I don’t have a game tonight, which means extra time with my best friend. We’re at her house today for the first time in a long time. She has a better TV. Plus, her dad will be out late at the bars like he is every Friday night, so we have the place all to ourselves.
Her house is a similar size to mine but severely lacks personality on the inside. The main living area is closed-concept, with a white wall between the kitchen and family room. Normally, beer bottles litter the countertops, but she must’ve done some serious cleaning before I came over tonight. The only photos of her mother are hidden in her nightstand drawer, alongside several pictures of us. It pains me that Gracie can’tproudly display them, worried sick that her dad will smash the frames in one of his drunken stupors, as he’s done in the past.
Our favorite scene of the entire movie starts—the infamous Ellis negotiations. I start on my practiced impressions. I flash every tooth in my mouth.
“Hans,bubby,” I drag out with flair, “I’m your white knight.”
She can’t stop giggling, her eyes rolling back.
“Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs,” she replies in the worst mafioso accent I’ve ever heard. She sounds like a child playing Vito in a school production ofThe Godfather Junior.
She’s terrible at accents. For some reason though, when she’s quotingDie Hard, Gracie never stutters on any of her sounds. She calls it “The Die Hard Exception,” and it’s something we can’t explain. But if quoting the cast makes her less anxious, it’s well worth the hundred views.
It’s been over a year since I broke it off with Tori, and we only have a few weeks of school left as juniors. Gracie rides to school with me every day (against her better judgment), and we eat lunch together a few times a week when she’s not studying in the library with Ben.
It turns out that Ben is, in fact, a very cool guy and someone I now call a friend. I’m happy he was there for her when I was being an idiot, and it’s been a blast hanging out, the three of us. He’ll often call his girlfriend and put her on speaker when we’re all together. I love it when he does, because it almost feels like a double date.
I still haven’t confessed my feelings to Gracie, but the urge to tell her the truth grows stronger every single second.
I want to tell her she’s beautiful, instead of pretty.
I want to trade our hugs for kisses.
I want to ask my best friend to be my girlfriend.
But the words sit heavy on my tongue. Things are so good between us right now… I don’t want to mess anything up with her ever again.
We’re cuddled close on the couch, and she puts her head on my shoulder. Gracie could be in my lap, and I’d still somehow never feel close enough. Maybe if my hand was glued to her hand… I instantly shudder. My “creepy to cutesy” meter may need some recalibrating.
She nudges her toes behind my calves. I grab her feet, which are always cold, and swing them over into my lap so she’s facing me. I start warming up her feet with my hands, rubbing them up and down. It’s a reflexive move, one we’ve been doing since we were younger. My hands start to rub her ankle, and she flinches. A flicker of pain flashes in her eyes, and I immediately stop touching her.
“Shit, Gracie. Sorry. I thought I was being gentle, but I must’ve pressed too hard. Did I hurt you?”
She gives me a strained smile. If it’s meant to be reassuring, it has the opposite effect. “No, no. Not your fault. My ankle was sore from something earlier this week.”
I squint, searching her face for signs of the truth. An ankle injury doesn’t make sense. Gracie didn’t mention anything about hurting her ankle until now. She doesn’t play any sports. Her house is a ranch, so there’s no chance of twisting an ankle on a staircase.
“How did you injure it?”
“It was nothing, just a minor accident. No b-big d-deal,” she says quietly, avoiding eye contact.
Something’s not right.
“You’re biting your cheek, Gracie. And you’re stuttering.” A horrible feeling soaks into my skin. “Are you…are youlyingto me?”
Her face turns red, and my stomach bottoms out. With shaky hands, I reach for the remote control and pause the movie.
“You told me it was better. You said he doesn’t do that anymore.”
“I know, and he hasn’t d-done anything physically in a while. He still, um, yells at me, b-but this”—she points to her ankle—“was a one-off.”
I feel like I’m going to be sick. “What happened? No lies. Please don’t lie to me.”
Her words come out quickly and almost all at once. “D-Don’t make this a b-bigger d-deal than it is, please. He lost money at the casino this past weekend and d-drank more than usual. He’s b-been, um, b-better over the past few months, so I guess I just wasn’t expecting it. He was already pretty upset when he came home. B-But then, when he saw I d-didn’t clean my d-dishes from d-dinner, he kind of roughly pushed me t-to my room, and I wasn’t in control of my b-body…and, and I b-banged my ankle on the d-door frame.”
“Is this why you didn’t want to hang out with me on Sunday?” My voice trembles with every word. “You were, what? Sitting at home resting a swollen ankle?”
All she does is silently nod.
