Immortal Light: Wide Awake (31 page)

“
Well, it was weird,” Lucy
responded. “He just sort of came out with it that he wasn’t ever
really going out with Samantha; he just hangs out with them because
he doesn’t want to hurt their feelings.”

“
Are you kidding me?” Kat
exclaimed rather incredulously.

“
I know, but that’s what he
said.”

“
Oh my gosh, I’m starting to
really like this guy.”

The parking lot was rampant with cars exiting
the grounds, since the weather was no longer conducive to hanging
out.

“
So what are you going to do about
it?” Kat asked as they buckled into the car.

“
I don’t know yet. I’ll let you
know if anything happens tomorrow.”

The two girls laughed as they pulled onto the
wet roads of Coos Bay.

***

Lucy spent every morning with
Benjamin. It didn’t take long for news about Lucy’s arm-holding
walk with Benjamin to spread to Samantha, because she began to
ignore him. There was no violent break up. All Lucy heard about it
was from Kat, who told her that Samantha thought Benjamin was a
great guy, but he never really seemed committed enough to her, so
she had to give up on him. Considering Samantha’s track record with
news-worthy breakups, she actually acted like a decent human being.
But, in the end, all Lucy cared about was that Samantha was done
with him and she could move in.

There hadn’t been any hand-holding
or flirtatious arm-in-arm walks, but their time had been spent in
absolute mutual appreciation of each other. Lucy felt that
connection she had always felt with him. She wanted to be near him,
and she took every opportunity to make that happen, but she wasn’t
getting the exact vibe from him that she had hoped for. She
couldn’t sense that he wanted to make their relationship, whatever
it had become, into anything more than friends. The kiss in the
grove was always foremost on her mind, and since she had the chance
to be close to him on a more intimate level—though not as
intimately as she would have liked—she wanted to know what that
meant to him.

“
How long did it
take you to build your
haven
?” She asked the question
straight out while sitting in the library one morning, staring at
the notes she was writing in a spiral notebook, her heart
pounding.

Benjamin, likewise scribbling in a notebook,
stopped writing for a second then responded, “I’m sorry, what? Were
you talking to me?”

Lucy stopped and caught his
inquisitive eyes.
Be strong; don’t back
away now, you’ve already got it out there, just
go.

“
Uh yeah, I just
wanted to know how long it took you to build your, uh,
haven
.”

His look of confusion was so genuine that even
if he were trying to deny any knowledge of it, he could never have
disguised it that well. Lucy’s heart beat harder as she had to
consider how to abort her mission.

“
I don’t understand the question.
What’s a haven?”

Lucy’s confidence was instantly
shot; a rush of a million emotions hit her. She was
devastated.

It wasn’t real. Nobody lies
that well about something so, so … so stupid
, she thought to herself in an internal torrent of pity. All
she wanted to do was crawl under a rock and die, but she had to
cover up what she had said, she had to make it
right.

“
Oh, it’s
nothing. I forgot you weren’t at this school last year. It was just
something we did in science class; we had to design a place
…
”
She went back
to scrawling in her notebook.
“
It was just this thing that popped
into my head, no big deal.”

“
Oh, sounds
interesting.”

“
Yeah, it was pretty
cool.”

Trying not to show her internal woes, she
returned to her work. Again, all Lucy could think about was what a
tormented girl she was and how she would have to continue walking
through life knowing she wasn’t actually going to live out her
delusional fantasy with the boy of her dreams.

At lunch she dragged Kat out to
the cemetery and told her everything, surprisingly enough, without
tears and as though it were just another setback in a long string
of disappointing events that made up her life.

“
Lucy, I know that’s a setback for
you, but so what? So it’s not real, it doesn’t matter.”

“
What do you mean it doesn’t
matter?” Lucy lashed out at Kat.

“
What I mean is that regardless of
what’s going on in there, you have him out here. You hang out with
the guy you’re madly in love with and you don’t have to wait until
night time so you can dream about him. So you didn’t kiss him, big
deal, but you still can. It’s okay to live that life in there,
fantastic as it is, but you can’t forget what you have out
here.”

There were so many ways to interpret what Kat
was saying, but Lucy didn’t particularly feel up to taking them any
way at all. She was defeated, so she simply acknowledged that
perhaps Kat was right, and the two girls finished their lunch and
walked back to school.

Frustration—her new best
friend—was back. Weeks passed and Lucy found herself only visiting
her
haven
once or
twice in a dozen days. She no longer had the urge to be a part of
that world. She decided that it would be wise to simply focus on
one life at a time. She chose reality. Benjamin, though never
seeming like he wanted a relationship, was always there for her. He
was a perfect gentleman and seemed to truly enjoy her company, and
it was better than a fantasy, a dream she had concocted for no
reason at all.

Chapter
15

Near the end of November,
Lucy had left the
haven
in the past and hadn’t been to it or the grove in
weeks. The social aspects of school had almost returned to the
forefront of her Friday nights, and with the last home football
game approaching, there was a dance to consider. All Kat could talk
about for days was the Homecoming dance. She and Dave were going,
but Lucy had no plans at all.

Lucy couldn’t be heartbroken over not being
asked by Benjamin because, despite the fact that she had spent
every morning with him, there was seemingly nothing more to it than
mutual friendship. Kat supposed that Lucy had just gotten
complacent and satisfied. Lucy couldn’t really argue because she
had no real urge or desire to push for anything more. He was a
great way to start the day, and that’s all he would probably ever
be.

Regardless of having no date and despite a
serious amount of protest, Kat had managed to get Lucy over to her
house the night of the dance to help her get ready.

Just as Lucy got Kat’s hair
perfect, and before the dress was to go on, Kat sat in front of the
mirror in a pair of running shorts and one of her father’s t-shirts
admiring Lucy’s masterful work from every angle.

“
That’s perfect! How do you do
that?”

Before Lucy could answer, the buzzing of Kat’s
cell phone roused both girls from their fawning over Kat’s
coiffure. Kat ran to check the caller ID.

“
It’s Dave!” she exclaimed with a
playful giggle.

Lucy smiled excitedly for her
friend.

“
Hello, darling.” Kat tilted her
head to the side with the smile of a love-struck angel.

Lucy watched as that smile faded
to concern, and then to disappointment.

“
No, I totally understand.” She
paused as Dave finished. “Okay, goodbye.”

Her demeanor was calm and composed as she set
her phone down and gave a half-hearted smile to Lucy.

“
What happened; is he not
coming?”

Kat shook her head and blew her bangs up with
a long sigh. “He just broke up with me.”

Lucy sat in stunned silence, not knowing how
to respond to the news. Kat had rarely been dumped, so Lucy was
more than unsure; in fact, she was curious about how Kat was going
to react. She watched while Kat walked back to the bathroom, picked
up her eyeliner and put on the finishing touches to her make-up.
She then proceeded to her closet.

“
What are you doing?” Lucy
asked.

Kat turned around with two
dresses; both were satin, floor-length thin-strapped gowns with
crisscross beading covering the bodice and a pleated bust. One was
a beautiful dark crimson, the other beautiful shade of champagne.
Kat walked them over to the bed and laid them down. Her smile had
returned as genuine and bright as ever.

“
Which one do you want?” She put
her hands on her hips and looked excitedly at Lucy.

“
You still want
to …?
”

“
Go to the dance? Heck yeah, it’ll
be fun.”

“
But Dave just
…
”
Lost again for
words, all Lucy could do was gesture to the phone sitting on the
dresser.

“
Well, the reservation is in my
name at the restaurant, and I just happened to buy a backup dress,”
she shot a smirk across the room, “so you’re going as my
date.”

Her excitement and lack of heartache over
Dave—the boy she had dated probably longer than any other—was
mindboggling.

“
Why do you still want to go? I
mean, he just dumped you.”

“
Oh, come on, Lucy, we don’t need
guys. I’m not heartbroken. I could see this coming. He’s been
wanting a little more from this relationship than I did, if you
know what I mean,” she flashed a disgusted look to Lucy, “and he
knew I wasn’t going to give it to him. I totally expected this.”
She threw her arms up, “Not on Homecoming, but what’s a girl to do,
right?”

Lucy just stared in amazement at the
resilience of her friend. Other than being ignored, nothing ever
got to Kat; she was a trooper and she was to be admired.

“
So, are you coming or what?” Kat
gave Lucy only enough time to shrug her shoulders in bewilderment.
“Of course you are. You’re going to look fabulous in this one.” She
reached across the bed and pushed the champagne colored dress into
Lucy’s arms. “I’ll take the red one.”

All Lucy could do was stand
there, “But I …
”

“
Oh my gosh, you’re totally right,
come here.” Kat said, putting both hands on Lucy’s shoulders,
pushing her into the bathroom. “We need to fix you up. Let’s just
hope I can do half as good a job as you did with me.” Seeing
herself once again in the mirror, Kat did another turn to admire
the work, “My gosh, that’s lovely.”

Both girls laughed as Kat tore into her makeup
bag.

***

At the door of the
gymnasium, Kat and Lucy were greeted warmly by parent volunteers
and given Dave’s tickets, where he had
graciously
left them for Kat to use.
Since admission came with pictures, Kat decided that she and Lucy
might as well do those, too.

Inside the gym, the décor made it
look like anything but a gymnasium. Lucy, having never been a to a
formal dance before, had entertained images of streamers hanging
from the basketball hoops and the dance floor being covered with
the painted lines of the various games played on the surface. But,
the dance committee had done an amazing job creating a faux ceiling
from yards and yards of fabric, to simulate an almost tent
appearance, and the basketball court had been covered with a
beautiful parquet dance floor.

The DJ stand stood at the far end of the room,
as it had before, and under the lights and hanging disco ball were
hundreds of their peers dressed to the nines, jumping and bouncing
like kangaroos to music that was all too familiar to both
girls.

Looking around, they saw all of their usual
acquaintances hooked together, arm in arm and sometimes face to
face, with their dates. Kat’s bubbly excitement was contagious as
they walked onto the dance floor. The bass was easily felt under
their feet as the two began to join in the fray of jumping
teens.

Both girls were laughing and smiling as the
high tempo music rocked the gym. When the music died down after
three songs, a slow song started and the girls retreated to the
sidelines.

“
I guess this is why guys are
necessary; we can’t really do the slow dances,” Kat said, still
pumping her arms to the beat of the previous song.

“
It’s okay, I need to catch my
breath anyway,” Lucy replied. “We should see what they have to
drink; I mean Dave did pay thirty bucks a ticket.”

Kat squealed with a vindictive laugh and the
two walked briskly to the refreshments table.

A spread of various soft drinks mixed with
fruit juices, cookies of every kind, and, “Chocolate!” Kat all but
screamed.

She ran to the end of the table, demonstrating
her masterful prowess at running in stilettos. Lucy followed as Kat
delicately picked out some of her favorite truffles.

“
Holy cow, save me some, will ya?”
Lucy laughed at her friend.