smother. [h.s.]

20. the masquerade ball

Old Russian Waltz - Herold Lavrentievich Kittler

// play song at *, important for this chapter!

NEXT FRIDAY NIGHT, 6:30 PM

"What are you writing in there?" 

Sasha leans over my shoulder, casting a shadow over my journal pages. I flip over on my bed and turn my diary face down.

"Nothing," I say quickly. 

She reaches for the journal, but I pull it away before she can get it. 

"Hmm.." She smiles deviously, tapping her finger against her chin. "What are you hiding?"

"Nothing," I repeat, my diary now clutched tightly against my chest. 

Sasha backs away and returns to her closet, where she's been rummaging loudly for the past twenty minutes. She occasionally lifts her head from the racks of dense clothing to glance back at me. I relax now that she's a good distance away, flipping back over onto my stomach to continue writing on the pages before me. My fluffy, pink pen sways as I reach the end of my interrupted sentence. 

That's when he turned around. He didn't back away, no, he took a step closer. He hovered over me and told me I was the life of the party. Which he would be completely right about, but that night it wasn't really true. 

He had just opened up to me about Frankie and about so many things I've been dying to hear. It felt like a monumental step forward in our "friendship." I asked him if we'd ever have a normal night. He didn't understand what I meant at first. I guess this is his normal. There is so much I don't know, isn't there?

He assured me I'd have my version of normal soon. I didn't believe him. I should have told him, but I didn't want to ruin his uncharacteristic mood.

God, then he pulled my hands behind my—

"What is up with you?" Sasha's words come out in chunks, emphasizing more than needed. She leans against the wall and wags her pointer finger at me. I lift my head in confusion.

"What?" 

"Your legs." I look over my shoulder, just now noticing how my legs are bent and kicking gently back in forth behind me. "And your hair." I glance down at my hand, which happens to be twirling a strand of hair around my pointer finger mindlessly. 

My hand drops and my feet come to a still. 

"You've got a crush!" 

Sasha's usually cold resting face lights up, nodding vigorously. I slam my diary shut as she runs back over to the edge of my bed and jumps up and down in her spot. She grabs onto my sheets and tugs on them, repeating over and over that I have a crush. 

"Sasha, Sasha," I laugh, sitting up to try and escape the shaking mattress. "I don't have a crush."

"Don't even try to deny it. It's written all over your face." She grabs onto my shoulders and shakes me a little, as if trying to wake me up.

I smile amusedly as she squints her eyes and stares at me, trying to break down my walls. 

"His name begins with the letter B." She nods a little, convinced she's right. 

I laugh in response. I don't give her any hints. 

"Ben... or maybe like, Brahm. Short for Abraham."

"There is no one here named Brahm, Sasha."

"I don't know that. Maybe I haven't met him."

She stares at me harder and leans forward until our foreheads meet.