The Trouble with Friendship

🎤 Twenty-Six: Ooh, Baby, Baby, I'm Dancing with an Elephant

"You're not getting anything?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I have plans later. I'll eat then."

Something in his voice made her stomach feel funny. "With who?"


"Friends." 


"Which friends? Arlo?" she questioned.


"No," he said slowly, deep lines bracketing his mouth. "What's with the third degree?"

She shrugged, trying to squash the suspicion rising. "Just wondering." 

"What's up with you? You've been weird all week," Hugo said. 


Her initial reaction was to deny, but Hugo would see right it. Instead, she leaned back and put her elbow on the door and rested her head on her palm. Sinking her fingers through her hair, she mumbled, "Tired, I guess. Worried about the play."


"About your performance?"

"That and how everything will come together. It's less than three weeks until the curtain opens."


Hugo gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "We'll pull it off. We always do." 

The fast-food worker slid the window open and handed over the bag of food. As Hugo drove home, Alexx ripped open her burger and began devouring it in big bites. She hummed in satisfaction, washing it down with big gulps of her shake. They had the best burgers. She and Alex used to—

Her stomach pitched to her feet as the image of Alex's and Ravi's lips locking together flashed in her mind. A cruel burn ripped down her throat. Why? Why had her best friend betrayed her? Ravi's actions had hurt but not as much as Alex's. Alex knew better. She understood what Alexx had gone through with Cleo and her mom. 

Her appetite fled as her stomach turned queasy. She tossed her half-eaten burger and fries in the bag and dropped it on the car floor. Hugo glanced over. "Everything okay?"

She rubbed her stomach, glancing out the window. "Not hungry anymore." 


A long pause filled the car, sucking up all the oxygen. Hugo cleared his throat. "Did something happen with Freddy?"

The nickname was a dagger straight through the heart. They were supposed to be Fred and George. Best friends. Inseparable. It's what they promised in their notebooks, and promises were meant to be kept. Anger and grief swirled around her. 

"Georgie?" Hugo prodded. 

Her fingers dug into the seat cushion as a dull thudding pain crept up her neck to her temples. "Don't call me that. It's not my name." Not anymore.

Hugo's eyebrows shot to his hairline. "So there is something wrong. What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it." 

"Georgie—" At her sharp look, he amended, "Alexx, did you and—"

She vehemently shook her head, wincing as the pain intensified. "Not now Hugo. Just not...not now." 

The gentle pleading in her tone made him zip it and drive the rest of the trip in silence. When they got home, she slid her shoes off and chucked them the side, not caring where they landed. 

"That's a first," Seth murmured from his spot on the floor where he laid sprawled out on his stomach. Across from him, lay Arlo, propped up on his elbows with a fierce look of concentration as he stared at the Chinese Checkerboard that sat between them. "Does this mean the shoe dictator is officially dead?"

"I'm not a shoe dictator," Alexx muttered. 


"Princess here is an organization dictator," Arlo chimed in. "Distinct difference."