Ch. 69: Friday Falling
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Rachel~
Friday morning I thought Sophie was going to kill me. Seriously. The cold look in her eyes and the obvious sht-talking she was doing about me to her friends, I thought today had to be the day she would punch me. I was on the bus and listening to my music to try to clear that all from my mind. It was almost the weekend, I would be okay. Yes, Monday loomed ahead as the day Vance would return but my friends had a plan to help me and I hoped he would be gone early next week. Then after Winter Break I wouldn’t have him in my life.
I hoped.
Classes went by pretty uneventfully. I read more of the wolf book and found myself really curious about wolves. During lunch Ally and I hung out in the library. She told me more about her progress with Kyle. She was confident she was close to something but she couldn’t tell me anything. I wasn’t satisfied with that at first but had given in when she insisted her mom had it. I would let it go, for now. I followed the impulse to look up wolves on symbolism and dream websites but nothing that came up super related to me.
Ally caught me, “Wolves?” She asked.
I filled her in on my messed up sleeping pattern lately - nightmare with birds, dream with wolves.
She opened her mouth to say something then closed it. Then after a moment just said, “Odd.”
Just then Joey walked in, looking winded. I hadn’t seen him for some time.
“Ally, can we talk?” he asked, sweat on his brow.
“Joey - I,” she breathed in, “I think we said everything that had to be said,” she looked away and sank in her seat like she could disappear.
He just stood there and insisted, “Please, Ally.”
He glanced back and forth between us but I just threw up my hands. Ally didn’t look at me to give me any indication of what she wanted, so I pushed my seat out and walked away a bit to give them some privacy.
I played around on my phone, looking at other sites about wolf symbolism and such and got lost in a bit of a rabbit hole until I saw Ally storm out. Joey’s head rested on his arms, splayed over the table in defeat.
I raced after Ally.
“Ally!” I called after her.
She slowed down and waited for me as we walked towards the back of the school. It seemed like every time we wanted to have a serious conversation of some kind, we found ourselves walking to the student parking lot to sit at the top of the stairs that looked over the ocean.
I didn’t say anything, giving her space.
About halfway there she sighed and said, “He’s nice and everything, really. It just didn’t feel right anymore. And I can’t just go on leading someone on like that, right?”
I murmured my agreement. We continued walking in silence until we reached the top of the stairs heading down to the track and we sank down to sit.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked her after a moment.
“I don’t know. I think I should. But it’s hard to express. Hard to find the right words,” she said. “Something happened in my family recently, and it’s… given me a new perspective on things. My life. Lives of others. I just know that Joey and I aren’t meant to be, I just don’t care for him like I should, and I… I don’t think he was with me for the right reasons either. It’s hard to describe.”
She looked out at the ocean and I said, “I can understand that. Feelings change. People grow.”
She nodded, still looking out at the ocean.
“This might be too soon,” I started, “but I - when you told me about him the first time, I really thought you were going to tell me that it was Simon.”
Ally chuckled, “He’s great. He really is. But I just don’t feel that way about him. I do worry now though that he has feelings for me. I’ve been trying to keep my distance from him this week because of that.”
She pondered everything some more before asking me, “Does Sean ever make you feel that way? What I was just talking about?”
I looked back, confused.
“You never talk about Jake anymore, but I always thought-”
“Jake?” I asked her.
Now it looked like it was her turn to be confused.
“Yeah - Jake… Big tall guy, hangs out with an even taller guy and one other in-between guy,” she said joking like I was in on it.
I just looked at her even more confused. Her face went into shock then she grabbed my shoulder, with another hand on her necklace, and spaced out for a second before closing her eyes.
I pulled back a bit from the strangeness but not out of her grasp. Was this Joey stuff really making her lose her mind that much? And how did I know that name? I think someone else had said it recently.
I searched the backlog of my memory and couldn’t place it.
Ally opened her eyes suddenly and let me go.
“Are you okay, Ally?” I asked her, she looked like she was going to be sick.
The bell rang and I helped her stand as she nodded and tried to tell me she was fine. She started back towards the school and I stood there for a second before my ankle gave way and I found myself tumbling down the concrete stairs.
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