his Jeep, “5:30, Corinne.”

God. What a dick.

I can breathe a little easier now that the ego monster is gone, and we head across the lot to where my mom is parked waiting for us.

I haven’t brought any girlfriends home since middle school anyway, so the surprise on her face is expected when Cori climbs in. She attempts to nose her way into our conversations, but I’m quick to shut her out. She's my mom, but that’s it. We’re not close anymore, so why pretend? Plus, I’d never want any advice from her.

When we finally make it to the confines of my room, Cori collapses on my bed. “I didn’t picture your room like this.”

“Yeah, well, my mother would have a stroke if I hung Machine Gun Kelly on my wall.”

I look around, trying to remember the girl this room belonged to. The girl who liked pink, the one who went to church on Sundays, the one who thought her parents hung the moon. Feels like a lifetime ago.

“I know what you mean,” she sighs. “My room back home didn’t feel much like mine anymore before I left. That girl that I was from before feels like a ghost to me now.”

“Why did you leave?” I ask, jumping straight to the point.

She sighs, sitting up on her elbows, “Because staying there meant I had to live in a world where everyone thought they knew me. What I’d done. Strangers. People that I’d pass in the grocery store, the lady next to me at the red light.”

“Your parents just let you leave?”

She shrugs, “I lived at school, so they’re used to me being gone. It was necessary for everyone involved.”

Everyone involved in what, though? What is she hiding?

“Surely you have friends that miss you?” I add, knowing that I’ve known her a few weeks and already like her, so she had to have been popular.

“One. Benson.”

I smile, “Is he your boyfriend?”

She laughs, “No. Just a friend, we used to take baths together when we were little. His mom and mine are besties.”

“So, you miss him?” I ask.

“All the time.”

“Well, there must be someone else?”

Her eyes dim a little, “Not really.”

The silence gets thick, and I feel she’s holding back, not because she wants to but because she feels she has to.

“You can talk about it if you want.”

“I’m not really supposed to,” she sighs. “My dad is pretty adamant about it.”