"So, have you seen her yet?" Dinah leaned on the frame of my double doors looking over towards Lauren's house. I didn't have to ask who she was referring to.
"No. . . .well, yes. Kind of. I saw a pretty severe looking Boss charging into her garage late last night. Would that be her?" I didn't want to tell Dinah about seeing her at the window. Hoping to have a couple of days' reprieve before we came face to face, I was trying to hang on to the calm I'd achieved during my year away.
I continued to sort through the clothes in my suitcase, picking out what needed to be hung up and what needed to be washed.
"Yep. She traded in the GT shortly after you left and bought that. I guess she's been making a name for himself racing out at the Loop."
My fingers clenched the hanger tightly at her words. Disappointment coursed through me as I realized that things had changed in the year I'd been gone. When we were younger, Lauren and I had dreamed of putting a car together for the Loop.
"It's a hot car." I hated to admit it.
Lauren used to work with my dad and me in our garage fixing up my dad's old Chevy Nova. We were both eager students and appreciated the mastery it took to get a car in prime condition.
"In any case," I continued, "with racing and her job, I just hope she's too busy to get in my face this year." I circulated the room putting things away, but my brain throbbed with annoyance.
Dinah backed away from the door frame and belly-flopped onto my bed. "Well, I, for one, am pretty excited to see the look on her face when she sees you." She leaned her head on her hand, giving me a teasing grin.
"And why is that?" I muttered as I walked to my bedside table to reset my clock.
"Because you look great. I have no idea what happened between the two of you, but she won't be able to ignore you. No rumor or prank will keep the guys away, and Lauren will probably be sulking that she treated you so badly." Dinah wiggled her eyebrows.
I don't know what she meant about me "looking great". As far as I knew, I looked the same as I always had. I stood at 5'7", brown hair falling to the middle of my back, and dark brown eyes. Gym workouts made me want to gag, but I had continued my running to keep in shape for cross-country. The only difference was my skin tone. After traveling this summer and being in the sun so much, I was pretty tanned. In time, though, that would disappear.
"Oh, she never had a problem ignoring me. I wish she would." I sucked in a breath through my teeth and smiled. "I had such an awesome year. The people I met and the places I saw. It all gave me a lot of perspective. I have a plan, and I'm not letting Lauren Jauregui get in my way."
I sat down on the bed and let out a sigh.
Dinah grabbed my hand. "No worries, babe. This shit has to come to a head eventually. After all, we graduate in nine months."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the foreplay between you and Lauren," Dinah chirped, straight-faced as she hopped off the bed and into my closet. "It can't go on forever," she called out.
Foreplay?
"Excuse me?" Foreplay was a sex word, and my stomach flip-flopped at the thought of "Lauren" and "sex" in the same sentence.
"Ms. Cabello, don't tell me this hasn't crossed your mind." Dinah poked her head out of the closet, using a Southern accent as she pinched her eyebrows together and placed her hand over her heart. She held one of my dresses up to her frame as she examined herself in the full-sized mirror that hung on the back of my closet door.
Foreplay? I spun the word around in my head trying to figure out what she was talking about until it finally clicked.
"You think her treatment of me is foreplay?!" I almost yelled at her. "Yes. It was foreplay when she told the whole school I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome and everyone made farting noises as I walked down the hall freshman year." My sarcastic tone failed to cover up my anger.
