leaked (l.h.)

41

"What kind of cake do you want tomorrow?" My Mother asks as she walks into my room, standing at my doorway as I lay on my bed. On my stomach, a pencil between my teeth as I do my work - or at least try to. I'm way too nervous to focus.

"Whatever kind," I shrug. Usually I'd ask to make my own, but this weekend I won't have time.  "Whatever the grocery store has."

She smiles softly when she sees his focused I look. She nods, raising her eyebrow as she takes a step backward and down the hall. And as I turn back to my homework, I see that Luke has not responded to my call. Not to my two, three texts either. Usually this means he is on stage or in an interview or something. But where he said he was, where he told me he'd be, it's nearly two or so hours before here. And as I lay in my bed, exhausted from a day full of rehearsals and belting my lungs out until I almost lost my breath, I know that it's much too late for interviews.

Which makes me think: is he really on his way here?

I don't want to think that he isn't. I don't want to doubt him, but I definitely do not want to get my hopes up. I don't want to cry my eyes out when I see that the breakfast I had made him had gone untouched. Or when I wake up to the text telling me something had came up. For once, just this once, I want it to work out.

My Mother returns ten or so minutes later, dressed in her night clothes and her slippers that slide across the wood floor. She leans forward to press a careful kiss to my forehead, her nighttime routine. She smells of chamomile tea and the rose perfume I had bought from the marketplace sometime over the summer. "Happy birthday, baby."

"What?" I say sleepily, turning towards my alarm clock behind me. And as I read the time, I see that it's one. It's my birthday. "Oh, it is my birthday!"

"Yes it is," she chuckles, sitting on the edge of my bed as she moves a strand of hair out of my eyes. "Who are we expecting tomorrow night for dinner?"

"Well," I take a deep breath, already knowing what she is going to say when I tell her. Not like she's wrong though. I've given Luke so many tries to prove her wrong, and if this doesn't happen tomorrow then she'll never live it down. "Luke said that-"

"Grace," she raises her eyebrow.

"I know, I know," I sit up, shaking my head. "I know I shouldn't get my hopes up. And I'm not."

"What about other friends, friends from school?" She suggests, her voice soft in my ears as she studies my face.

"I don't have any, Mom," I whisper, as if she doesn't already know this same story. I've explained this one, two million times. "And I'm okay. I don't need any."

"It's sad, Grace," she shakes her head, and as she walks towards the door I can't help but roll my eyes. "You're making this hard on yourself."

"I'm fine," I snap. "I promise. I don't need anyone."

"Whatever you say," she shakes her head. And within a moment or two, she is gone. And as I take a breath or two to calm myself down, I realize that I'm exactly where I was when I was still with Tyler. Alone most nights, my Mom judging me for what I do and don't do, and the only thing thst keeps me company are the quiet Broadway songs playing in my ears. And it's comforting, knowing that things can be normal for just a moment or two. Although I wish it could be normal with Luke.

"Okay, well," I text Luke after I receive no response. "Call me in the morning. I love you."

I place my school books into my backpack, into zipping them up and placing them next to the clothes I had laid out for the morning of my eighteenth. I yawn softly, grabbing a hair tie off of my vanity and tying my long, crazy long hair on top of my head. It stops at the end of my spine, right above my bottom. But it isn't damaged, it isn't dead like I've seen Arzaylea's become when she grew her hair out like mine. But that's the Asian in me, my hair is thick. It's black, and it's shiny. And as time went by, I sort have let it do as it pleases. And it grew.