"So what have you got planned for the rest of the day?" Tia asked as she met up with Keely outside of her last class: physics.
"Mm. Homework, mostly," Keely mumbled. "Apparently Miss Way thinks it's fun to have us do lab write-ups and posters."
Tia winced and sucked in her breath through her teeth. "Eesh... want any help on that?"
"You're.... not in my class," Keely said, raising an eyebrow. "I don't know how much that would help."
"Oh. Right..."
"Thanks anyway, though, I guess," Keely shrugged. Tia nodded and grinned broadly.
"No problem, Keely. Really. So I guess we can...."
Keely blinked, and slowed down her pace. Did it just get darker in here?
"Keely? You okay?" Tia asked, having stopped a few paces in front of her.
Keely put her hands out in front of her, reaching through the darkness, and eventually found Tia through the black fog. She staggered to her right and leaned against a wall.
"Whoa, whoa, Keely, what's up?" Tia reached forward and grabbed onto Keely's shoulders. "Are you okay?"
She shook her head from side to side to try and snap herself out of her haze. "Huh? Yeah, I'm fine. Just got a little dizzy, I guess. I'm fine now."
"Are you sure?" Tia asked, looking at her friend with concern.
"I'm totally fine," Keely reassured her, wiping her eyes. "Don't worry about me."
Tia looked Keely up and down, then slowly nodded. "Right... you're sure nothing's wrong?"
The very fact that you have to even ask that obviously tells me that you can't be bothered enough to tell when your best friend is going through some major issues.
"Nothing. Is wrong. Okay? Just got a little dizzy."
"...if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but you know that you can at least admit to me if something's wrong, right? I mean, you don't have to lie to me."
Keely put her palm to her forehead, rubbing her temple with her fingertips. "Yeah, Tia, I know. But it's no big deal. I'm not lying. And even if it was a big deal, it's not like you can help me with it."
"...You do realize you pretty much just told me exactly what's bothering you, right?"
"...okay, so? You're not going to go on a Via Rant, are you?"
"Look, I'm not telling you how to live your life. I know that you feel like you'd never meet another guy like him if you could live for a thousand years—"
Not exactly, Keely thought amusedly.
"—but don't think that just because he moved back to... where was it you said he went again?"
"North Dakota," Keely prompted.
"...Yeah, but don't think just cause he went there that you're not allowed to love anyone else."
Keely sighed. "But what if he came back?"
Tia stopped, trying to think of a kinder way to tell the poor girl in front of her that it wasn't going to happen.
She shook her head. "Doesn't matter," she choked out, after swallowing the lump in her throat. "I think it's just that... I tried to get with somebody too soon, and that just... I wasn't ready for it."
"You were... dumping water out of the boat, instead of fixing the leak," Tia slowly muttered. Keely nodded.
"So poetic all of a sudden, Tia?" she asked, a smile briefly flashing across her face. Tia just shrugged.
"Well. Call me anytime you need to talk, okay? Day or night. I know you have your family but sometimes you just can't tell them everything, I know."
"Thanks," Keely said, tugging at her sleeves.
"Mmhmm. But for now, I'm gonna go, so I'll see you... tomorrow, then, since you have to work on that project..."
"Sure thing," Keely said as Tia went in for a quick hug. She gave her a brief squeeze back, and in a blink, she was gone.
Keely slowly looked around. She was standing outside the auditorium. Voices were coming out from behind a door, slightly ajar. Keely crept in.
Oh, lo and behold, the Scene Queen herself, Liz Fox.
"What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?" she recited from the stage. Keely watched with a disapproving sneer. "Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much? Con–"
"No!" the director interrupted. "No!" Keely tried to lean forward and hear what he said as he walked up from his chair towards the stage, but was too far back to make anything out. She noticed that Liz had spotted her, and was trying to tell who was watching the rehearsal, but was then reprimanded for not paying attention to the director.
Keely smirked.
"Try it again!" the director announced as he went back to his chair.
Liz started reciting her lines again, but Keely, sick of the histrionics, quietly slipped out the door.
"I didn't even want to be in that stupid play anyway," Keely muttered to herself.
What was that story about the fox and the grapes again?
Well, whatever, at least I can take comfort knowing I would've been better than she's doing now.
She continued to amuse herself with thoughts of Liz crashing and burning onstage as she walked home, not really paying attention to the warm breeze blowing past her or the sun shining on her back.
Hope she enjoys soaring over me right now, because those makeshift wings of hers won't last much longer up there.
- - -
"Bonnie, would you mind helping me with dinner?" Mandy called from the kitchen.
"Ssssssure, Ma," Bonnie replied slowly as she stood up from the couch in the living room. Just as she set down her Philosophy textbook, Keely walked in slowly and put her sweater on the hook by the door. "Actually," Bonnie added, upon seeing her sister, "Keely said she wanted to help you out earlier today."
"Oh, great! Keely, get your butt in here!" Mandy called out, as Keely gave Bonnie a confused look.
"I did?" she asked her younger sister, raising an eyebrow.
"Look," Bonnie said, putting a hand to her sister's cheek and brushing her auburn hair out of her face, "you're gonna get in there and you're gonna talk to her about what's going on, okay? I don't care if you don't resolve anything, I just think you need to open up to someone before you explode. Got it?"
Keely pursed her lips and slowly nodded. "Alright. I'll do it."
"You can thank me later. I accept checks and all major credit cards." Bonnie smirked at her sister before cracking open her book again. Keely headed off to the kitchen.
"There you are, Honeycomb! Say, could you go ahead and cut up those onions for me and add them to the stew?"
"Mmhmm. Sure thing." Keely groaned internally at the prospect of cutting up onions.
Great. Now she's gonna think I'm crying. Why should I have to cut up the onions?
Or. Maybe it's better that way. Cause if I really do cry, I can blame it on the onions. Hmm...
Her train of thought was derailed by the unavoidable question, "How was your day?"
"Um, fine," Keely said passively, ignoring the fact that she had nearly passed out earlier. Her stomach growled slightly to remind her of the fact.
"Anything interesting happen? Nothing worth talking about?"
"Mm. Not so much, no," Keely said after a pause. "Just the usual stuff, really. Same stuff, different day."
Didn't Bonnie get me to do this just so I would talk to Mom about something?
"Well, guess that's good to hear then!" Mandy said as she searched the cabinets.
"Mmhmm," Keely replied. Well, that's what she wanted to do, though, not what I wanted to do. There's a difference.
"So why did you want to help out?" her mother asked.
Keely cringed. She couldn't very well admit that she didn't want to, so she searched blindly for an excuse. "Oh, you know, felt like I needed something to do, I guess."
Yeah, this isn't going to work. This was never going to work.
Minutes later, but not many, Bonnie snapped her book shut and leaned back, sinking into the couch. "Hate. Statistics," she muttered to herself.
"What's that?" Keely asked as she walked by, having just finished helping out her mother.
"Oh, I just– just thinking about how I– it... i-it-it's not important. So. Did you..."
A brief pause. "Did I...?"
"...talk to Mom at all? About what's bothering you, maybe?"
"Oh, that. I just... it's not that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do to me, it's just... Talking doesn't help. Just brings back too many painful memories."
"...huh."
"What?"
"Nothing, it's just that... nothing."
"It's obviously not nothing..."
"...Since when has talking not helped you?"
Keely gave her sister a disapproving stare before letting out a sarcastic laugh. "You're a riot. Look, I know you don't get it now, but it's just too soon."
"Five months is too soon? You can't be serious."
She heaved a deep sigh and shook her head. "That's okay. I didn't expect you to understand."
The sisters fell silent. Keely slowly walked to the staircase. Bonnie eventually piped up. "Have you even tried talking about it with anyone?"
The older sister paused, her left foot on the first step, and considered her answer.
Catching on yet? Or have I just taken a swan-dive off the deep end?