Off Sides (Off #1)(41)

Emily lets out a very unladylike snort and immediately slaps her hand over her mouth because she can’t believe she just did that. She giggles at herself which causes my eyebrows to rise. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Emily giggle before.

Removing her hand from her mouth, she says with a grin, “In any order you want.”

“Well, when I first met Danny it was her wit that got my attention. In fact, I actually heard her before I saw her...and I was captivated by her intelligence. But when I looked up, I was immediately attracted to her. I thought she was so beautiful.”

“But her hair is purple and she has piercings in her face?”

There is the judgmental tone again but I have patience with her. “Why does that matter, Emily? Really, in the grand scheme of things...so what?”

Emily shrugs her shoulders. “Because it’s weird I guess. No one we know looks like that.”

“Well, then I’d say maybe you need to expand your horizons a bit.”

I can see the wheels turning in her head as she ponders that statement. “What else?” she demands.

“She’s really smart and talented. She was a music major at Julliard but had to drop out when her mother got cancer. She plays the violin and she’s amazingly good. I’m trying to get her to go back.”

“What else?” she whispers.

“She’s kind and generous. She volunteers a few times a week at a homeless shelter. I’ve gone there to help her a few times and met some really interesting people.”

Emily looks at me in horror over the prospect of working in a homeless shelter. Okay, so I probably will never get Emily to explore that side of her humanitarianism but it was worth a shot.

She’s silent for a while, again twisting that ring of hers. She looks anxious.

“Those are all really good reasons to love someone,” she whispers.

“Emily, they’re the best reasons to love someone. Not because of some silly notions we have about class or stations in life.”

Emily stands up and comes to sit beside me on my bed. She turns to look at me and her face is awash with misery.

"Danny didn’t breakup with you voluntarily," she whispered. "Mother threatened you to get her to do it."

“Son of a bitch,” I exclaim loudly. I had suspected this was the case, but hearing it out loud pisses me off. Emily flinches from the anger in my voice, but it doesn’t scare her off for which I’m glad. She continues on.

“Mother went to see her a few weeks ago and asked me to go along. I admit...I was curious to see this girl that was causing so much trouble in our household. And I’m sorry. I looked at her and I just didn’t understand what you saw in her. But I get it now.”

I exhale heavily, vindicated to know the truth at last. But I need more details and my mother is not going to give them to me.

Tears are swimming in Emily’s eyes and while I'm angry at her, I have to be thankful she brought this to me. I grab her in a quick hug. "Thanks, Em. That means the world that you told me the truth."

She nods her head and squeezes me back. “What else can I do to help?”

"Just tell me everything that Mother said to Danny so I can try to make this right with her and beg forgiveness of my family’s stupidity.”

“That’s a whole lot of stupid,” Emily quips and I nod in agreement.





CHAPTER 18


Danny



It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen Ryan and I am miserable. I have to practically slap myself at least twenty times a day so I don’t call him. Depression seems to be my mood of choice and its worrying Paula to death. She thinks I ought to confess everything to Ryan and beg him to take me back.

God, I so want to do that but I can’t risk Ryan’s mother retaliating against him. This is so f*cked up.

Lying on my bed now, I stare over at the violin Ryan gave me. I laid it on my desk the day we broke up and I haven’t picked it up since. I have no desire to and I’m worried that my love of music has been irrevocably broken.

The memory of the last time I played—for Ryan—is bitterly painful to me. The thoughtfulness of his gesture in getting me a violin to the look of rapture on his face when I had played for him were some of the best moments of my life and I’m pissed as hell that those are gone. Those memories are tainted now by the grief over what I’ve lost.

Without Ryan in my life, my desire to make music is non-existent. It’s just hard for me to imagine picking the violin back up again.

***

I suppose I’ve done something to warrant the evil forces of nature targeting me with their cruel games. For the past week, Angeline and her friends have been coming to Sally’s with nothing more than the sole purpose of torturing me.

As I wait on them, I hear crude snippets of conversation meant to hurt or humiliate me. I try to let it go in one ear and out the other, but it’s not easy.

Just last night, as I refilled everyone’s water glasses at her table, Angeline “accidentally” knocked her bowl of soup to the floor. I say “accidentally” with as much sarcasm as I can muster because in all actuality, I watched her literally slide the bowl to the edge of the table and then wait until I was within reach before she pushed it all the way over.

As I was bending over to wipe up the mess, I heard one of her cronies say, “I heard that was the position she was in when Ryan caught her and Reece Malone going at it in Ryan’s bed.”