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“Pro number one,” she said, her voice becoming numbingly bored. “He shows up.”
“Con number one, he doesn’t,” I replied.
She wiggled her nose in annoyance. “Pro number two, he shows up with flowers. He called and asked me what my favorite flower was. You don’t do that if you’re not bringing someone flowers!”
Daisies. Ass-Crack should’ve known her favorite flower.
“Con number two, he calls and cancels last minute.”
“Pro number three,” she said, placing her hand on her hip. “He shows up and tells me how amazing I am. And how proud of me he is. And how much he missed me and loves me.” I go to open my mouth and she shushed me, dropping her monotone sound. “Listen, Lo. No more cons. I need you to look at me and be happy for me, okay? Even if it’s a fake happy!” She kept smiling with a high-pitch sound of excitement in her voice, but her eyes and hiccups always told how Alyssa was really feeling. She was nervous, scared that he’d let her down again.
So I put on a smile for her, because I didn’t want her to be nervous or scared. I wanted her to actually feel as happy as she pretended to be. “This is good, Alyssa,” I said, lightly nudging her in the arm. “He’s coming!”
A deep exhale left her and she nodded. “He’s totally going to be there.”
“Of course he is,” I said with a fake confidence. “Because if there’s anyone in the world worth showing up for, it’s Alyssa-Fucking-Walters!”
Her cheeks reddened and she nodded. “That’s me! Alyssa-Fucking-Walters!” She dug into her back pocket and pulled out a ticket that was in a zip-lock baggie. “Okay. So I need your help. I’m paranoid about Mom finding out I’ve been trying to talk to Dad. I don’t want him anywhere near our house. So I told Dad he could pick up the ticket from you here.” Alyssa looked at me with hopeful eyes that her plan was okay. It didn’t go unnoticed to me that she was now calling him “dad” again instead of Ass-Crack. That made me sadder for her.
I really freaking hoped he showed up.
“I’ll do it,” I said. Her eyes filled with tears and she handed me the umbrella to hold so she could wipe her tears away.
“You’re the best friend a girl could ever have.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek a total of six times.
And I pretended not to notice how my heart flipped six times too.
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She didn’t notice it, did she? She didn’t notice how she sparked my heart each time she stood near me.
Chapter Six
Alyssa
“How was your rehearsal?” Mom asked, when I came back from Logan’s house. Instead of going to rehearsal, I drove over to his place and begged him to give a ticket to Dad. I couldn’t tell Mom that though—she wouldn’t understand. She sat inside of her office, typing away at her computer, doing what she did best, working. She had a glass of wine sitting next to her, along with the whole bottle beside the glass. She didn’t look up toward me, and before I could reply, she said, “Toss any of your dirty clothes into the laundry basket in the bathroom. Then if you could, wash them and fold the load in the dryer.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And I made a lasagna, if you want to toss that into the oven at four forty-five for an hour.”
“Okay.”
“And please, Alyssa.” She stopped typing and turned my way, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can you stop leaving your shoes in the front hall? It’s honestly two steps to the left to put them in the closet.”
I glanced down the hallway at my Converse shoes laying tossed in the hallway. “I put them in the closet.”
She gave me a “bullcrap” frown. “Put them in the closet, please.”
I put them in the closet.
When dinner came along, Mom and I sat at the dining room table, her looking down at her cell phone, answering emails, and me looking down at my cell phone, commenting on Facebook posts.
“The lasagna tastes different,” I said, poking my fork around it.
“I used egg white omelets instead of pasta.”
“But isn’t it lasagna because of the noodle? Like, the name of the noodle is legit called lasagna. Without it, we are just eating eggs, sauce, and cheese.”
