Author's Note: Okay, now that I reposted all of those, here is a new chapter. Don't be afraid to review!!
Best Friends, Lovers, and Nate Gray
The Better Person
By: Chelsea
Rating: T… 13+… language and possible sexual content in future
Disclaimer: I don't own Connect Three or any of its characters. I own only my own characters.
I heard a quick and steady rasp on the door of our dressing room. "Uh, come in," I said carelessly while flipping through a magazine.
"You really shouldn't be that careless for whom you let come in here," I heard the familiar voice of Nate say. He looked down at me. I was sitting on the small couch that was crammed into the tiny room. Ellie had just gone to Caitlin, her best friend who had come to the show tonight.
I raised my eyebrows. "Should I be afraid of wimpy 16 year old boys knocking on my door?" I asked jokingly.
"Wimpy?" Nate's voice was raspy, "Wimpy? Did you just call me wimpy?" He reached over the arm of the couch and wrapped his arms around my waist. Nate aimed for the ground and started falling, pulling me with him.
"Hey!" I yelled in surprise… he had just tackled me! I squirmed awkwardly. Nate still had his arms around me and we were squished between the couch and the coffee table. We sat up and I was practically sitting on his lap in the small space.
I turned to look at Nate only to find him smiling at me. "You did great," he said, the smile still spread across his face.
I knew immediately what he was talking about. Only 2 hours ago I had performed the best I ever had… and probably the best I ever will. I could only smile. There was no way I could find the words to explain it… I had tried to put what I was feeling into thoughts in my head but it was pointless. I tried to explain it to Ellie, but I had just ended up confusing her tremendously.
"So," Nate said, "how did it feel?" Of course he would ask me that, I thought.
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came. "I don't know," I said stupidly. "I mean, I don't know how to describe it… it's almost beyond words," I corrected myself.
Nate looked at me with a straight face and nodded. "Yeah…" he trailed off. He didn't have to say it, but I knew that he understood.
"Katie!" I heard as the door flew open. As soon as Ellie looked into the room and at me on the floor sitting on Nate's lap with his arms awkwardly wrapped around me she raised her eyebrows. "I don't want to know!" she threw her hands up, "I was just coming to tell you that Lucy and mom were talking and we are all going out to eat." Lucy was Nate and Shane's mom; her and my mom got along great and were now practically best friends.
I smiled, noticing Caitlin behind her. "Okay. Hi Caitlin!" I said, trying to lighten the mood. I think Ellie knew that Nate and I weren't doing anything, but I could only imagine how we must look.
Caitlin returned the 'hi' before her and Ellie waved and left the room. I turned to look at Nate and his eyes were wide. I instantly could feel the laughter rising in my stomach as the corners of his lips started to rise. We only chuckled at first… which led us to full-on laughter. We laughed so hard that we actually ended up falling over, sticking ourselves in our original awkward position.
"I guess we should get going," Nate said, starting to calm down. "Yeah," I agreed, my head lying on his chest.
Nate tried to stand up, but was unsuccessful because I was on top of him. "Humph," I groaned, trying to untangle my right leg from underneath his left one. After a moment, I stood and held out a hand to help him up. Nate took it and joined me in a standing position.
I grabbed the magazine I had been reading off of the couch and headed towards the door. Ellie and I had packed all of our other stuff while Connect Three was performing.
"I'm starving," I mumbled, waiting for Nate to close the door.
He looked at me with a raised brow. "That's not a surprise," he said loftily. I simply stared at him. Nate was constantly teasing me for my appetite, but that was something that I just couldn't help.
--
We walked into the Cracker Barrel that we had seen on our way into Houston. Jason, Shane, and Nate had been saying that they had never been to one and Ellie and I were shocked. We had grown up with Cracker Barrel and loved the place.
"Party of 11," I heard my mom tell the hostess. I looked around, I hadn't realized that there were that many of us. Ellie, Caitlin, Jason, Shane, Nate, my mom, Lucy - Nate and Shane's mom, Dan – Jason's dad, Freddy – Jason's little brother, Rachel – Connect Three's manager that traveled with them, and myself. Oh, and of course Moe, Connect Three's body guard, but he wasn't eating, he would stand near the table.
"Right this way," the lady said and immediately led us to a large table. I was guessing that there was no wait on a table because of how late it was.
The table was located in a corner and there was only one other table occupied in the entire room and the occupants were an elderly couple. I sat close to the end of the table, Ellie and Caitlin on my right, and Nate to my left. I lifted my menu and started reading.
"So, what's good?" Nate leaned over and whispered in my ear. I involuntarily smiled.
I pursed my lips and wrinkled my brow as if I was in deep concentration. "Well, I personally like the grilled chicken tenderloins, but the chicken and dumplings is very good too," I said in a serious, business-like manner.
Nate nodded his head thoughtfully. "Hm," he thought, scanning the menu. I heard footsteps; someone else was joining us in the dining room. I instinctively turned my head and hated what I saw…
"What's wrong?" Nate asked quietly, noticing my face. He turned to look at what I was looking at and his jaw dropped.
Elizabeth, Kassi, Claire, Brooke, Lucas, Jake, and Nathan were sitting down at a table closer to the middle of the room, but they had a clear view of me and our table.
"What are they doing here?" I whispered in disbelief, turning back around slowly.
Nate gulped. "Well, it could be a coincidence," he said, not very convincingly. I looked at him, Houston was a big town and I doubted that. "Or they could have followed the bus, it is kind of hard to miss," he suggested.
I flopped my head against my hand. "Nate," I spoke desperately, but his expression cut me off. He was looking past me at something. His expression was strange and I was almost scared to turn and see what he was looking at. I averted my eyes to the ground next to me and started to look for what he could be looking at.
I immediately saw it and recognized it. Walking towards us was an average height blond girl accompanied by two slightly taller girls, one with brown and the other with black hair. Shit, I thought as my heart began jumping into my throat.
"Hey Katie!" a shrill voice spoke. Claire, I thought. I would recognize that voice anywhere, laced with its fake niceness and empty compliments. It was almost humorous to me how easily she could spit out compliments and not mean a single one, but when she insulted you she meant it with all the vain and cruelty she possessed in her 5'6½" frame.
I tried to smile, but it ended up looking more like someone had just poked me with a pencil.
"The show was great," I could hear it. How was it that someone could insult you by disguising it as a compliment? "I don't think Nathan liked it too much, but you know him," I looked up her for the first time. She was glaring down at me, her blue eyes practically burning a hole in my head. She was smiling, but it wasn't a 'I'm so happy to see you' smile, it was a 'I want to rip you apart' smile.
"Aren't you going to introduce us to your friends?" Claire asked, sounding innocent.
I clenched my jaw. I wanted to respond with something snarky, I had plenty of ideas in my head, but I felt Nate elbow my side. I needed to be the better person. "Of course," I smiled, but it probably looked more like a grimace. I turned back around to the table only to discover that almost everyone was watching. "This is Nate, Freddy, Dan, Rachel, Lucy, Shane, Jason, and you know my mom, Ellie, and Caitlin," I pointed to everyone as I went around the table.
I didn't want to look back up at Claire, but I forced myself too. But, instead of focusing on her face, my gaze drifted to the girl on her right: Kassi. Why was it that Kassi's betrayal hurt me the most? When I thought of it, it felt like a knife slicing straight through me.
I stared up at her for a minute. She, too, was staring at me. Her brown eyes, the eyes that used to have tenderness and look at me with love were now looking at me with nothing but pure coldness and hate. I closed my eyes and looked over to Claire's left: Elizabeth.
I wasn't sure why but Elizabeth's betrayal didn't sting like Kassi's. It was probably because Elizabeth had yet to insult me, to my face anyway. Kassi had a number of times, but I don't think Elizabeth had the heart to.
Elizabeth was wearing her color contacts that hid her brown eyes and made them baby blue. I, personally, had liked the brown eyes, but she was in love with the blue ones. She, unlike Kassi, hadn't been staring at me. Instead she had been looking around the table. I'm pretty sure she felt me looking at her because she looked down at me. Her eyes weren't hard and cold like Kassi's and Claire's. They were soft, I don't know if her eyes could ever be cruel, if she could ever be out-right cruel. She only laughed when Claire or Kassi started it, but she never started anything.
"We miss you at school, Katie," Claire's shrill voice cut through my thoughts. I looked away from Elizabeth to Claire. "Well, not a whole lot," Claire added as if it were an afterthought.
I lowered my eyes, not wanting to look at her. Why can't they just leave? I thought helplessly. I looked over at Ellie and Caitlin. They were both looking at me sympathetically. Every day that I had come home crying from school they had been there for me. Even though Caitlin was Ellie's friend, she was like a second little sister to me.
"When are you coming back?" that was the first time I heard Kassi's voice in 2½ months, besides in my head, and I hated that it had to be like this.
I shook my head. I was afraid to speak. The feelings that had been present before the show returned to me full force.
"Is that supposed to mean your not coming back?" Claire asked. She knew the answer, but she had to make me feel like a specimen, a test subject to her latest sneers.
I nodded my head. I had already made it clear to my mom that even if this didn't work out, I wasn't going back to school. I would pay for Susan, my tutor, to keep teaching me until I graduated in 3 years.
"But," Kassi started and I already knew what she was going to say, "What are you going to do when you are finished playing rock-star?" Her voice held bitterness, bitterness that used to not exist. I had created that bitterness, I thought, I created it when I told her I was making a record. I was know staring down at my menu which lay on the table as my chin started to tremble and I tried with all of my strength to will it to stop.
"Well, it was nice talking to you," Claire finished, "but we must get back to our friends." I listened as their footsteps started and then trailed off. I could feel people looking at me, but I had no desire to know who was so I continued staring at my menu.
My chin started to tremble more as I could feel my eyes becoming watery. "I'll be right back," I said standing up and walking away from the table and into the gift shop that doubled as the waiting room. I walked aisle after aisle and was no longer visible to anyone. I was headed for the girl's restroom which was in the back until I heard my name called.
"What?" I said, turning around in the middle of an aisle of stuffed animals to discover Nate coming up behind me. I hadn't even heard anyone get up behind me.
"You okay?" he said, coming to a stop in front of me. I could see the concern etched in his face.
I shook my head and whispered "No," not even attempting to lie this time. Apparently that was all it was going to take, one simple word, for the tears to start coming. Almost immediately, they were streaming down my face like a river. I felt Nate's arms wrap around my neck as he leaned his head over on mine. He began to stoke my back comfortingly.
"It's going to be okay," he whispered consolingly. I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head on his shoulder. I was now sobbing and they were causing my entire body to shake. I opened my mouth several things to try and say something along the lines of "I hate them" or "Why are they so mean?" but I was unable to say anything. Pretty soon, all I was aware of was Nate's shoulder, which would have tear stains for surely forever, his arms wrapped around me, and the hand stroking my back.
It felt like hours passed as I cried into his shoulder, but I was sure it was only minutes. The tears stopped flowing as quickly and my body stopped shaking. I unwrapped one of my arms from around Nate's waist and started to wipe my eyes.
"Nate," I said, taking a step back so that I could look at him in the eyes.
"It's no problem," he said before I could finish saying thank you. I smiled up at him. What did I do to deserve such a great friend? He started to run his hands up and down my arms in a comforting way. "You okay now?"
I shook my head. "Yeah, I'm going to go to the restroom and wash my face before I go back to the table," I said, wiping away a stray tear near my mouth.
"Okay, I'm going to head back," Nate smiled at me. He turned and shoved his hands in his pockets and started to walk and then suddenly stopped. Turning to his left, he reached out and grabbed something off of the shelf. "Ha!" he said, holding up a small, pink, stuffed pig, "it's you!"
I laughed, "Haha, very funny." Nate smiled over at me and set the pig back down, "I know." He always knew how to make me smile.
I turned and walked through the aisles and found the restroom.
--
Going back into the dining room wasn't easy and I wasn't excited about it. I had walked at a very leisurely pace through the aisles, I had even stopped and played with that pink pig, but returning was the inevitable.
I wasn't as scared of Claire and Kassi and Elizabeth as I was everyone at my table. They would do one of two things: go on like it was no big deal or acknowledge it and ask me if I was okay. Honestly, I didn't like either option. I didn't want them to pretend that nothing had happened, but I didn't want to them to have a fuss over me either.
I casually strolled through the dining room, avoided looking at a certain table, and over to the table where a plate of grilled chicken tenderloins with corn and mac and cheese were waiting for me. I sat down and looked at my plate confused. I hadn't ordered anything.
"I knew your favorite vegetable was corn, you would probably die without macaroni and cheese, and you said that 'grilled chicken tenderloins' were your favorite," Nate said into my ear. I looked at him and smiled.
"Thanks," I said back. He had done a good job. I always had grilled chicken tenderloins with macaroni and either corn or okra.
No one beside Ellie and Caitlin asked me if I was okay, although my mom talked to me afterwards on the van. Everyone else just smiled at me. For the rest of the meal I tried my hardest not to think of the table that existed behind me. I was still upset and I wasn't going to ignore that, but I could try my hardest to ignore them.