Chapter Seven
Nola
“So what I’m hearing is I’ll have two beds to pick between when I come to Miami?” Olive wiggled her brows. She was the only person in my family I was willing to let see my face, let alone speak to since I’d found out I was leaving Chicago.
No matter how many times my mom, dad, Clay, Aunt Rashida, or Aunt Allison called me, I didn’t have any ounce of me ready to speak to them.
How many of them had known? Was no one going to give me a hint that the place I’d been making my home for the last four years all of a sudden went to my mother?
Everything I’d worked for had gone up in smoke, and the only person who could feel a semblance of what I did was the sister half my age, furious she’d be starting high school in a new city.
“I’m going to need some good stories to help me make new friends next year.” Olive huffed, snapping me out of my own spiral to actually listen to my sister.
“I’m sorry, Olly. I know this sucks more for you.”
My sister and I both got our lack of vulnerability from Olivia Young. Our faces were constructed of solid marble, and we only broke around the people who could read our signs. As much as I wanted an apology from my mom, I knew she’d just force me into accepting her betrayal.
She’d tell me that I was too sensitive, that I needed to let things roll off my shoulder better, or that I should’ve been a better player. That if I was truly the best at what I do, then the Violets wouldn’t have let me go for her. Chalk it up to the game, this isn’t the end, blah, blah, blah.
For once I was going to make her sweat it out. She would call and I wouldn’t answer. This plan would work for Olivia and Clay, but avoiding Rashida and Allison would be harder considering I was playing for their team now.
I was the opposite of dramatic, but the thought of doing anything else that wasn’t hiding from the world was tough. So instead, I focused on my sister.
“Have you told your friends yet?”
“No. I’m still in the denial phase.” My sister had always talked like a middle-aged woman.
“Maybe it’ll be easier after mom leaves?
You’ll get more time to breathe without her.
You and Clay can do a goodbye tour or something.
” I tried to make sure my voice didn’t quiver.
The idea of Thanksgiving being the last time I was in the home I did the most growing up in, killed me.
I had always adapted, but Olive didn’t have as much experience starting over. Being flexible.
“Yeah, but then I’ll be sad mom isn’t here to do a goodbye with us.”
I was getting bad at not being negative so I changed the subject. “How was Valentine’s Day at school?”
“Everyone loved their orders. Some guys tried to give me their own homemade chocolate chip cookies…” She scrunched her face up.
“Not good?”
“They were thin and crispy! I just feel like if you‘re trying to woo me, you should know I love my cookies—”
“Soft and under-baked in the middle.” I finished for her.
“Exactly.”
“Any girls?” I instigated very obviously.
My sister stuttered, and I would bet her wheels were turning on how to try to divert my attention elsewhere. Her background revealed the front door opening, and my mom and Clay stepping through.
“Well, that’s my time to go.”
“Is that Nola?” I heard on the other side.
“Bye, Olly. Be good.” And then I hung up in the middle of Olive responding.
I didn’t know when I’d be ready to speak to Olivia. The thought of starting over was hard, and dragging my feet was only going to make this process worse.
But maybe, for once, I deserved to wallow.