Girl Crush

Chapter 6

 Dani had not seen Eddie all afternoon, and while that had been driving her crazy earlier, she was relieved about it now. She didn't know how she was supposed to look at him or talk to him like everything was normal after what she saw. Eddie Munson with a cheerleader. What a goddamn hypocrite. When she went on a date with a basketball player last year, he flipped his shit over it, telling her that she was breaking the ancient bylaws passed down by the freaks of yesteryear or some bullshit like that. Now he was doing the exact same thing and, worse than that, he was hiding it from her. Yeah, she was going out with Steve later but she'd had every intention of telling him.

She walked out the doors of the school and paused when she saw a familiar van sitting in the parking lot, its driver leaning against it, smoking a cigarette. He hadn't noticed her yet. Maybe she could sneak by. Dani put her head down, attempting to hurry past him. She really did not want to have to talk to him.

"Dani!" he yelled.

She ignored him, continued to hurry toward the front of the school where Steve had said he would pick her up. She could always lie later, claim she'd never seen him. He was lying to her after all so why couldn't she bend the truth a bit?

"Hey," Eddie called and she heard heavy footsteps hitting the pavement. He jogged up next to her, "Shit, you can't make me do that. Smoker, remember? I don't like running." He gave her a grin but she just glared at him and the grin slowly disappeared as he realized everything was not alright. "Where are you going? My van's back there."

"I have a different ride home," she muttered, scuffing the ground with her shoes and refusing to look at him. "So, you can just go."

"What do you mean you have another ride home? I'm always your ride home."

"Really?" she snapped. "Is that why you didn't show up yesterday morning and were already long gone by the time I came out from school? I had to run to catch the bus and I was almost late."

Eddie cringed, visibly recoiling from her slightly. He bit his lip gently, looking just past her ear instead of at her eyes. Jesus, he couldn't even look at her. She knew whatever was about to come out of his mouth would be bullshit.

"Yeah, about that. Dani, I'm really sorry. I was just..."

"Avoiding me?" she challenged him, crossing her arms over her chest.

"No," he scoffed, attempting a laugh but she knew him way too well to fall for it. Eddie Munson was many things, but being a good liar was not one of them. "Why would I ever do that? No, I just had other stuff to do."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

Eddie shuffled from one foot to the other, his fingers working at his rings, spinning them around and around. Dani's eyes moved down to his fingers and then back up at him. Yeah, Munson was definitely hiding shit. He just didn't realize that she already knew what it was. Did he really think he was getting away with it? Did he really think she didn't know him better than she knew herself?

"Just drug deal stuff Dani," he sighed. "I didn't think you'd want to tag along, okay?"

"I've tagged along plenty of times Eddie so don't act like that's the reason. We both know that's a bunch of bullshit. And you couldn't even give me a call to let me know you weren't picking me up?" she demanded. "I was almost late to school, dickhead."

"Shit. I'm sorry," he pleaded, sticking out his lower lip. "Come on Dani. I should have called, but you know me, I don't always think things through. I can be an idiot sometimes."

"Obviously," she snorted, hiking her backpack up higher on her shoulder. Eddie reached as if to take her backpack and she turned away from him. "I told you, I already have a ride home Eddie. I'm good."