'tis the damn season

Twenty-Eight: long story short

"Pushed from the precipice, climbed right back up the cliff, long story short I survived, now I'm all about you" 

"It was awful Lauren, everyone was laughing," El says, on the other end of the phone. I had called home this morning at a reasonable hour and could hear El begging Joyce to talk to me in the background. Immediately she jumps into telling me about how her presentation went yesterday at school. I knew she had been having problems with one specific girl in her classes. This Angela chick better be glad I wasn't there to find out where she lived a rip her a new one.

El had been working on her diorama of Hop's cabin for weeks now, and she was so proud of it. The project was to present your hero to the class. Technically the project was meant to highlight a historical hero, but El had gotten special permission from her teacher to talk about her dad. And apparently Angela had interrupted her presentation with stupid questions and then later in the courtyard, Angela and her friends tripped El, and destroyed her cabin.

El had been through so much in her life, and now that she was finally able to do something normal, she was being picked on by people who didn't even know her.

I'm sitting at the kitchen's island leaning on the counter listening to El when Steve walks in the room. He's freshly showered and dressed, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, looking in the fridge for something to eat. His hair was still wet and practically all over the place, it was a rare sight considering he always blow dried it immediately after a shower. It caught me off guard seeing him like that, but I tried not to make it obvious I was staring at him.

"People can be really shitty El. She's probably just being mean to you because she's insecure," I sigh. "Girl's are a complicated species okay, she's probably just sad and lonely and needs someone to take it out on. You can't give her the reaction she wants."

Steve comes and sits next to me, placing a bag of grapes in front of him. "Who is that?" He whispers.

"El," I mouth back.

"Well what kind of reaction does she want?" El asks.

El was talking loud enough that I knew Steve could hear what she was saying.

"Any kind of reaction really. You just have to act like you don't care. Even if she's bothering you, if you just pretend everything's okay, then she'll move on to someone else because picking on you won't be fun for her anymore," I suggest.

I hear El sigh through the phone. "I guess so," she agrees. "And Will said he would help me fix the cabin," she adds.

I smile at this. "That's good."

"So how are things over there? Are you still nervous to sleep with Steve?" She asks, causing Steve to start coughing on a grape.

"Is that him? Hi Steve!" She says, hearing him through the phone.

All I can do is laugh nervously. I really needed to teach her how to word things better. I could not believe Steve just heard her say that.

"Woah, woah, we need to work on your literary skills a little more," I chuckle, wanting to hang up the phone and run. "I have been staying at Steve's house and it has been fine," I correct.

Luckily, Steve just seemed to find it funny. He knew El was still learning her grammar.

"What did I say wrong?" She asks genuinely.

I could feel my face was beet red, as I stuttered to El. "Well, I guess technically you didn't say anything wrong... it's just that there are better words to use, I think because uh, well it can also mean something else," I try to explain.