“Okay.” Heaven lets out this shaky, adorable breath and then she turns back to me with the cutest smile. “So we’re girlfriends.”
“Yeah.” I nod, biting the inside of my lip. “Definitely girlfriends.”
“Cool.” Her smile drops, but she turns and faces me. “I know things are weird with your mom, but we should probably tell her before homecoming. I hate dancing and I wouldn’t say I’m exactly the jealous type, but I think it would suck watching you dance with other people.”
“Wow, you must really like me. Homecoming?” I tease even though I’m pretty shocked. Homecoming together is a big deal.
“I mean, yeah. You’re my girlfriend.”
“I know.” I let out a deep breath and look down at my cast. It’s still so cute covered in Heaven’s doodle magic, but also so nasty. I can’t wait to get it off, the one thing thatfinally brought us together. My eyes start to burn when I realize what this all means. Heaven reaches over and takes my hand, and a few tears escape. I don’t even try to wipe them away.
“What’s wrong? Tell me,” she says.
“I’ve had a crush on you for, like, eight months.”
“You have?”
I nod, more tears running down my face. One splashes on top of the box of cookies on my lap. I take my hand back and wipe my cheeks.
“You can ask Bethany. She’s the only person I told. Oh, and my sister forced it out of me this morning because she thinks I look at you with mushy eyes, but I made her promise not to tell my mom.”
“Wow, okay.”
“I never thought you’d like me back, and now all I can think about is the moment you get sick of my mom trying to make us wearing matching dresses and do a monthlong Get Ready with Me leading up to the dance and then you dump me.”
“Say. Come here. Actually.” Heaven gets out of the car and comes around to my side. I open my door and slide out just enough for her to hug me. I don’t mean to sob on her shoulder, but I do.
Eventually she pulls back, and I feel like absolute crap because I know she’s stressed out because of me and I’m stressed out because of my mom. This stress transference needs to stop.
“What do you want to do?” she asks me.
“I want to be your girlfriend. I’ve wanted to ask you, but I was afraid to scare you away, and now I’m crying on you.” I laugh.
“It’s okay. How about this? We get lunch, and then we go back to my house and we do girlfriend things.” I burst out laughing at the way she waggles her eyebrows.
“Yeah, we can go do girlfriend stuff.” Heaven laughs and then she hugs me tighter. We drive to this place down the street called Vicky’s and have a really good lunch. The sandwich I order tastes amazing especially after I’m done crying.
We go back to Heaven’s after and do girlfriend stuff. By the time she drops me off back at home, I still don’t know what to do. I care about Heaven so much. My new girlfriend. My first girlfriend. I can’t let my mom or @Mom2SixTX mess it up.
36
Heaven
I’m almost done working on our little write-up of our interview with Ms.Lara. I’ve added the selfie we took with her in one corner and a picture I took of the shop in the other. We talked for a long time, but I’ve typed up the most relevant parts. Saylor and I both followed the shop on Instagram, and she followed us back. A recent follower that actually makes me happy and not nervous.
Saylor thinks if she doesn’t mention it to her mom, we will have maybe one whole day before her mom realizes we got a bingo. It’s been four hours since I dropped Saylor off, and she hasn’t texted me in a panic yet. We must still be in the clear.
I push back from my desk and look around my room. Saylor, my poor sweetie-boo, I wonder how long I could hide her up here, safe from her mom. As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I know it doesn’t sound right because it isn’t. Mrs.Ford isn’t a bad person, I don’t think, but that doesn’t change the fact that Saylor is miserable, and I don’t know what to do about it.
The sight of her crying is burned into my brain; the painin her voice, that hurt me a lot. And I have no idea how long we’re gonna be able to go on like this, not telling at least our friends. Something tells me that going for some personal record for keeping your relationship a secret is not a good idea.
I’m up and out of my desk chair before I can stop myself and head right to my parents down in the kitchen. I hear my mom giggling and almost rethink things.
“Um, is everyone decent down there?” I call down the stairs.
“Yes, honey.” Mom laughs louder.
“No, we’re eating all the cookies,” Dad adds. When I walk into the kitchen, I see he was only half joking about that. They’ve cut pieces out of four of the cookies and seem to be having a little tasting party of their own.