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Chapter 17 - Impressions

Morning brought a cool breeze to the trees alive with autumnal color outside my window and Anne pacing around my bedroom at dawn. Bloody dawn.

"You've never even been like this for a show opening!" I muttered groggily, burying myself further under the covers. "He's not coming for hours yet!"

Anne, fully dressed in an olive dress and black leggings with a green scarf tied in her hair, sat down at the head of my bed, continuing to disturb my sleep. "Gracie!" she wailed. "What if he hates it here? What if he thinks we're all weird and he's mad that I lied to him? What if he doesn't want to be with me anymore?!"

Far too many questions for sunrise, but I raised my head from the pillow and opened one eye more fully. "If he thinks that, he's not worth thinking about, and he's also quickly sinking in my estimation."

Anne bit her lip, deeply troubled. "No, he's not like that. It's just that we're an unusual bunch, you know? I mean what if Jude says something to upset him? I didn't talk about his abilities to Lee."

"Jude hasn't terrified anyone in a long time." I assured her, yawning. "It'll be fine."

"I hope so." Anne trailed off, her eyes falling past me toward the headboard. "Hey, what's that?"

I was too sleep drugged to see what she meant and smashed my head back into the feather pillow. "Mmmpphhg, wha?"

Something was tugged out from under my pillow and I realized too late what she'd found. My eyes flew open as ice stole into my heart. This was bad...

"This!" she beamed, holding up her wrinkled sketch and waving it in my face. "Care to explain?"

Blushing furiously, I yanked the coverlet over my head wishing her to the ends of the earth. Damn, damn, damn!

"Grace Deacon!" The evil woman laughed, her own cares thrown to the wayside. "What are you doing with this?! Are you gazing at it before bed? Hmm? Do you have a thing for tennis players anymore?"

"Leave it." my disembodied voice commanded fiercely from under my barricade. "Let me be pathetic without having to bloody explain myself!"

I gasped then as I was squeezed within an inch of my life by my hopelessly optimistic best friend. Her enthusiasm was not contagious this morning. "Oh, girl! This is so incredibly adorable! Do you really have a crush on L? Oh my gosh! I had a feeling!"

I ripped the covers off of me and shrugged out of her hug in a panic. "Can you keep it down? I don't want this nonsense broadcasted!"

Anne, for all her tormenting, did possess common sense and stopped gushing at the top of her lungs. "How long?" she whispered instead, her eyes shining.

I groaned. "You don't want to know that. Really."

"Of course I do!" she was now bouncing up and down on my bed. For the love of all that was holy, how old was she? Was she regressing? "We always talk about Lee, why can't we talk about L?!"

"Because besides that fact that the two of them share an initial, the situations are completely and vastly different."

"They are not! Gracie, really tell me how long. Don't break my heart and say it's been years!"

"Years?" I cried in disbelief. "Are you mad? You think you wouldn't have gotten it out of me if I'd been mooning about for years?"

Anne thought for a minute, then nodded. "You're right, I would have picked up the signs. But seriously, this is perfect, so perfect! What are you going to do?"

My annoyance made way for helplessness. "Nothing! And neither are you." I snatched the picture out of her hands, shoving it back in the drawer in my bedside table. "I can't believe I was so careless. Just forget it!"