Ty
I was lost in my head, so maybe that's why I didn't see that someone else was on the couch when I came down the stairs just after midnight. I was about to sit in the corner of the couch where the two parts of the sectional meet when I heard someone.
"Hey," Annie says.
"I'm Sorry I didn't see you," I tell her as I move toward the other corner of the couch.
"No worries. It's not exactly like I saw or heard you until you were right here; sorry," she says.
"Can't sleep again," I ask.
"Yeah, something like that," she responds as she fiddles with the end of her sleep shirt. Annie is sitting there in blue sleep pants with fancy suns and moons on them and a slouchy, short-sleeved white shirt. "You?" she asks.
"Um... something coach said to me is uh... being pretty loud right now. Besides, this is the only time when the house is quiet," telling her a partial truth.
"Care to share?" She asks.
"You first," I tell her. "What has, you awake two nights in a row?"
"Nothing last night; I just couldn't sleep. Tonight, well...tonight, I owe you an apology," she says before looking down at her lap and then back up at me. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry I put you in that situation this afternoon. It's not your problem, and it's not your place to save me. I'm sorry; I shouldn't have called you. I'm sorry," she says. Annie was apologizing to me. I thought she would have been angry with me that I didn't do more sooner. "Thank you for helping me, though; I froze, and you were there to help. Thank you. I really appreciate it."
"Annie," I said before swallowing hard and starting again. "Annie, you don't owe me an apology. You're my best friend, and I always help you if I can. Besides, that was a difficult situation. I would have been more surprised if you hadn't frozen." I tell her truthfully. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, he didn't break anything," she tells me.
"That's not what I meant," I tell her. She blows out a breath and looks around the room.
"I'll get there; there's a lot to process. I'll just add giving him a second chance to the list of bad decisions I've been making lately."
"Don't you believe in the good? The world is a dark place. Sometimes, we need to believe in the good?" I tell her, knowing that part of this is my fault. "I'm sorry, too. I saw you get close with him at VBS and should have said something. I was a bad friend. I knew he wasn't a good person, I should have protected you."
"It's not your job to protect me, Ty..." Annie says, and then I cut her off.
"Doesn't matter. I'll always want to protect you."
"Well, you can't. I'll have to fall sometimes to learn, and when I do, just be there to help me back to my feet. I'm a big girl, Ty. I made my decisions. I knew your history with him. I knew how he acted. I decided to see the good, as you said. My mistake; don't take it on. You can't take on my mistakes and pain."
"You know me too well," I tell her, which causes her to laugh a little. I miss your smile."
"Fight over. Best friends, again," she says, holding out her hand.
"Fight over and Best friends always," I tell her. Grabbing her hand, we shake once and then slide our hands so that our fingers curl into each other—our special handshake. Besides, you brought some of Aunt Helen's lemon bars. I can't really stay mad at you now."
"Tell me what Cal said that has you awake," she says, leaning back into the couch. Our hands are still connected.
"He's proud of me and to stop being so angry at the world," I tell her the truth well, a part of it anyway.
"Sounds like good advice. Why is he proud of you?" she asked, scrunching up her face a bit.
"He told me it's okay to be mad at my dad, but I should try to focus on the positive relationships in my life. It will help with the simmering anger. He was proud of how I handled tonight. He knew I was angry, but he saw me focusing on the people here."
"Katie was thrilled when you brought out that monopoly game; that had to feel good to make someone feel that happy," she says like it is a question, but we both know it not; she knows it felt good.
"Yeah, it did. But Katie is pretty easy. She is always super happy, go lucky. I rarely see her get upset," I tell her.
"How are things with Bex?" she asks; that has me pausing because it is complicated, but she is Annie. "You don't have to say if you don't want to."
"No, um, it's hard to explain. When I heard my dad got Noreen pregnant, I knew I would have a new sibling, but seeing Bex holding her was different. It was like it went from this reminder that my dad cheated on my mom to an actual person. How can I be angry at an innocent little person?" I breathed before continuing, "I didn't want to see her at first, didn't want to think of her as my sister, but when I went, it was hard to look at her and think of all the bad things my dad did. She was a person, who I had no positive or negative relationship with. It's still weird, but it's interesting."
"I get that. I hadn't met her yet, but it was weird; I felt bad when the news came out, but I can't remember why when Noreen talked about her or showed me pictures."
"Maybe you can come with us when we go to visit her again," I tell her.
"I'd like that," she says with a smile.
"It's getting late. We should probably get some sleep before school," I tell her as I get up to go upstairs. I want just to sit here and talk about nothing and everything with her, but I also know she needs sleep.
"Probably. Goodnight," she says but makes no move to get up.
"You going to bed.?" I ask
"In a bit. Goodnight," she says. I can hear the slight fear in her voice, and Annie doesn't want to talk about it, so she tries to end the conversation by saying goodnight.
"Goodnight," I told her. I planned on coming back, but I could let her have a couple of minutes.
I head upstairs, stopping in my room first. I grab the blanket on my bed and a pillow. Then I head to the guest room where Annie is staying, I grab a pillow for her and the comforter on the bed. I spot the empty laundry basket, so I grab it, put all the stuff in there, and quietly head back downstairs. I see Annie right where I left her, sitting on the couch, staring into space. I place the basket down at the entrance to the family room and grab the pillow I brought for her. I walk over to her, and drop it in her lap from above her head and watch as she jumps slightly at that.
"What are you doing?" she asks when she turns around to find me. "I thought you were going to bed?" I carry the basket of stuff over when she asks, and she scrunches up her nose.
"When did I say that," I ask, pulling my pillow out and setting it up near hers so my feet will hang over the edge of the couch and I won't accidentally kick her while sleeping. Then I grab the blanket for myself and the comforter for Annie. I go to tuck it around her, but she reaches out and grabs it from me.
"What are you doing?" she asks, sounding slightly mad.
"I was trying to give you a blanket so you don't get cold," I tell her, faking innocence like I don't know what she actually means. I move the basket to the wall before grabbing the remote and lying back on the couch.
"Do you care to share the plan or just leave me out of the loop?" she asks. I could hear her getting frustrated, so I decided to give in.
"Look, I'm willing to bet you don't want to be alone right now and are having trouble sleeping after the events of today. So I thought rather than leave you here to think alone, I come down, put on a funny movie quietly, and we can sleep here tonight. Like we did when we were younger."
"Fine, you're right. Lying in bed alone is just making me replay this afternoon in my head. So we can go with your plan on one condition...well, two," she said, pointing a finger at me.
"Let's hear them," I tell her.
"No, Grown Ups or Grown Ups 2. I have seen those movies about 5,000 times." She pauses and waits for me to respond.
"I'm hurt. Those are great movies. But I guess we can find something else. Condition number two?" I ask.
"The first more than the second. The second condition is no weird, funny movies where no one understands why they are funny. Like the Adam project. Deal?"
"Deal, but the Adam project was a great movie," I tell her.
"It wasn't a comedy. Plus, there were a ton of storyline gaps." she retorts.
"Agree to disagree," I tell her, loading up the TV and selecting a movie.
"Really, we seen this almost as much as grown-ups," she says.
"Hey, it wasn't in your condition. No complaints." I tell her, sitting back on the couch.
"Fine. Zoom it is," she says, settling into her spot on the couch.
"Hey, give the movie the full credit it due. Zoom: Academy for superheroes. Besides, Tim Allen is funny."
"Tim Allen is a great actor." and just like that, we were sitting in silence, watching a movie with our heads together like when we were kids.