All I've Ever Needed

Chapter 10

October 25, 2013

"Zendaya, pretty please? You don't ever come out with us anymore. I'm not even sure what you look like anymore."

Zendaya stared at her friend, an eyebrow raised in cynical manner.  "Dom, you're looking at me right now."

Her friend threw her hands up in the air in an exaggerated manner, indicating to Zendaya that this conversation was a bit more serious than she had initially thought.

"That. Does. Not. Matter. Where are you Z? And don't you dare say right here, not cute."

"You know I have to practice, I'm the lead, you know how much this means to me. It always has."

"Shit, you're in the play Z, you still gotta practice? Don't you know it by now?"

Z could hear their mutual friend Deja snorting in the background and was thankful that she had not joined Dom in ganging up on her.

"Dom, girl, you know that acting is just endless run of practices and reading. You do know that don't you?"  Deja looked at her friend like she was trying to see into her brain.

"Hey, I know stuff. Don't you start. I'm just saying, Z, we miss hanging out with our girl."

Zendaya smiled tightly, her lips forming a thin line. She didn't quite understand why she couldn't just come clean. No, she wasn't spending every afternoon after school practicing. Sometimes she was at Colin's house. Christ. Mr. Platt. Mr. Platt, Zendaya. She almost hit herself in the head for that thought but managed to contain herself.

She should just tell them. She was getting extra lessons from Colin. MR. PLATT. Jesus Christ. But the thing was, she didn't want to tell them. It felt nice, having it be a secret. Like it was a little dangerous without any actual danger being present.

No, this was hers and hers only.

"I'm sorry guys, I can't get out of this. But what do you say about a sleepover, tomorrow night?" She flashed her megawatt smile at them, her hopeful eyes melting away all the anger Dom had felt only moments earlier.

"You know I can't resist those puppy dog eyes."

"YES!"  Deja enveloped them both in a hug and they hastily made plans to meet up around noon the next day.

For the past three days, Val had been avoiding Zendaya. He wanted to talk to her, he needed to. But every time he saw her, his insides tightened and he would make up any excuse possible to avoid the conversation he desperately needed to have with her.

The image was grained into his mind, and he constantly thought about it. There were many logical reasons for a student to get into their teacher's private vehicle, right? No, no there weren't. He had brainstormed every possible explanation and talked through every single one of them. Nothing made sense. Nothing.

As he walked down the corridor heading outside, he ran into Zendaya, in the literal sense of the word.

"Ow! Oh it's you."

"Always nice to get such a lovely greeting."

"Well Chmerkovskiy, I wasn't really expecting you to walk into me since you've made a point of avoiding me every chance you get,"  she said matter-of-factly and he winced a bit.

"I've been really busy."

"With what? Getting kicked out of more shows?"  She smiled suddenly, as to let him know that she was kidding but he still felt bad about what had happened a few days earlier.