I Used To Be

Chapter 9: Part 6

            As we re-entered the cafeteria, I felt the panic starting to spread down my legs. I desperately wanted to be in the library with Emily. Despite the interruption her elbow had caused in her elite career trajectory due to the timing of the injury, it was now fully healed, and she was back to full-time training. Hence the library. I could picture her with her homework spread out, sneaking bites of her bagel so that the librarian wouldn't kick her out. I thought I wanted this distraction, but suddenly it was making things seem less normal, more chaotic. I wanted things to be familiar, like yesterday never happened. Too late for that I guess.

Sometimes Brandy did have some social smarts. Cash wasn't there yet, which I'm sure wasn't a mistake. Brandy had probably been watching him to see when he actually got to the table to make sure that we were already sitting there. Everyone at the prep table always sat in the same seats. I knew this because I'd had to hear about this from Brandy for like years now. She had been trying to get in with this group since middle school, since this became a thing. It took her years, and she still wasn't really accepted, but they seemed to tolerate her. It made me sad. It seemed like trying to be popular was Brandy's one ambition in life. But the thing that made her tolerable is that she wasn't actually like them. Her personality hadn't changed. Which was one of the many reasons they would never accept her. It was also one of the reasons I loved her.

After about 10 minutes of cutting my lettuce into smaller and smaller pieces and listening to the most asinine conversations I had ever been subjected to, I heard the chair beside me scrape against the floor. I felt that little heart flutter that was usually reserved for Isabelle . . . but this was different. I wasn't actually excited to see Cash. I legitimately wanted to be in the library with Emily. But I felt like I was supposed to do something. So my nervousness was more in the vein or performance anxiety. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, and I felt like things were weird between Cash and I and I didn't exactly know why. I mean, he was the one who said he didn't need me to help him over the summer anymore.

I looked up at him.

"Anna! Hey, what's up?" This was probably the most excited I had ever seen Cash about anything. It made me even more nervous somehow. Fuck. Maybe he really was asking about me.

"Nothing." Say something else moron. Fortunately, he spoke up.

"I don't think I've ever seen you in the caf before."

"Yeah, I have dance after school so Emily and I usually do our homework together in the library during lunch. Emily has gymnastics."

"Right, right. You little dancer girls," he said and grinned. Fuck, he really did seem happy to see me. This was awkward as fuck. I almost wished he was being a jerk, or ignoring me, or even better, sat somewhere else when he saw me here. But none of that happened. He hadn't even said hello to anyone else.

"So what have you been up to?" he asked. "Oh right. Dance." He said grinning again. This was definitely the most I had ever seen him smile. Maybe he had an entire personality change since the summer. Maybe this had nothing to do with me at all.

Brandy kicked me in the calf. Too hard. Fortunately, my dance training allowed me not to react to pain.

"What have you been up to? How did your class turn out?"

"Oh, it was great! I got an A, thanks to you."

"Hardly! We met, what, twice? You actually didn't need any help at all." Did he just blush?

"No, you really did help me. I was kind of freaking out and you explained it all to me. I would have been totally fucked."

I looked down. He would have been fine.