Girl Crush

Chapter 26

 It had been a week since she and Steve had broken up. Dani found herself going back and forth between regretting it and knowing it was the right call. When she regretted it was when she had to watch Chrissy sitting on Eddie's lap in the cafeteria, when she showed up to the Tuesday show and wanted to chat Dani's ear off about her breakup with Steve, when she walked out of school to find them kissing by his van. She knew her feelings of regret were only coming because she wanted that lovely soft cushion to wrap around her, shielding her heart a little from the pain and she knew that wasn't okay. At the end of the day, she knew she'd done the right thing even if it sucked. Just because she was miserable didn't mean Steve deserved to be too.

Dani was struggling to make it through most days. She was disgusted with herself for what had transpired with Steve. She had never gone into the relationship to use him, but wasn't that exactly what she had done? She had hoped he would help her get past her feelings for Eddie. Dani was finding it harder and harder to put on a smile and be herself. She was finding it harder to wake up ready to face each day, wishing she could just hide in her bed from the world.

She'd been so scared of losing Eddie from her life but now she wondered if it wouldn't have been better. Being near him, watching him with someone else, knowing what she could never have, was slowly destroying her. Dani didn't know how she was supposed to be around him when the very sight of him shattered her anew these days.

Robin had known about the break-up the very next day and had jumped all over her at lunch. Dani reminded her that she had promised it wouldn't be weird if it didn't work out. She had wanted to know what had gone wrong because, just like Eddie, she had assumed everything was going great. Dani felt grateful when she realized that Steve hadn't even shared her secret with Robin. Even though she had hurt him horribly, he hadn't broken her confidence. Damn, he really was the perfect guy.

Dani had given Robin the same explanation she'd given Eddie. She wasn't lying. She was just leaving out parts of the story. Dani hated lying to the two people she trusted most in the world but with one, she had to stay silent, and with the other...well, she knew if she finally confessed everything to Robin, she would insist that Dani tell Eddie. Robin was insufferable when she thought she was doing something for someone's own good. She couldn't handle her own Jiminy Cricket whispering in her ear every day to do the one thing she feared most.

She had been pretty quiet for the past week. Besides Eddie's show, she had made excuses to just stay home alone. The upside was everyone just assumed she was trying to grieve her break-up so it didn't seem that unusual that she needed time. She had spent a couple nights with her mom, snuggled under blankets with hot cocoa and old movies. Her mom had tried to get her to talk, to tell her more about what happened but she had just shaken her head. She didn't want to talk about it with anyone.

Now, she sat at lunch, across from Robin and Vicki as they chatted about a party they had attended over the weekend. She pushed her so-called spaghetti around her plate, watching the swirls of red sauce coat the styrofoam. She was startled when Robin suddenly yelled her name.

"Huh?" she asked.

Robin laughed. "Girl, I said your name four times. Listen, you have been nothing but sad, mopy girl for the last week. I know break-ups suck. Steve hasn't exactly been Mr. Fun and Cheery either, but enough is enough. You and I, we're having a girl's night." She glanced over at Vicki. "You in?"

"Sure, what are we doing?" Vicki asked, breaking off a piece of her sandwich.

"Well, it's cold so anything outdoors is out," Robin mused. "We could go to the arcade or we could just grab some videos and have a sleepover. I can steal a bottle of wine from my mom and we can eat junk food and stay up way too late and..."