ILLUSION, ELI HALE

five | the stacy situation

"I was at Stacy's, Mama. Did you not get my text?" Nadia had walked into her house after a long school day and was immediately greeted with dozens of questions from her mother.

Last night, she'd fallen asleep at the Hale's and Eli claimed that he felt bad to wake her up and force her to ride her bike all the way to her house on the other side of town that late at night. Instead, he went on her phone and texted her mom that Nadia was sleeping over at Stacy's.

In the morning, Eli handed Nadia a pair of clothes that Malia left over at their house along with an extra toothbrush. A red crop top and a pair of black sweatpants. Thank God Malia had good clothing taste or else Nadia would have much rather skipped school than to be caught dead in an ugly outfit. Derek drove the kids to school that morning and made sure to stop by the local bakery to get the kids a bagel for breakfast.

Nadia wished she stayed over at Eli's every day if she got that type of treatment. Most mornings, she just barely managed to get to school on time, let alone eat a good breakfast that early.

Two steps into the door, she was engulfed with hugs from her pet dog: Lucille. She was a sweet little Corgi with the biggest heart. Nathan had brought her home a few days before the fourth anniversary of their father's death. Outside of Eli, Lucy was Nadia's best friend. She immediately got to her knees and laughed at the kisses the dog tried sending her. "Hi, Bubba! Hi, my big girl! How are you, Miss Lucille? Did you miss me, girlie? It looks like you did."

"I'm just checking, Nadia. You have a tendency to miss those important classes of yours." Nadia's mother, Margie, called from the kitchen. "Come in here, let me see you." 

Her mother wasn't wrong. Nadia did seem to miss school quite often. But, it wasn't her fault most of the time. Eli would suggest skipping and going to see the new superhero movie or stopping by the mall to buy a new outfit. He knew clothes were her kryptonite. She couldn't resist. Nine times out of ten when Nadia was absent from school, she was hanging out with her beloved Eli.

"Well, I obviously went to school. You would have gotten a call from the school if I skipped." Nadia gave Lucille a kiss on the top of her head before tossing her backpack onto the floor beside their sofa and trudged into the kitchen. She gave her Mom a brief side hug before reaching for the fruit she was chopping up. "Hi, Mama."

Margie scanned the girl's outfit, raising her eyebrows at the choice of the day. Okay, maybe Nadia wouldn't wear sweatpants. She liked to put effort into her appearance. "Those are not the clothes you left home wearing yesterday morning."

"Stacy let me borrow some. I would rather die than wear the same outfit two days in a row." The lie slipped out of Nadia's mouth easily. To seal the deal, the brunette placed a hand on her heart, pretending she felt proud of this imaginary girl. "She knows me too well."

"Well, that's nice. Make sure to thank her once you give the clothes back." And like the perfect gullible parent she was, Margie believed it. "How is she doing, by the way? Actually, how is her mother? Is her back still killing her?"

Somehow over the two years of being Eli's friend, Nadia managed to create the illusion of him being her friend Stacy. Stacy Freeman was her best friend whom she met in her World History class in Ninth Grade. After they sat next to each other on the first day, they were absolutely inseparable since. Stacy was a cheerleader at their high school and was close to making it on the varsity Girl's Soccer team. The blonde hated snap peas and the sound of chalk scraping on the board, but she loved to scrapbook and go horseback riding, like she used to do on the farm her Grandparents own back in Utah. Why hadn't her mother ever met the infamous Stacy? For some reason, their schedules always seemed to overlap. Stacy wasn't allowed out after six on non-game days. Her parents, Milo and Nancy, were incredibly strict when it came to their daughter going out. But Nancy and Milo adored Nadia, it seemed.