Lie Until You Laugh

26- Girl Fights

I nod. “It’s very ridiculous and I’m not going to do it.”

Two minutes later, Penn the Petrifying comes into the room and he tells us to begin stretching. I look everywhere except for him as I stretch, biting my lip anxiously in the silence.

Practice goes by with painful slowness, but by the end, Penn hasn’t said a word to me at all. He explains another partner dance that I forget the name of and we spend the whole time practicing the moves without an actual partner. I’m relieved that he doesn’t try to talk to me because that means that I’m not getting special treatment in practice and I’m grateful for that. I’m also relieved because I’m just so humiliated about last night that I don’t even want to talk to him.

When we’re finally dismissed for lunch, I grab my gym bag and start to follow Stella, Mason, and Brian out of the room before Penn stops me by calling my name. “Sienna, wait,” He says from the other side of the open room.

Stella and Mason both send me perverted winks as they rush out of the room with Brian and then I turn and walk over to Penn, who is sitting in his metal chair but when I approach him, he stands up to greet me.

“You seemed kind of out of it today,” He tells me. He’s Boyfriend Penn now, so that’s nice, I guess. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I lie, puffing my cheeks out just a little bit as I shuffle my feet awkwardly.

“If it’s about last night, I hope you know that I won’t like, bring it up at all if you don’t want me to,” Penn assures me, most likely referring to the whole father issues thing. “I mean, if you want to talk about it, you know that I’m here, but we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I…” I trail off because I don’t know what to say. Maybe it would feel good to talk about it to somebody. I’ve never been able to do that before. My abusive household is just something that I’ve had to carry around with me at all times. I’ve had to lie about it and that’s just like second nature to me now, just lying about it. I’ve never even considered what it would be like if I actually talked about it to somebody who can actually listen. Maybe he won’t understand, but at least he’ll be there for me, even if it might just be temporary. “I don’t want you to think of me differently.”

“Why would I do that?” He wonders, running his hand slowly down my face from my temple to my cheek and I lean into his touch.

I shrug. “I’ve never talked about it to anyone. I don’t know how that even works, talking about serious things like that.”

“It’ll be easier than you think, I promise,” Penn assures me with a nod, leaning forward and kissing my forehead. “No matter what, I’m here for you.”

I feel better than I did this morning. A lot better actually. I don’t know what I was so worried about when I didn’t want to talk to Penn. I was afraid that he was going to judge me or something, but now I can see how ridiculous that really was to think. “Lunch?”

He nods and we walk out the door of the studio together. “Sounds good.”

We get into the food court together and walk over to the Italian line where the pizza is. I don’t know if that’s what Penn is going to eat, but he comes with me to the line anyway as I grab a slice of cheese pizza and a water.

“How do you eat pizza all of the time?” Penn wonders with a small laugh as he grabs one of the calzone things and a Gatorade.

I shrug. “It’s just really good. How do you not eat it at every chance you get?”

“I guess I just don’t share your love of pizza.”

“How are we even together?” I wonder dramatically as we walk towards the tables. There’s an awkward silence as we stand in front of all of the tables. There’s a table with Stella, Mason, and Brien and then a little bit farther away, there’s a table with Jamie, Lacy, and Louis.