Chapter 6:

It takes him a couple of seconds to realize what is happening, his body, his mouth, acting by default, kissing back, and how it just doesn't feel right. He pushes Daphne back softly and the look in her face breaks his heart a little bit. She feels awfully rejected and it is blatant, her eyes cast downward, her cheeks blushing furiously. Just a few months ago he would have done anything to be in this situation, to have Daphne kiss him and want him. But that was before. Now there is a girl, probably waiting anxiously, phone in hand, spending her mornings learning to sign for him, making him smile with her love for art. He signs "I am sorry" for a prolonged time, until she lifts her eyes and sees him. She blinks a few times too many, then signs slowly "It's ok… you don't have to feel the way I… I just thought you maybe did." He is pretty much lost for words but her embarrassed face is making him physically ache "I love you Daphne. As a friend. But I am with someone and I really like her." Daphne looks at him, confused at first, then suspecting, her eyes growing bigger by degrees as she puts images together. He knows she is seeing it all slowly, them signing "love" in the garage, the sudden miraculous advance in Bay's signing skills, the pictures on his table, and he knows that when he signs her name-sign, the wavy lock sign that is Bay, she might explode. He knows the wrath of Daphne, it comes out seldom, but when it does it is all encompassing, kind of like a twister. It doesn't care if it takes cars and cows, doesn't care of it tears houses down, while it unloads its power unto the lands and it only stops when it feels like it. And yet he has to. He signs "Bay" and closes his eyes for a second, just to shut her out for a moment before the drama unfolds. When he reopens them Daphne is still staring at him, anger glinting in her eyes, making her look wild. "OK" she signs, gets up and leaves the table.

She is hiding in the library, it took her a little while to find it, this room teachers talk about, yet she had never perused but she doesn't feel like bio at all and if the Text (capital T for importance obviously) arrives as she is dissecting whatever gross animal the teacher come up with this week (last week it was fish!), she might just throw up. So she is sitting behind a bookshelf by the Greek mythology section (they have a whole section for this?) painting in her mind. Her Ipod has an Adele playlist all ready, meant for Ty-pining, but it will work for Emmett-pining as well. Nothing screams broken heart like a black on black picture and "Someone like you". Suddenly she is taken out of her daydream by the feeling of her phone vibrating in her hand. She hadn't let go of it almost all day, now she turns it around, takes a deep breath and reads "Talking to D was complicated. She is really mad, not talking 2 me. Def. don't come to pep rally. Come over to mine at 8?". She rereads it 12 times and tries to figure out what happened. How was it complicated? If she is mad enough not to talk to him at least they aren't a happy couple yet, even if Daphne fessed up about her crush. But the last 2 sentences make her wonder if he isn't maybe going to break up with her in person. Ah… could he not have written something less cryptic? Now she will be on edge for another 6 hours. This can't be good for her mind and soul. She would go home, play sick, but then her mom is not going to let her go to his place that evening. So instead she stays in the library, picks up a book about Prometheus, leafs through it and then decides to play snake on her phone.

He tries to get Daphne's attention several times over the course of the afternoon but she ignores him, turns away. To be honest he has no clue what he could say to make her feel better, but he can't really take the silent treatment. He'd rather she would yell at him, but to see her walking around with all that pent up anger inside of her, she is making him feel like the bad guy, when really he has done nothing wrong. He IS sorry about the bad timing, but right now he can't imagine going out with Daphne, the way he had no problems picturing it just a few short weeks ago. Kind of like when you go to the supermarket and you are so hungry and you buy a big cream filled donut you can't wait to eat, but then go home and you find some delicious pizza, you get to eat a lot of it until you are nearly bursting and kind of nauseated, but in a good way and suddenly you can't imagine wanting that donut, even though it was your dream food until recently. What a terrible metaphor he thinks, maybe it is his stomach thinking, then goes and buys a donut from the cafeteria in between classes, the sandwich he bought at lunchtime hanging out with a lot of trash in the depth of a can. Eating the donut doesn't make his guilt any less though. Last period he shares with Daphne, but she doesn't show up. Could she have felt so mad that she went home sick? He texts "Where R U?" then deletes it. Give her some space, he thinks. But he still feels awfully guilty. How do they do that, girls? You feel bad when they don't like you and terrible when they do!

Still quite a bit on edge Bay leaves Buckner Hall after her last class, planning to maybe have a good long rest in front of her billboard, to calm her nerves, when she reaches her car there is someone sitting in the passenger seat though (ah, the joys of a car without a roof). Someone redhaired and looking remarkably like her mother. She circles the car, opens the door, sits down in the driver's seat and looks at Daphne. "What are you doing here? In my car?" she asks bemusedly but loses her half-smile the instant Daphne turns to look at her. She looks rabid, unlike Bay has ever seen her (but she knows that look, it is uncannily identical to the way her father looked that time she took his car for a spin aged 13). Mad you wrote, Emmett? No kidding! "You lied to me! And you pretended everything was normal! And you knew I was into him and you said nothing!" Bay looks down and signs "sorry", she is about to try to explain, why they decided not to tell her, why it was never the right time but before she even gets to open her mouth, Daphne continues. "I broke up with Liam, put the family first, put your feelings first. Now I want the same from you. Put my feelings first. Stop seeing Emmett!" The first thought through Bay's mind is, so I am still seeing him. The second one is, that is not fair. "Liam was an ex boyfriend, Emmett is not your ex… and I apologized for that, you didn't have to do it, you could have gotten him back!" she protests. "Liam was just an ex, Emmett is my best friend and you know how I feel about him. Break up with him." Daphne retorts. Bay shakes her head, she can't do that. Emmett is the one good thing going on in her life right now. "I am sorry Daphne, I just can't." She feels terrible, Daphne is right, she did put Bay and the family first with Liam, but Bay is no golden perfect child like Daphne. And she feels pretty damn lost and lonely lately, he makes that better, he gets her, he likes her and he seems to have chosen her over Daphne, which nobody else has done. Daphne hits the dashboard with her fist, looks Bay in the eye and says "You owe me this." then gets out of the car. Bay feels like crap; guilty, childish, upset. If this is what having a sister feels like, she really wishes she didn't get the experience. She drives her car to her billboard and sits there for hours thinking. Her phone vibrates twice, once a message from her mother (she is officially at Simone's), once from Toby (he saw Simone at school going to band practice after school, she should come up with a better lie next time). None from Daphne telling her she rethought it all and she should just be happy. None from Emmett asking her to elope and live happily ever after in Arkansas. Life sucks.