Stage Fright

Chapter 11 ~ Practicing Friendship

Josh

Every Sunday I'd see this, it was like clockwork. Dozens of instagram posts all capturing Heather with different people. She looked pretty, she always did, but she seemed significantly drunker than usual. Her eyes were hardly open in most of them but they all said the same things.

'Love ya', 'It's not a party without you'. Most of them probably didn't even know her that well, they just wanted to have a picture with the most popular girl at our high school.

Then I see the one that makes my stomach curl. It's Zeke's account and it shows one picture capturing her in an intense lip-lock with him. The caption reads: you're my everything.

If she's your everything then maybe you wouldn't treat her like dirt. I swear, I don't understand their relationship for the life of me. It's like they try and make it seem perfect on the outside but underneath it's just full of cracks and problems. I half wondered if he'd apologized for anything yet. It made me sick that someone so nice could be so messed up by the wrong guy.

I had just finished the rest of my homework and now I had other things to focus on, learning my lines and practicing my songs. My dad had to work late tonight and my sister was living away from home in her second year of university. The house was empty and dinner was up to me tonight.

I thought about calling Heather a few different times but I didn't want to seem clingy or desperate. Maybe we'd have to be restricted to theatre practices? The thought made me sad, but at least I could get that time with her.

I start to throw some peeled potatoes in to boil and I grab a steak from the fridge, laying it out and starting to get some seasonings out. I was getting hungry and I couldn't get anything done on an empty stomach.

Suddenly the doorbell rings and I walk to the front door, ready to tell whoever it was to leave. But when I open it I almost can't believe what I'm seeing. 

"Heather?" I ask and she smiles weakly. I feel like I'm still hallucinating, could she really be here?

"Thank god you still live here." She mumbles.

"What are you doing here?" I ask and she smiles.

"Well, I'm bored and......well we're supposed to be spending time together. I haven't really seen you since Wednesday and I was hoping you'd be free?" She asks and I open the door, letting her come in.

"It just so happens I am." I tell her. "What did you have in mind?"

"We could go out to that really nice new Thai place downtown? My treat?" She suggests and I shrug.

"I was making.....dinner actually." I tell her and her face falls. "But if you give me twenty minutes to finish it, then I'll put it in a container for another day-"

"Don't be ridiculous." She says. "That's a waste."

"Well, would you like to join me for dinner?" I ask and she smiles, looking flattered. "I'll put another steak on?"

"I'd like that." She says following me back to the kitchen and I start to prep a second steak.

"So, did you have a good weekend?" I ask and she shrugs.

"Not the best." She mumbles and I frown. It looked like she had fun.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I ask and she laughs.

"I got too drunk." She admits, sitting at the island in the kitchen. "Way too drunk."

"Isn't that why people go to parties?" I ask and she laughs.

"Yeah, but only when you're in the right mindset." She says. "I was really stressed out and upset, that makes for a disaster." She tells me and I nod. "My DD got fed shot after shot until he couldn't walk anymore......I had to call Eleanor to come get me."