Autumn's Concerto

Autumn's Concerto 15

I was lucky, only Sue was in the kitchen when I came in and her back was to me, leaving me to race to my room so I could hide the bag without questions.

"Bella? Is that you?"

"Yes." I opened my closet door and threw the clothes in the closet, thinking if I wanted to go through them or not.

"Did you have a nice time?"

"Yeah, it was great."

"What did you do?"

"We played baseball."

"Baseball? You and Alice played baseball by yourselves?"

Looks like I'd forgotten my habit of thinking before I speak. I could have slapped myself. "I meant we watched a bit of baseball. It was on the t.v while we were painting our nails and we didn't feel like changing the channel."

"That sounds like fun. What else did you do?"

"We, um, went out to play around and then we went back to the house and ordered pizza and talked." I waited until I heard her reply before I walked into the kitchen in case the lie showed on my face.

"That sounds like a lot of fun, Bella." She said, finishing the spread of peanut butter on toast. "I'm glad Peter let you go. Is that all?" She took a bite of her bread. "What did you talk about?" She continued to prod. I was hoping she would drop it so I wouldn't have to keep lying. I hated lying to Sue; I never had before. But it was to the point now where I didn't have a choice.

"Oh, you know, just girl things."

"You're not still hungry are you?"

"No, I think I ate enough pizza for a week."

"Well, alright - where's the polish?"

"What?"

"The nail polish. Didn't you say you painted your nails? I don't see any polish."

I checked my fingers and nails, feeling really stupid for telling her a lie that couldn't be covered while at the same time feeling a prick of fear of being found out.

"Oh, yeah, I took it off. I wasn't that fond of the color."

Sue threw the rest of her toast in her mouth. "You didn't hurt Alice's feelings did you?"

I continued to search around wildly for an excuse. It was hard to do that without looking panicked or guilty. "I don't think so."

"Well, that's good. Hey, where are you going?" She asked as I tried to go back to the safety of my room. "Come sit and talk with me, I feel like we haven't in so long."

I followed her back to the couch, sitting on the very far end of the couch while she sat on the other.

"What are you doing over there?" She laughed. "Come here," she offered her arms for me to scoot into. "There we go. Now, I have some questions for you." I felt my heart pick up the beat guiltily and anxiously. "So, this Edward Masen boy... Do you still like him?"

My eyes flittered across the room, searching for a trap. "I... guess?"

"You guess?" She giggled. "What kind of answer is that? Either you do or you don't. Do you want to date him?"

"I... I don't know." The guilt was building in my stomach. How was I supposed to tell her that I was dating him, that I did like him, that we'd kissed, and that I felt electrified every time I was near him? I couldn't. Not without consequences.