Chapter 47
CHAPTER 47
DOWN BAD BY TAYLOR SWIFT
Brianne Archer:
It’s the last week of March. And I have a new… Friend? Person? Life Coach? I don’t even know what to consider Leah Ashley. At first she was a team captain. An acquaintance to say the least. We hung out in groups. I would go out with her and the team. I never got close with her because she’s not the most approachable person. According to Bellamy and Kamryn, Leah used to be a lot different but the past year and half she changed a lot. Well a year and a half ago she broke up with my brother… I was fine with the word friend, but being excessively close with her was not on my bingo card.
It’s only weird if I make it that way. The past two weeks Leah has barely left me alone which has driven me to absolute insanity. I don’t need it. I’m fine. Am I sad? Yeah. Am I dealing with it? In my own way, yes. She’s pushing me. In a way that I don’t like. In a way that’s starting to grind on me. She’s at my front door right now. Waiting downstairs. But there’s a knock on my bedroom door.
“B…” It’s Bellamy’s voice, my heart jumps.
I try to seem normal, not wanting him to notice any discrepancies with how I’ve been before. Today I don’t feel like trying at all. I don’t feel like doing anything except laying in bed. Leah would drag me from my mattress by my hair if I told her no. The past two weeks Bellamy and I have been more normal than ever. We’ve talked normally but inside it doesn’t feel normal. There’s a lot of unresolved feelings I haven’t dealt with but I will. Once I’m sure he’s not mad at me, I’ll figure out how to deal with that. Until then, I have to keep pretending.
“What’s up?” I smile at my brother and he looks wary.
“What’s going on with you and Leah?” he asks, leaning against my door frame.
“I kind of told you before… That’s why I asked you and Kam about her last week. No matter anything, she’s my cheer captain and she’s going to be my cheer coach next year,” I shrug.
Now that Leah is going to get her masters at the program here at SPU they asked her to coach alongside our main cheer instructor. She agreed and will be moving up next football season.
“I’m captain of my team, I don’t hang out with random people on the team constantly. What’s going on?” he asks and I instantly get wary.
“Well we’re friends. Does it bother you? I mean since it’s her, does it bother you? I’m sorry I didn’t think about that, I mean I did, but I didn’t think it would bother you because you and Kam have cleared things up with her so—”
“Me and Ryn don’t have an issue with Leah no. We’re… civil and friendly,” he shrugs. “That doesn't explain this new… thing. Whatever it is. When you asked I didn’t think it was because you two were best friends.” He refers to the past two weeks. I shake my head.
“She’s just helping me prepare for next season. Keeping me on track. It’s fine. As long as you’re fine with it,” I tell him, keeping my voice light. I nod.
“Of course, I’m fine with it. I just want to make sure that you’re okay,” he tells me, letting me walk out of my door past him.
“All good.” I nod again. I press myself into him for a side hug which is not as personal as we used to be. Two weeks ago Bell got drafted to the NFL. Since then he’s been around me a lot more. Like he’s… watching me in a way. I press a close-lipped smile toward him, and he angles himself to me.
“B…” he calls out and I turn before I walk down the stairs.
“What’s up?” I ask, wanting to leave more than anything.
The tension is high. It’s felt like this on my side for the past month, like there’s too much that needs to be said but I can’t break it in fear of messing up what progress we’ve made. The not-so-normal normalcy is killing me more than I thought it would.
“Are you doing okay?” he asks softly and my chest feels like it was just bombed and shredded.
I stare at my brother and contemplate breaking down right here and now, forgetting Leah altogether. But deterring him from his happiness… His success at the end of this semester. That thought deters me altogether. I can’t dive as deep into the real hurt I’ve been feeling anyway. Not unless I want to disappoint him even further.
“Yeah. Really good,” I lie and smile again.
He looks at me and I can’t read his expression. But the closest thing I can compare it to would be disappointment. I turn before I can question it anymore. Leah looks uninterested as she waits for me by the front door.
“You’re running late today,” she chirps.
“You’re in a bitchy mood today,” I mutter and she sighs.
I was scared of Leah. Now she’s grown into an annoyance like a pimple that keeps coming back. Even if I do use the term friend, I use it lightly.
“Your sister is kind of an asshole,” she tells Bellamy as we start to walk out of the door.
“Not to me,” he smiles and Leah rolls her eyes and shuts the door.
“You should be more of an asshole to your brother,” she tells me.
“I’m not taking advice from you about my brother. Didn’t end well for you,” I joke and she shoots me a side glare.
She’s wearing her normal workout set. Always a shade of pink or a light color. I’m wearing all black today. A long-sleeve gym shirt with black biker shorts. Leah and I don’t talk as I walk with her, my two long braids swinging on my back as we make it to the elevator then eventually her Camry. We get in and I cross my arms over my chest.
“Are you ready to talk today?” she asks when we get in the car.
“I’m not talking to you. I have nothing to talk about,” I tell her.
“Nothing to get off of your chest?” she asks and I shake my head.
“Nothing. I’m doing great,” I lie.
I have been banned from going to bars. I was told by Leah. She also told my brother. Saying if I went to a single bar with my fake ID that I would be kicked from the cheer team next year. So I’ve spent all of my time in my apartment, the dance studio, or with the bright and sunny Leah Ashley.
“Have you called your therapist?” she asks.
“Have you learned to mind your own business? Oh wait…” I pretend to realize that she’s once again prying and she clenches her jaw.
“Brat,” she fights.
“Control freak.” I urge.
“I’m trying to help you,” she fights back.
“And I’m trying to not hate you the more you force me to go to the gym with you and spend time outside of my apartment. I have perfect grades. I go to dance classes. What more do you want?” I ask.
“I want you to talk to me about Parker Thompson. About Bellamy… Dakota?” she asks.
“I’d rather cosplay a speed bump,” I tell her.
“You’re dramatic,” she sighs.
“Good,” I smile and she just keeps driving.
There’s nothing to talk about. I’m working through everything on my own. I should call my therapist. But I haven’t made the choice if I want to start fresh or reconnect with Madeline. I don’t want to make that decision yet either. Dakota doesn’t want to talk to me. I know that even without talking to him. I’ve been making sure he’s okay… Through Leah. Through anyone who will talk to me about him. But the thought of reaching out to him and being rejected, it’s not going to be good for my already rocky mental state.
This is the most normal I’ve felt around Bellamy since January despite the fact that I feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time. And as for Parker I have done everything in my power to forget about his existence because the alternative hurts too bad. I tell myself I don’t want him. I tell myself I don’t care and I don’t feel because it’s easier than actually feeling and caring. Bellamy would never be okay with it. Risking Bellamy for Parker… The pain of having to even think those words is too much and it burns. I shove the thought out of my head before I break down.
“You’re doing ankle weights today. And you need a weighted belt for lifting. I don't want to hear your arguments,” she tells me. I have every urge to shove my middle finger at her.
“Have you been eating?” she asks.
“Have you been eating?” I mimic her words and she sighs.
“Answer me,” she urges.
“Yes. I have been eating two full meals a day and small stuff for breakfast,” I tell her, not fighting anymore.
I don’t get it. Her fixing and oddly mothering mentality. It doesn’t seem like Leah. I’ve never known her to be a caretaker, but that’s exactly what this is. I’m not going to ask her either because she’ll most likely give me a smart response. Leah brings me to the campus gym and I reluctantly follow her in. Starting with cardio, she makes me wear the ankle weights when I bring my run to a walk. I hate every damn second of it.
We stretch too. She forces me into a pilates style workout which I despise. I do enough during dance, I don’t need more but she doesn’t let up. I want to scream. I do what she says, continuing to work and follow her lead, my body tiring, my mind breaking down the more I start to sweat. It’s hard to keep up a facade this way. It’s hard to not act like I always do when I get clouded like this. But I don’t really have to act any way around Leah because despite how I act, she can very well see through it which pisses me off more. I sit up on my mat, my knees pressing into the soft material. I open my mouth to talk but my eyes catch on him for the first time since the championship game in January.
Parker.
His hair is long. Long enough to be pulled back, because it is right now. The messy bun he wears is a look I’ve never been a fan of, but seemingly love on him. His eyes hit me. Like a truck. Like a freight train. And just like gravity, I’m drawn to him. It all crashes in. The feeling. The hurt. The overwhelming love I have deep rooted in my chest for him. I can’t believe it’s been this long without even looking at someone I loved. I love… I… I don’t even know. His eyes drift.
“Hey Leah…” he mumbles then looks back toward me. “Hi, Brianne.” He speaks my name and my entire body shifts, ignites, and melts. I want to scream. I’m choked up, incapable of doing anything but stare.
“Hi, Parker,” Leah says and I feel like I did when I first met him when I could barely speak around without feeling like a squeaky toy.
“Hi,” I try to speak above a whisper, but my voice feels like a ghost in my body.
“How are you?” he asks me. Not Leah. He’s looking directly at me.
“I.. I’m..”
“She’s good,” Leah speaks for me and gives me a look.
A knowing look. Like she meant for this to happen and I don’t look at her any longer, wanting to see him.
“I saw a flier for a dance recital… Are you in that?” he asks me and my lips part.
“It’s my final. My two performances,” I tell him.
“Good luck. I wish I could be there,” he tells me and I nod and watch him start to walk away. My heart and my mouth speak before I can even think through my words.
“Why can’t you come?” I ask.
“Do you want me to?” He turns over his shoulder. I hesitate, my lip shaking. He nods. “Text me. If you want me to… You can always text me. It was good seeing you. Bye Leah.”
He finally turns his attention to her again and then he leaves, cool, casual and calm. I feel my lip shake again and I watch where he was, my mind reeling, my heart pattering and sputtering. Hurt laces its way throughout all of me and I want to scream. I turn to Leah with wet eyes and she raises her eyebrows.
“You knew he would be here,” I accuse.
“I had a hint…” she tells me, continuing her workout and I shove her so she can’t get up. She plops down right next to me and glares.
“I’m not doing this anymore. Fuck this,” I tell her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, challenging me.
“Why do you care? Why are you doing this?” I fight, my voice tight and angry but quiet since we’re in public.
“Because I was in the same position a year and a half ago. I made a mistake. I ruined something, and I made your brother hate me and it changed me. A lot of me. I didn’t have someone to pick me up off the floor. I just made an idiot of myself. I’m not letting you do that. Talk about it. Talk to me Bri,” she urges.
“So you can’t date my brother and annoy the shit out of him so you choose me instead?” I ask.
“Your insults don't hurt me,” she promises and I feel my tears pool over finally, crying for the first time in weeks.
“Is this what you wanted? For me to cry, for me to be hurt and sad again?” I ask her.
“Again? You’ve been sad and hurt, you just harbor it and it’s going to tear you up. Say something,” she fights.
“We’re not friends,” I fight her.
“I’m the closest thing to a friend you have right now until you grow up and talk to Dakota.”
She shoves my mistakes in my face again and I groan, wiping my eyes.
“This is embarrassing,” I fight, thankful the gym is close to empty right now.
“Love is embarrassing. We either finish our workout which I planned circuits for the rest of our time… Or we go and get food and you talk to me.”
She gives me an option and I press my lips together. Do I torture my body or my mind… The more I ignore my mind the more torturous it will be. I didn’t think it would be this bad until I saw Parker in person for the first time.
“Why did I have to see him for you to get me to this point?” I ask her.
“Because I can’t have you breaking down when you see him at practice for the first time. I can’t have you breaking down over a boy,” she tells me and I bite my tongue.
“I’m not working out anymore,” I inform her.
“So you’ll talk?” she asks.
“Yes, I’ll talk, Leah,” I tell her reluctantly.
* * *
I sit in Leah’s car, overlooking the ocean, just like I had when I was with Parker. Those were my stipulations, that we came here. And that I got to pick out where we ate. I chose McDonald’s. Leah is eating directly next to me, staring at me as I eat.
“Can I get a chicken nugget down before you force me to share my deepest darkest secrets please?” I ask her.
She rolls her eyes and continues eating just like I do for a few minutes.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. You know how I feel. I need to talk to my therapist, but I haven’t come to terms with that yet. I can’t seem to get on the right page with my brother. I don’t know how to even try besides pretending I’m happy and fine but I’m starting to feel like he can see through that and he’s going to push away the second he realizes half of the reason I’m feeling this way is because I’m quite literally helpless when it comes to how I feel about Parker. Because I’ve tried to tell myself I don’t care. That I don’t love him. That I don’t feel the way I do and seeing him today solidified to me that I’m a horrible liar even to myself. You know all of this,” I tell her.
“What I want to know is why you feel like you have to harbor all of this and keep it on your shoulders,” she talks to me in the kindest tone I’ve heard from her.
“Because why would I put it on anyone else?” I ask.
“Someone like your brother?” she asks.
“He’s moved on from most of his pain. His grief. His sadness. He moves on quickly and I can’t bring him back on his own journey for my benefit,” I tell him.
“I don’t think you give your brother enough credit for his emotional capacity. How much he cares. And I also don’t think you’re really telling me everything,” she explains. “I didn’t know about your parents until months and months into dating your brother. And he brushed past it so quickly that I didn’t even realize he had actually mentioned it.”
“Because Bellamy misses them and he does it infrequently. It’s an afterthought. He sees something and thinks… Awe, I miss Mom,” I explain.
“And you?” she asks.
“And me, when I dance I imagine my mom watching and crying and it crushes me. When I look at the ocean I break when I know I’ll never be able to sit in the sand with my dad. I could shatter at the thought of someone being my forever person and never getting to bring them around my mom and dad. And it breaks me apart even more that the one person I have loved. The one person I really could have imagined forever with was punched by my brother, the only person whose approval means anything to me. And that was my fault. I never should have lied to him, but that doesn’t change how I feel. I miss my parents. I will never be able to fill that hole but I can’t bring that to Bellamy,” I tell her.
“You know Bellamy knows how you feel. Whatever you think he doesn’t know he does,” she tells me.
“He didn’t know about Parker.” I raise my eyebrows.
“Yeah, I don’t know how. I noticed at your birthday that you wanted him and he wanted you,” she mutters.
“I think you choosing for Bellamy what he can and can’t handle isn’t fair. He’s strong and smart and annoyingly perfect most times. He makes mistakes. He made a mistake doing what he did with Parker. I’m sure if you just talked to him then—”
“I can’t because that could potentially make it worse,” I tell her.
“It’s already bad….” she informs me like I didn’t know.
“It could always be worse. And I don’t need that,” I tell her.
“Just think about it. Next time he comes to you, think about telling him. Talking to him…” She shrugs.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell her. I make a split decision, realizing in these past few moments just how good this has felt.
“This year… After your brother, after all the drama with Kamryn that I had started. My parents fell into some really hard times and I had to pick up a job at The Bulldog. After losing your brother, even saying it sounds dramatic. I’m over it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt and that it didn’t change me. I was dumb, frivolous and tried to do anything to gain control. All of this. All of the hard shit I’ve had to deal with, it made me grow up. And as silly as it sounds, I was lucky to have all of that happen to me as an adult. I can’t even imagine going through heartbreak or severe loss when you did Baby. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit for how much you’ve survived…” Leah talks with her heart and I look at her quizzically.
“Did you just compliment me?” I ask her.
“I’m serious, don’t be a bitch.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
“I’m sorry about your parents… But at least you have a hot hockey player that wants you, that’s a perk, isn’t it?” I joke and she scoffs.
“Xander is the bane of my existence,” she mumbles.
“But?” I ask, waiting for the rest.
“But nothing. There’s… History there,” she hesitates when she says the word.
“History? Like before SPU history?” I ask.
“History that I’ve sworn myself and Xander to secrecy on so don’t ask. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Even if he’s the bane of my existence, his persistence is annoyingly cute in a way, and I want to open up to him again. Maybe,” she admits and I watch her cheeks get red, almost like she’s embarrassed by her words.
I don’t push her on it, even though she might have pushed me to spill if the roles were reversed. That’s why our weird duo works: Me and Leah aren’t the same, but I’m really thankful for that right now. Even thinking about that is shocking to me.
I sit in silence, shuffling the ice around in my cup. I take a deep breath and sigh it out, looking over the ocean.
“I think I will talk to my therapist. Today I will send her a message,” I tell Leah.
“Good… I’m proud of you," she tells me and I scrunch my nose.
“Ew, don’t be weird,” I tell her.
“I’m not being weird,” she fights back.
“Yes you are, you’re being nice which is weird,” I inform her and she smirks.
“You love me.” I feel ounces of heat seep back into my chest.
“Yeah, in a way I do. But not when you force me to go to the gym,” I tell her.
“How else would I have gotten you to have a breakdown?” she asks.
“How do you not have a breakdown every day in that stinky ass building?” I laugh and she does too besides me.
I haven’t laughed in months…. Not actually. But I am now and it feels so freeing.