I Do Until I Don't

Chapter 30

 Nia, Melanie, Julia and I are sitting outside on the round glass table, arguing about the people on each table at the wedding. Nia and I are all for mix-and-match; people from both sides of the family sitting together, no side of the bride and side of the other bride. Julia and Mélanie are for a more traditional way of placement, they say it's classier.

Mom and Dad are in the kitchen; they don't want to take sides, and Nia's parents are still in Louisiana and don't feel like wasting money to talk about tables.

Now they are the true winners here.

"I just think we should do teenage tables," Julia says.

"I'm not a teenager," I point out. "If you plan on putting me on a teenage table, I'm not one."

"Excuse me," Julia says with a grin, " you're eighteen."

I look at Melanie for back-up, but she shrugs like Julia has a point. Which she kind of does.

"Fine, do a teenage table. But I want Sabrina next to me."

Julia writes down my request on the laptop. "I'll put Alex on the other side."

"What about Fannar?" Melanie asks.

"What about him?" I ask.

"Well... he's your boyfriend."

Oh right. I never told Melanie about the fake dating. She thinks I'm dating him for real.

"He's not invited," I say instead.

"I can invite him." Melanie looks at Nia for approval. She nods. "Alex can be next to Sabrina."

I shake my head. "Next to Fannar. They're best friends."

"But Sabrina is Alex's best friend, too," Julia points out.

"How about it goes," Nia proposes, "Sabrina, Alex, Fannar, Ella-Mae?"

"I don't wanna be left out!" I say. "Besides, Sabrina will be left out, too."

Julia and Melanie share a look and sigh. Julia deletes everything she just wrote. "How about, Alex, Sabrina, Ella-Mae, Fannar?"

I shake my head. "But then Fannar is left out. And he knows no one so he'll be forced to only speak to me. How about Alex, Fannar, me and Sabrina?"

"But then Alex is left out, and he also knows no one," Nia remarks.

I take the computer. "You know what? Let's not invite Fannar. The whole problem goes away if we don't invite him."

Melanie looks at me and frowns. "For all I know, Fannar is more important than Alex. I just invited him for you. But now that you're with Fannar, who cares about that Alex boy?"

"I do!" My voice cracks. I shouldn't have said that.

Nia waves her hands in front of her. "Hold up! You still like Alex? But..."

"I'm not really dating Fannar," I blurt out. "It's a long story but, to sum it all up, Fannar is giving me flirting classes so that I can flirt with Alex later on when we," I do quotation marks with my fingers, "break-up."

Melanie has those big eyes she only has when she's about to kick my butt, and Nia has this big bright smile she only has when she watches her niece pull off a prank on her nephew. Then, finally, they both look at Julia who has her arms crossed.

"You knew this?" they both ask.

"Well, duh!"

"But don't tell anyone," I say. "Please. It won't work any other way."

Nia gets up. She always does that when she's about to lecture me or point out something. "Hold up. And that's not even my How-Come-You-Told-Julia-And-Not-Me questions. I don't know about anyone else, but I thought you were slowly getting over Alex. That's point one. Point two is hello why can't you like Fannar?" I open my mouth but I close it back. I was about to tell her something, admit something, I'm not ready to admit, terrified to admit. "Point three is: where is Ella-Mae and what have you done with her?"

Julia high fives me. "I taught her well, haven't I?"

Nia shakes her head. "It's a cool idea, I admit. But not─ It will backfire."

"So what?"

Melanie claps her hands to grab our attention. "We get it. Drama, drama. Can we just focus on tables?"

We all agree.

"But don't think," Melanie says, already typing on the computer, "that we won't talk about this later."

Nia claps her hands. "We forgot! Ella-Mae is not going to be on the teen table, she'll be on the main table with us. So that solves the whole problem. We put Alex in the center, and Sabrina and Fannar on each side."

Julia types it down but stops quickly. "But shouldn't Ella-Mae's date be sitting next to her, too?"

Everyone looks at me.

"I won't bring a date."

"So do we just... not invite Fannar all together?" Nia suggests.

"That's rude," Melanie says.

"So what do we do?"

Julia gets up and enters the house to come back a few seconds later with four sandwiches, four bowls of mac & cheese, ice cream and four glasses of Coca Cola. "We're going to be here for a while."