Letters to Nowhere #1 (Completed!)

Letters to Nowhere: Part 41

Instead of having Mrs. Martin drive us, we took the bus to the mall and headed straight for our favorite Italian restaurant. It was barely lunchtime, but we got a table anyway because there was a lot to talk about before we could even think about eating.

            "Oh my God!" Blair squealed when I filled her in on my boy drama. "Jordan Bentley kissed you? I can't believe it! Is he a good kisser? In my imagination, he's really good."

            I rolled my eyes. "It was like three seconds long. And it was a mistake...or at least we decided it not to do it again."

            "Like grief sex," Blair said, as though she had so much knowledge on this subject. "Sometimes people hook up when they go through emotional stuff together."

            I shrugged. "Maybe it was like that. It doesn't matter. He's never going to really see me as a romantic interest. Not for a while, anyway. And considering I'm just now hitting puberty, I don't even know if I'd want him to think about me that way."

            The waiter tried to set down a basket of breadsticks and both Blair and I shook our heads, instructing him to take them back. We each ordered a salad with grilled chicken on top and a small side of pasta to share.

            "We should get extra spinach in our salad," Blair said to me before the waiter left. "Extra vitamins to keep us from getting sick, like Ellen."

            "She'll get better soon. Now that they've got her on antibiotics. Poor girl."

            Blair folded her hands on top of the table, her jet-black hair shiny and falling in her eyes. "You're right, she'll get better. My leg will heal. Stevie will continue to add her old skills back until she's at ass-kicking level, but you? What are we going to do to keep you from freaking out?"

            I glanced down at my hands, twisting them nervously. Blair and I hadn't spoken about my parents hardly at all, but she seemed to have this extra bold streak today, or maybe her injury provided her own version of a get-out-of-jail-free-card.

            "They're gone, Blair." I finally looked up at her. "They're gone and Nina Jones was telling everyone how great I was and I realized that I couldn't tell them. Not ever."

            Blair nodded, fighting her own emotions. "I figured it was something like that."

            I let out a breath, determination rising in me. "I need to do that new skill in Chicago. The back full on beam. And I need to not freak out during that meet. You're the best person to help me with this because you know how important it is. And that shrink, Jackie—"

            "You have a shrink?" Blair said.

            "Yeah, but we don't really talk about this stuff and I doubt she would get it."

            Blair sat still, thinking hard. "You have to block it out. The same way you block out fears in gymnastics. Like that time in level nine when you crashed on a Yurchenko vault and you kept seeing yourself falling on your neck over and over."

            "Yeah, I remember that."

            "You got over it," Blair said.

            My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I glanced at it, seeing a text from Jordan.

Jordan: So what's the verdict? Did my dad chew you guys out and send you all back to level 10 or what?

            I smiled at the phone and Blair raised her eyebrows. "Are you texting a boy?"

            "No," I said, "a boy is texting me."

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