Chapter 14

“Talk.”

I slide back in my seat guiltily, head bumping against the rough leather seat of my diner booth chair. I hate the way April is looking at me. She’s looking at me with such disappointment, such irritation.

I’ve never seen her look at anyone like this, never mind her best friend.

The second the team was off the bus, April held me back and then dragged me over to a booth far away from everyone else, throwing me in the seat and sitting across from me, her face a stony mask that I could barely decipher until she started to talk. I’m terrified of what she wants me to say, what she wants me to admit. Her family are more devout than mine and Emma’s combined, and whilst she doesn’t believe as strongly as they do, she still goes to church, she still wears a cross around her neck.

As far as I’m aware, she wants me to admit I’m a dirty, dirty sinner so she can throw me into hell herself.

“What do you want me to say, April?” I sigh quietly, eyeing the rest of the soccer team as we sit around the diner in our friendship groups. “I think you already know what’s going on.”

Emma is looking glum as her friends Savannah and Marie glance over here every so often, Savannah’s dark eyes narrowing into a glare every single time. I hope that from where she’s sitting, this conversation looks like a scolding and not a girl trying to get her best friend to admit she likes girls so she can toss her to the devil like she throws her bottle to the sidelines after a drinks break.

Oh God, I’m about to become a discarded water bottle.

“I want you to tell me why you didn’t think you could trust me with this?” April snaps back and my eyes shoot up almost as fast as my eyebrows do. “Why you couldn’t trust me or Faye with this?”

I open and close my mouth like a fish out of water, my brows still residing somewhere in my hairline as I look at my best friend with obvious astonishment. This is not the direction I thought this conversation would go in. April looks at me with obvious hurt as she leans across the table to take my hands in her own, squeezing them gently before looking me in the eyes. “You know me and Faye knew, right? We’re your best friends, we’re not stupid. We’ve seen the way you look at girls at parties, we saw you looking at Keira when Faye was showing the new cheer outfits. You looked at her just like the boys did; it was quite funny.”

I bite my lip anxiously as I spin the paper straw in my drink, April rambling on about everything I’ve done that has made her question me.

“Oh don’t get me started on how you exploded on Emma today.” April chuckles, pointing at me with a grin on her face. “That wasn’t just defending a teammate, you didn’t go off like that when she did the same thing to Freya last year. The way you laid into her so harshly we could hear it in the locker room was like you were defending yourself. That’s when my suspicions were confirmed, well before I caught you eye fvcking Mackenzie. That was the icing on the gay cake.”

“You’re not disgusted with me?” I say in a small voice, fear spiking in my heart as I look at my best friend. Despite the fact my cheeks are flushed from my embarrassment of her telling me she caught me looking at Mackenzie, I’m still very much terrified I’m about to lose my best friend. Even though she hasn’t outright said she isn’t, I still need the validation. I search her face for any small, nondescript sign that shows me that she’s hiding how not okay she is with this. “You don’t hate me for liking girls?”

“God no!” April laughs, looking at me with a horrified expression when she realises I was being serious. “No, Alex, of course I don’t hate you. You’re my best friend and I’ll love you until I die. I’ve seen you do things that have disgusted me, like really disgusted me. Like that time you ate mud in seventh grade, or the time…”

“April!” I shout, jumping across the table and slapping my hand over her face before she can say any more, my face flaming with embarrassment. Her green eyes are wide as she giggles behind my hand, pulling her face away and holding her hands up in surrender.

We stop talking briefly as the waitress comes over and gives us our drinks, both of us opting for lemonade with no ice, and a wedge of lemon. I take a large gulp of my lemonade, my throat dry and in desperate need of something to soothe it.

“Okay, sorry. I’m just saying. You liking girls is the least disgusting thing you’ve done. In fact, I’m glad you have good taste, Mackenzie is a total catch. I mean, if I wasn’t as straight as straight can get, I’d totally bang her.”

“Oh my God.” I choke on my drink and cough it out onto the table, attracting the attention of every single person in the restaurant. I see coach rolling her eyes as she looks on with an unimpressed look on her face, Emma’s group snickering at my obvious discomfort, and Mackenzie watching on with a small smile on her face. My face is no doubt flaming, my eyes looking at my best friend in complete and utter horror.

I mean, I know she caught me and Mackenzie having, well, I don’t know what to describe what happened but I know she saw it. That doesn’t outwardly state that I like Mackenzie, even though I know in my chest that I do. I also really didn’t need to hear April talk about having sex with my crush so damn casually.

God she could’ve timed what she said slightly better!

I try and calm my breathing, my lungs still trying to tell me that there is liquid inside them, glaring at April as she sits there in mock innocence, her devil horns peeking from her fiery red hair. How appropriate. “I don’t like Mackenzie.“

“Could’ve fooled me.” April looks down at her nails in boredom, my eyes looking across the room in a panicky fashion as I try to determine if anyone heard what she said. April is everything but discreet, and the volume of her voice is more often than not getting us into heaps of trouble. I can’t relax until I look around the room and see that nobody, and I mean nobody is glancing our way (or glancing more than usual in Savannah’s case.)

I look at Mackenzie’s table last, my body releasing a slow and heavy sigh of relief when I confirm with my eyes that she didn’t hear. She’s not looking over here, she’s not whispering amongst that table, Freya isn’t storming over here and screaming at me for having the same taste in girls as her, or for liking girls in general. I snap my eyes away when Mackenzie feels my gaze on her face and looks up from the table, her grey eyes locking with mine briefly before I break the contact.

I groan and drop my head on the table, gently banging my forehead against the polished wood. Why do I have to like Mackenzie? Why did I have to be so goddamn obvious about it? I look up with wide eyes and stare at my best friend in panic, her eyebrow raising and a smirk pulling at her face. She’s no doubt laughing at the torrent of emotional states I’m swinging through, but my heart lodges in my throat when I think of one teeny tiny gigantic detail.

If my airheaded best friend worked out that I like girls, who else has? “April, how obvious was I about liking girls?”

“Quite, to be completely honest.” April chuckles, taking a sip of her drink before her brows furrow together. “Well, you were quite obvious but that’s because I’ve been your best friend for years. I know you, Alex. You’re incapable of hiding anything from me.”

“Was I obvious enough for other people to catch on?” I panic, tears building behind my eyes. “Oh God, I don’t want to be outed! This is my secret to tell when I’m ready, I’m not mentally prepared to deal with the homophobic comments. Oh no, I can never look at a girl again in publi…”

“Alexandra Doherty!” April scolds, slapping my cheek hard enough for it to sting, but lightly enough for me to not hate her for it. I look at her with wide eyes, my own hand clutching my face whilst my mouth opens in shock. I can’t believe she just slapped me like I’m some sort of bítch to be slapped. If I wasn’t hyperventilating, I’d totally hit her. “Calm the fvck down! Nobody knows, except maybe Mackenzie if her gaydar is on point, which I’m pretty sure it is. She’s not going to say anything, she doesn’t come across as the kind of girl who outs her friends so just take a chill pill, wash it down with your lemonade and chill the fvck out. Worst case scenario is that somebody does say so, but with what evidence? You’ve been in a happy relationship with a boy for three years!”

I breathe out slowly through my mouth when I realise that she’s completely right. A lot of people might think that I’m overreacting, but coming out is a big deal, even now when a lot of people accept it. You still have families, like Emma’s, who preach that it’s sinful and disgusting and go out of their way to shun and make LGBT people feel worthless. I’m seventeen for gods sake I don’t want to be dealing with that when I have soccer and college to be thinking about.

I can’t help who I like, I can’t help who I am, and I don’t want to be hated for being who I am.

“Anyway…” April says when I haven’t spoken for a good few minutes. I can see food arriving to various tables, my tongue licking my lips at the thought of the meat feast pizza I ordered. “College soccer, girl! It’s everything I could’ve dreamed of and more!”

And just like that, my sexuality was dropped and soccer was the main focus of our lives once again. I don’t think April knows it, but the blasé way she accepted it and moved on makes me feel better than she could possibly imagine.

~•~

I was heading to the toilet when Coach Sanders told us to get onto the coach. I contemplated holding it and getting on with April, but I know for a fact I can’t hold my bladder for longer than half an hour. Coach Sanders catches sight of me by the door to the girls bathroom and nods, tapping her watch before turning around and ushering everyone out of the Italian restaurant we’ve been sat in for the past three hours.

You have five minutes or I’ll leave without you. Don’t think I won’t Doherty.

Whilst Coach Sanders considers me some sort of daughter figure to her, her conscience wouldn’t even twitch at the thought of leaving me here if it meant she got home in time for the Colts game on TV. I push open the doors to the bathroom and quickly go to the toilet, trusting that when Coach Sanders implies five minutes, she really means four, and I’ve already been here three and I haven’t even washed my hands.

I wash my hands quickly and opt to dry them on my hoodie instead of wasting time with the slow hand dryers that only ever seem to blow out pointlessly weak cold air. I pull open the door and collide with a familiar, vanilla smelling super model, her grey eyes watching me with concern. “Sorry! April sent me to come get you because Coach is planning on driving away within the next thirty seconds.”

Of course April is already up to no good, sending Mackenzie to come get me when she could have easily sent me a text telling me to hurry up. I smile and mutter it was fine under my breath as I follow Mackenzie out of the restaurant and towards the coach, Mr. Walker hanging out of the door and calling for us to hurry up because we want to go.

Mackenzie has already put her bag on the bus, and April told me she’d put mine away for me so I had time to go to the toilet, so there is no awkward maneouvring down the isle as we would have tried to avoid hitting people. I keep my eyes out for April and the seat she’s saving for me, wanting nothing more than to use her shoulder as a pillow and pass the hell out. Training today has taken a lot of energy out of me, and I’m going to need a nap now so I have the energy to stay up and finish my physics homework on doppler shift and the change in wavelength of a wave. I can’t stand physics but its due tomorrow and I have been putting it off for far too long.

I feel myself interally sulking when I remember that the only person I could’ve copied off is Clay, and he’s the last person I want to owe favours to, especially now. Clay probably wouldn’t let me copy anyway, he’s really good at physics and hates when people get credit for work he’s done himself. He’s such a git when it comes to group projects.

I catch sight of April and grin, my body ready to pass out on hers, when I see she’s sat with Gemma and grinning at me like a fool. I slow down and Mackenzie nearly bumps into my back, my eyes narrowing into a glare when I realise what she’s done, or at the very least what she’s trying to do. She’s trying to play cupid and I hate her for it. I look around discreetly as if I’m looking for a chair, but really I’m looking for my arch nemesis. I don’t know how April has managed it but Raven is sat besides Freya, both talking animatedly to one another, Freya’s face morphing into annoyance for a flickering moment when she looks at me to smiling again when she looks at Mackenzie behind me.

That girl has got is so bad that its almost cute. Except its not, its annoying, and my insides start to turn green just watching her pine after Mackenzie. I really don’t suit the colour green, my skin is too pale for it, and the colour green has always reminded me of garden peas and I hate them too.

I find the empty seat at the back of the bus and slide into it shaking my head when I realise that my bag is under the seat. April totally planned this. The intoxicating scent of vanilla and coconut follows me and settles into the space beside me as it clings to the body its emitting from. I used to really hate the smell of coconut, because I hate the flavour and the fruit (or nut or seed), but now that Mackenzie smells like coconut I find it growing on me again.

I look to my right to see her grey eyes already looking at me, an assortment of emotions written on her face. None that I can really deal with right now. I’m still a little bit annoyed with the way she got angry with me and then used Freya to píss me off during training, and now April is in my head, making very inappropriate comments about how great her hair looks and how she bets her body looks better under her clothes. I can feel my face growing hot just listening to the sound of April’s laugh in my head, so I turn my head and look out of the window, watching as the bus finally pulls out of the parking lot and begins the long winded, three hour trip back home.

I can feel Mackenzie’s body weight shuffling next to me, but I still don’t look her way. I can see April peering over the top of her seat about six rows ahead of me, a smug look on her face as she grins my way. The hateful glare I send her way has her frowning and dropping back into her seat, Mackenzie looking at the whole exchange with a quizzical look on her face. I can see her staring at me out of the corner of my eye, but I don’t want to look back. I don’t want to feed anything April is assuming, and I don’t want Mackenzie to think that every time she annoys me she can just blank me or run to Freya in an attempt to píss me off and that I’ll be fine with her afterwards.

I don’t like the game she’s playing with me and my feelings, even if she doesn’t know she’s doing it.

“What was that look about?” She asks me after I fail to glance at her for over fifteen minutes. I could tell she was itching to ask me, but I keep my eyes glued to my phone as I pretend to be really interested in my Instagram feed. I have a few snapchats from April and Clay, but I don’t want to open either of them and I’m running out of things to do other than sleep. I can’t even sleep because my head will bang about if I rest it on the window, and the only other direction is to go for Mackenzie’s shoulder and I’d really rather not. “Alex are you honestly going to ignore me this entire bus journey?”

“Are you going to snap at me every time you get annoyed?” I huff under my breath, not loud enough for her to hear. “Because two can play that game, Daniels.”

“Don’t ignore me.” Mackenzie grumbles, prodding me with her index finger roughly into my shoulder. “I can do this the whole bus trip. I will prod you for three hours and I will only stop if you talk…”

“Stop.” I snap and glare at her, slapping her hand away as the last tether of my frayed patience finally gives way. The smug look on her face as she gets me to look at her only riles me up further, her stupidly flawless smile pretty much begging for me to hit it. “Just, Stop Mackenzie.”

“Why are you so sour?” She pouts, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear, her fingers lingering briefly before I slap them away again. The heat from her fingertips has made the tip of my ear warm and fizzing with electricity, my heart beating slightly faster and out of time. “Stop slapping me!”

“Stop being moody with me then!” I hiss, shoving her hands away from me. The lid on my anger is about to come off, and unfortunately for her it’s about to be aimed at her. “You don’t get to fall out with me, wind me up by talking to Freya, and then decide you’re fine with me after you’ve eaten. I’m your friend Mackenzie and you don’t treat friends like this.”

My outburst seems to have hit a nerve as she sits stunned to silence beside me. I huff and turn away again, crossing my arms over my chest and letting my eyes stare out at the scenery. I’m a girl that stands up for herself, and I’m not going to be walked all over, even if Mackenzie makes my heart rate spike every time she touches me, or breathes near me or…

“Oh shut up Alex!” I mutter to myself as I hit my head back against the seat. Even when I’m trying to be mad, I can’t stop my cheeks from heating up at the thought of her.

I hear Mackenzie sigh and shuffle in her seat beside me for what seems like the thousandth time, and I watch in the reflection of the window as she runs a hand through her hair and glances as me, like she’s working up the courage to say something to me.

“Look, Alex.” She begins, startling me slightly when she places her hand on my thigh, flames licking at my skin hidden underneath my sports leggings. I spin in my seat and look at the apology written all over her face, knowing deep in my chest that I’m about to cave. “I’m sorry about what I did during the game, it was childish and immature of me. I know you were only defending me, but you have to understand that I’ve never had someone take my side like that.”

I watch as she exhales shakily, breaking eye contact as she looks at her hand that is still sat on my leg. “I’m not going to get into it, just know that I had some issues when it came to coming out with my parents, so I’ve never had that security net of them to fall back on. I knew you were being nice, and trust me I appreciate it; I really do. It was just in the moment when I thought you had an ulterior motive, and I knew that Freya would hit a nerve because you two don’t get on.”

“Why do you make it so difficult to dislike you.” I groan, letting my hand fall on hers and squeezing it gently. Don’t take this as being some sort of easy pushover because that’s far from the truth. I think listening to her actually open up to me, even if it was vague, means she’s not acting cocky like she usually does. She’s got a lot more baggage than she lets on, so I think the benefit of the doubt needs to be given. I watch as her smile comes back, albeit a small one. “Don’t think that you can keep doing this and keep getting away with it, because I only give one second chance. If you annoy me again expect to do a lot more grovelling.”

Mackenzie grins, and even in the dimming light her teeth are bright. She squeezes my thigh, her slender fingers covering a large surface area, before sliding her arm behind my shoulder and pulling me to her. “Now, as our first act of being friends you can use my shoulder as a pillow, I know you’re itching to nap.”

I laugh and let my head fall into the crook of her neck, my nose inhaling the strong scent of her perfume. Her arm tightens around my shoulder and I feel her own head rest against mine, a content sigh escaping her lips. She reaches up with her spare hand and flicks off the overhead light, and just like that I find myself once again comfortable in the presence of the enigma that is Mackenzie Daniels.