With Fear or Without

41- Caught in the Middle

Cleo drifted through the ballroom, keeping one eye out for her friends and the other on her watch. She knew one thing; her friends would not be in the same place.

She hated when they argued. It happened over little stuff, unimportant squabbles that fizzled out within minutes. But it had never happened like this. Granted, nothing about their past week had been normal, but Cleo wished they could just take a deep breath and remember how much they cared for each other.

She checked her watch again. Almost eleven o'clock and no sign of her friends.

Her eyes had started to blur from searching the crowds when she spotted Andy. She was sitting at a small, empty table and was saying something to a young man before he stalked away.

"Hey," Cleo called as she approached, noticing how close Andy had come to crying. No tears spotted her cheeks, but her nose was flushed and her eyes faintly red. She looked up from the table and gave Cleo a weak smile.

"Hey."

"Who was that guy?"

Andy shrugged. "Just offering me a drink or something, I turned him down."

Cleo raised an eyebrow at her, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to her friend.

Andy returned the look. "I could ask you the same question. Who was the prince charming out on the dance floor?"

"What?" Cleo blushed as she realized what Andy was referring to, an involuntary smile making its way to her lips. "Oh. It was Remie, actually. Doing that illusion thing."

"Remie? What's she doing here?" Andy frowned.

Cleo related their conversation to Andy- leaving the more specific details about the dance out.

Andy's frown deepened. "That doesn't sound good."

"No. It does not."

Andy sighed, placing both hands on the table and fidgeting with the finger of her gloves. She asked quietly, "Have you seen Charlie?"

"No. I found you first."

Suddenly, Andy sunk down in her chair and dropped her head into her hands. "I feel awful," she cried, her voice muffled by her hands.

"I think you both just have to-"

"I've apologized! Over and over!" Andy put her palms up to the ceiling, yelling at the table. And ignoring Cleo, apparently. "They refuse to forgive me. But who do they give the benefit of the doubt? Rowana! I mean, come on!"

"Andy, you know that they-"

"I'm just being realistic, you know?" Andy told Cleo, who resigned to wait with pursed lips and an annoyed expression until she was done. "I don't want them to hope for the best and be inevitably disappointed. I want them to be prepared for the worst, because the worst is exactly what it looks like!" Andy finished, sighing and resuming her playing with her gloves.

"Are you done?"

Andy gave Cleo a sheepish grin. "Yeah. I'm done."

Cleo sat forward, elbows on the table. "You both have different opinions. And honestly, I agree with both of them. But I think you just have to apologize, accept the fact that you think differently, and stop trying to change the other person's mind. And stop being so snappy at each other."

"You're very wise, Cleo."

I'm serious," Cleo insisted. "You love each other, why can't you show it?"

Andy broke eye contact, looking down at the table again. "You gonna give them this same spiel?"

Cleo groaned. "God, being your guys' therapist is such hard work."

"Oh, but you're so good at it!"

"Only because your interruption gave me time to think of something clever to say," Cleo grumbled with a reluctant smile. She stood from her chair. "Let's meet to the right of the entrance ten minutes to midnight. Think you can do that?"

"Well, I don't have a fancy watch like you, but-"

Just then, the music built to a crescendo and caught their attention. On the wall to the left of the raised stage, numbers glowed pink to announce it was eleven o'clock. They stayed displayed over the room as a huge digital clock, like a countdown to midnight on New Year's Eve.

"Well that's convenient," Andy chuckled. "See you in fifty minutes."

Yet again, Cleo wandered the ballroom, swerving between groups and couples. Huddles of people were all immersed in conversation that flowed and mixed with the romantic music in the air. She had wasted another fifteen minutes until she found Charlie, leaning against a tall pillar, their hands deep in their pockets and their face blank as they gazed out over the dance floor.

Cleo marched up to them, ready to unload some tough love, to tell them to get over it. Harsh? Maybe a little. But Cleo was ready to repeat the same thing she had said to Andy- agree to disagree. Also, she was tired of being left to wander the party by herself.

"Okay, you two need to deal with whatever problems are going on." She launched straight into it, not bothering to announce her presence and making Charlie jump at her forceful voice. "You both said some hurtful things- if one more than the other- so just agree to disagree and move on."

Apparently Charlie was feeling more stubborn than Andy was. "Why should I apologize?"

Cleo let out an exasperated sigh. "Because! You're supposed to be friends, please just move on so you can go back to making fun of people with her."

Charlie didn't answer. They continued to look over the sea of party goers, lost in indiscernible thought.

At a loss, Cleo monotonously relayed her conversation with Remie so they would all be on the same page. She received no reaction from Charlie.

"We're meeting near the right side of the entrance in," Cleo glanced at her watch again, "twenty minutes."

She paused, trying in vain to gauge how her friend was feeling. She didn't understand what had gotten them so worked up. Sure, what Andy said was harsh, but this anger seemed to come in full force out of nowhere. It was like they had it all bottled up and one word from Andy had released the cork, sending it all crashing over them.

The reactions to their argument were so widely different. Andy was remorseful, regretting her words as soon as they left her mouth as if they had come from somewhere other than herself entirely. Charlie, on the other hand, was standing their ground. Cleo thought it all felt backwards. Not that Andy was usually unforgiving and Charlie was usually relenting. Charlie usually forgave and forgot. Andy was quicker to defend herself.

Cleo took a breath and tried one more time to reach her friend. "Charlie, I know you're angry, but we really need to stick together tonight, I need-"

She was stopped by Charlie gripping her upper arm, their gaze still far off into the distant crowds. Charlie pushed off the pillar on which they were leaning, stiffening like a prairie dog out of their burrow. Their neutral expression contorted, first narrowing their eyes, then widening them to an impossible size.

"Charlie? What... are you- what's going on?"

Still keeping their eyes fixed on something far off, they whispered in a daze, "I think I just saw my dad."