Chapter 5 #2
Zharia handed him a glass of iced tea and he took a long, grateful drink from it.
When Lincoln came up for air he was smiling again. "I was just going to say that people can be athletic, but dancing is sometimes entirely different... uh..."
"Sport?"
That came from Sam, but Lincoln gave his head a decisive shake. "No... Not that."
When no one came up with the right word, Lincoln continued. "I can't dance to save my life." He sighed. "It's the reason I didn't even think about going to prom. Two left feet."
Zharia gave him a glare. "We'll talk about that later."
Lincoln looked confused.
"Anyway," Zharia put a smile on her face, "in High School the Varsity and Junior Varsity cheer squads would practice in the same gym, but on opposite sides, so I knew what Lincoln looked like and I thought he was pretty amazing, but we didn't have time to talk and really, in High School, the difference between Varsity and Junior Varsity is like the great divide between upper and lower classmen. "
Seaton didn't argue with her, but the great divide for her was just that she didn't feel comfortable talking to other students.
She liked Missus March because her teacher made it easy for her to talk.
There were times, many many times when Seaton had wished that Missus March had been her mother or grandmother.
The little time she'd spent with her English teacher had drawn her out of her shell.
She'd still been painfully shy, but she'd been eager to share her thoughts with her teachers.
Speaking in front of the students who were closer to her age, she felt a kind of terror about speaking.
"And as a freshman," Zharia explained, "it was a learning curve, a very steep one when it came to cheer, including the traditions and 'inside jokes.'"
She used her fingers to make 'finger quotes.'
While she did it, Seaton felt like Zharia's expression had tightened.
Beside her, Lincoln shifted in his seat.
Seaton frowned a little, the bridge of her nose tightened as she felt the tension rising.
She didn't know that she'd reached out to touch Sam's hand until she felt his skin against hers.
Seaton turned to the side to look and see how he was feeling about the unexpected touch.
He didn't turn to look at her, but she saw the corner of his mouth tug up and his hand moved, his thumb curled up along the side of her hand, providing a physical connection without making a big deal about it.
She liked the feel of his warmth against her own skin.
Zharia's voice drew her attention back across the table.
"There was one event that we did together with the Varsity Squad in the first half of the year,” she explained. “It was a father/ daughter moment where the dads come out on the field, and the cheerleaders get up and sit on their shoulders. A kind of acrobatic thing and everyone takes pictures.”
Seaton noticed a shift then.
Zharia’s bright personality dimmed and before Seaton could say anything, Lincoln reached out and covered her hand with his.
"I got this."
Her eyes teared up and a breath caught in Seaton's lungs.
Seaton blinked, finding that her eyes were tearing up as well.
Lincoln cleared his throat and continued the story.
"Zharia's dad was deployed. He was stationed at Lackland back then and there they all were standing on the field and dads started coming down out of the stands to walk up to their daughters.
Even our head football coach had a daughter on the squad.
And Zharia was standing there, looking around at everyone. She had no idea what was coming."
Seaton saw his face turn to stone.
If she'd seen his face like that with no explanation, she would have thought he was calm and unaffected.
But his voice told the story that his face didn't.
Seaton heard barely concealed rage.
"They'd kept her out of things. They were waiting for everyone to assemble and do the trick and leave her standing there, alone.
"I'd seen Zharia on campus with her dad before, in his uniform. So when I saw her standing there, staring at all of these dad's walking up, I felt like there was a rock in my stomach. So, I ran up and leaned in, asking her if her dad was coming."
Zahria dragged in a breath and swallowed. "I told him that my dad was deployed for a year, at least, and that no one had told me about this."
Beside her, Sam's fist hit the top of the table. "Sadistic."
Lincoln nodded. "My mom told me never to call girls names, but in that moment-"
Zharia leaned her head on shoulder and Seaton realized that sometime during the retelling of the story, they'd moved closer together and now they were side by side.
"I knew what trick they were going to do- Trick meaning stunt." Lincoln explained. “I’d seen it done for the years that I’d been at the high school. So I told Zharia what it was and stepped in behind her."
"When the cue sounded, Lincoln lifted me up onto his shoulder and I was right there with everyone else. I wasn't left out of it. Those bitches didn't win."
While Lincoln had held back, with his words, Zharia didn't and Seaton nodded in agreement.
"Since that day, Lincoln was my hero. And when my dad heard about it, he called Lincoln and told him how thankful he was."
Lincoln was trying to wave off her words. He looked really uncomfortable at the praise that she was heaping on him.
"She's right, Lincoln." Seaton saw his head turn toward her. "What you did? That was awesome. That was superhero stuff."
He was blushing. She couldn't see the red or pink, because his tanned skin was hiding it, but his expression was telling. "Anyone would have done that."
"No," Seaton heard her voice and was a little shocked at how strong her tone was.
"Not everyone. There had to be at least a dozen other people in the two squads who knew what was going on and they said nothing.
I can tell you from experience that most people would have watched it happen.
Not just watch it happen, they would have recorded it and shared it with everyone knowing how mortifying it would be.
"Most people in this world are cruel. Mean. Nasty. The world needs more people like you." She turned her head and looked at Sam. "And more people like you, Sam."
She turned away as he was turning to look at her. She just couldn't meet his gaze at that moment for fear that she'd break down, and he'd learn way too much about her.
"There are too many people in this world who are used to other people walking all over them, as if they were cleaning the soles of their shoes on someone else's dignity."
The room fell into silence then and the longer it lasted, Seaton was more and more sure that she'd ruined the evening somehow.
She began to panic, trying to find a way to fix things and yet she had no idea how she would do that.
Seaton shot up to her feet, tearing her hand from Sam's.
Once she was on her feet, untethered by Sam's reassuring grip, she was lost.
She had no idea what she'd intended to do.
"I... I need to go to the bathroom." She started to turn away and stopped. "Sorry." She started to move again, but before she'd made it more than a step, Zharia was out of her chair.
Seaton turned to look at the other woman and saw the anguish in the other woman's eyes.
It was a turning point for Seaton.
She was used to feeling the emotions herself, but not finding that anguish in other people.
Her ex? He seemed to relish it when she felt like this. It was as if he was proud of it.
Her mother was different.
She said some of the same words. She punished her in different ways and her reaction? The more pain Seaton was in physically or emotionally, the colder her mother became.
But this was different.
She felt like Zharia had been through some of the same things she had.
They’d both been hurt by others.
The difference was that Zharia was stronger than she was and Seaton wanted to be stronger.
She wanted-
Zharia pulled her into a hug and Seaton hugged her right back.
Tears leaked out of her eyes and she hugged Zharia tighter.
"I'm so sorry."
Seaton opened her eyes. She heard the words and thought that she'd said them, but the voice had been wrong.
It wasn't hers.
Leaning back, she looked at Zharia and something happened that neither of them seemed to expect.
They laughed.
It was weak at first. There were hiccups and a snort or two and moments later they were giggling like crazy.
And when Seaton saw Sam and Lincoln walk back into the room, she and Zharia were near breathless with laughter.
They probably would have gone on laughing like that for a while if they didn't hear someone shouting outside on the street.
It took Seaton a moment to realize that what they were shouting was her name.
"Oh God."
The high she'd felt a moment before crashed down around her feet.
She knew that voice.
'How did he find me?'