It Could've Been Worse

Chapter Three

I was lying on my stomach on my bed, earbuds playing rock too loudly, when Leah marched into my room. “Hi.”

I pulled out an earbud. “What the---”

“Your mom let me in. She loves me.” Sighing, I pushed myself into a sitting position.  “Are you still wearing that stupid black sweatshirt?”

“What? It's snowing outside. Don't deny comfort!”

Leah put her hands on her hips. “Eva, really, you need to--” she paused. “Whatever. Okay. Know what? I'm gonna go to the bathroom, and then come back in and you're going to be excited.”

"Probably not.”          

Two minutes later, Leah waved two strips of paper in my face. “I got tickets!” she sang. That's not artistic. She literally sang.

"Yay! Oh my gosh! That's awesome! I can't believe you found them!” Beat. “Okay I'm done being excited.” I set my iPod on my nightstand. “How'd you get tickets? They weren't sold out? It’s like two days before the concert.”

Leah pursed his lips. “Well, the main—like, official—ticket site was sold out, so was their website. But I found these online. And they weren't that expensive, actually.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So how do you even know they are legit?”

“Nicole, from school? She bought them from the same site. They'll work. Trust me.”

I'm pretty sure I made this really blank face that made me look humiliatingly stupid. “So possibly the dumbest girl in school—don't repeat that—buys tickets and you assume they'll be perfectly fine? Okay, no problem there.

“How excited are you, anyway? You're like, high on excitement. Loss of inhibition and all that.”

            “Only ‘cause, like, the coolest people in the world are coming and I get to see them play! Look, the tickets’ll be fine, okay?” During the first part, Leah squealed. Like, really squealed.

I said okay because I was getting tired of the conversation. “Hey, did you do the bio homework?”

"Yeah.”

“Okay. What’d you get for the”--I flipped open my notebook at scanned the page—“fifth one? I thought it might be…”

“Who cares? I mean, yeah, do you homework, it’s important, but that’s beside the point. How can you even focus on science when there are exactly 64 hours and 34 minutes until the best night of my life?"

My distract Leah-from-this-boy-band-plan failed. I groaned. “Please tell me you did not install an app on your phone.”

“Yup.” Leah popped the p.

I made a face like, really?

“What? I’m excited, okay?” Her phone buzzed. “Crap. My mom. I gotta go home. Do your science homework and whatever else and then when I come pick you up at four Friday night you don’t wear that sweatshirt and be excited. Okay? Okay. See you at school tomorrow.”

I laughed. “Yes, ma’am!” Saluting, I added, “See you! And, uh, something British and obsessed.”

I heard Leah laugh as she headed out.

I know she loves me.