Love Songs

Chapter Nine

Jessica - Thursday, 6:00am.

I woke up to the sound of gentle, steady breaths being taken below me. The fear that had kept me up half the night now alleviated, I let out one of my own. Allie had come back. She was safe. She was okay. She hadn't gone far.

Needing to get ready for dance, I climbed down the ladder and jumped off the last step. The sound of my feet on the ground woke Allie up, but she'd needed to get up anyhow.

"Good morning," I said, testing the waters with her, not knowing where she was at emotionally.

"Morning," she said sleepily, rubbing her eyes like a child.

"How are you feeling?" I questioned.

"Fine," she said.

Tentatively, I began to form the question that was on my mind. Trying not to sound too demanding, I began, "So...where did you go last night?" 

I sounded like a disconnected mother trying to gain insight on her daughter's whereabouts without looking like she was prying.

"I was with Matthew," she said quietly, casually.

With Matthew? That was one place I hadn't looked. Of course, crazy images of the two of them blew up in my mind, especially the machination that Matthew had caught her on the rebound and made his move. Of course, that was generally unlikely. Matthew was too awkward and demure to take advantage of Allie like that, and Allie was too smart to let it happen. Still, I wondered. I had to rule it out.

Gently, lightly, I tried, "Doing what?"

"Just talking," she said. That did nothing to satiate my concerns. I almost made up my mind that she and Matthew had hooked up, but immediately I began to have flashbacks of when I'd used the ambiguous words, "just talking."  When it was about me and Shay. And of course, Allie jumped to conclusions, but she'd been wrong. So I resolved not to do the same. 

"About what?" I asked, giving her benefit of the doubt.

"Jess, it wasn't like that," she said. Shit. I'd been more obvious than I thought.

"I know," I lied.

"I was just upset about everything with Darius, and so I talked about it to Matt, and he listened. I just ended up staying way longer than I planned."

That was something that floored me. I knew how Matthew felt about Allie - hell, I'm pretty sure everyone knew, except for her - and the idea of him sitting there listening to her boy troubles seemed, in a word, torturous. In that moment, I pictured myself in Matthew's shoes. I imagined myself head over heels for a guy, and having him complain to me...about another girl. 

Of course, I didn't say anything about that to Allie. "Oh," was all I said. "That was nice of him."

"Yeah," she said, not even beginning to understand. "I guess."

___________

Allie - Thursday, 8:00am.

"I don't know what it is," Bella was complaining to her band of followers in ballet that day. "But he's just not going for it."

"Maybe he's gay," one of them suggested.

"No, that's definitely not it. I know he likes some girl. I just don't know who."

Why couldn't Bella just let Darius go? She couldn't accept the fact that someone didn't like her, and that drove me crazy. If I had to accept that he didn't like me, so did she. And I'd much rather have Darius like Shay, than have him like her.