Chapter 43 – Chelsea
My phone rings, waking me up. I look around, startled.
I’m still at the duck pond. I must have fallen asleep.
I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights lately— even my mom’s teddy bear hasn’t helped resolve that issue— and I guess I was so exhausted that I just drifted off. I must have been here a long time.
That suspicion is confirmed when I see that it’s Taylor calling me. She went to two classes in a row, all while I was accidentally spying on Wesley and then sitting under a tree like Buddha. Unlike him, I obviously suck at meditating, so much so that I fell asleep.
“Hello?” I ask, trying to mask my “just woke up” voice.
“Chelsea, where are you?” Taylor screeches through the phone. “Practice started half an hour ago and everyone is waiting on you to teach us the new routine that you came up with for the next stage of the conference championships. And I’ve been texting you ever since I got out of my last class, because I really need to tell you something.”
“I… I was sleeping,” I confess.
“Sleeping?”
She acts like I said I was robbing a 7-Eleven.
“Yes. Sometimes I need to do that.”
“Are you okay? You sound upset.”
“I am upset, Taylor.”
“Why?”
But I’m sick of talking to her about Wesley. Just as much as I’m sure she’s sick of hearing about him.
“I guess upset isn’t the right word,” I tell her, more to get out of having to tell her about Wesley than because I really believe it. “I’m just exhausted.”
It’s true. I’m exhausted. And upset.
“Well, what happened?” she prods.
“Can’t we talk about it later?”
“Chelsea Madison Thompson,” she chides, sounding like a mother.
Not my mother— she was never the stereotypical nagging type. She was always understanding and supportive. But just like a mother.
“Tell me what happened,” Taylor says again.
“Look, I know I’ve been having a lot of drama lately but I swear this wasn’t my fault,” I tell her. “I wasn’t trying to find an excuse to see him...”
At least not consciously, I add to myself.
“To see Wesley?” Taylor’s tone changes, as if now it’s her turn to hide something.
“Right. I just ran into him. Like last time at Moon Howl Grill. And he was with yet another girl, just like he was then.”
I pause because I’m embarrassed to even be telling this story. But then I plunge ahead.
“Except this one looked even happier to be in his presence. I swear it’s like someone out there wants to rub it in my face that he sees all these other girls now. And it upset me. And I got tired. So I walked to the duck pond kind of accidentally. And then I went to sleep. Fell asleep, actually. Under a tree. Accidentally. That’s all.”
I realize I’m explaining myself to her as if I’m in trouble. When she’s the one seeming shady all of a sudden.
“Do you know something I don’t?” I suddenly ask her.
“No. I mean. Maybe. Chelsea, just hurry to practice so we can concentrate on the cheerleading routine, and then we can talk about all of this afterwards.”
“What is it?” I demand, ignoring her suggestion. Or maybe it was a command. “What do you know?”
She sighs, audibly.
“Look, Chelsea, please don’t be mad at me.”
“For what?”
“I… um.”
She pauses. I wait.
“That girl you saw Wesley with was his math tutor.”
“His math tutor?”
What the fuck.
She didn’t look like any math tutor I’d ever seen.
“I… hired her,” Taylor says.
“What?”
Nothing is making any sense. Maybe I’m still in my meditative pose under the tree, dreaming all of this up while I sleep.
“I just thought that I should step in and put this whole matter to rest once and for all. I was trying to be helpful, but I realize now that it might not have been the best idea to…”
“To interfere?” I ask, and the question comes out more explosively than I’d meant it to.
“I mean, I just wanted to…”
“Help,” I fill in. “You said that already. And you’re right. It wasn’t your place to step in, to meddle in my business without even telling me. Somehow your help hasn’t ended up being very helpful. It’s just done more harm than good actually.”
My tone is full of anger but my eyes are welling up with tears. The memory of my dad asking us if we knew any math tutors— and Taylor answering that she might— floods through my brain so strongly that it is not a thought I can put on a leaf and let float by.
I’d thought that Taylor had said she’d look for math tutors just as a way of trying to steer my dad off the trail of Wesley and me. But she’d obviously gotten the idea then and there to hire some girl to tutor Wesley.
She’d wanted me to find out— to see him with her— and get him out of my head for good. But she hadn’t even consulted me.
“I know Chelsea. But please just hear me out,” she pleads.
“I don’t want to hear you out,” I tell her. “I need a break.”
I hear Wesley’s voice in my head telling me that Taylor is like a mother figure to me. He was right, and not in a good way. I need to break away from her and do my own thing for a while. Make my own decisions. She can’t replace my mother, and my mother never would have done anything like this.
“A break from what?” Taylor asks. “From us?”
The way she says “us” grates on my already strained emotions. Maybe Taylor thinks she had good intentions. To rip off the Band-Aid and help me move on more quickly. But maybe, whether she knows it or not, she’s happy that I have to move on from Wesley. She was never a fan of me finally having a boyfriend.
Not that he was my boyfriend.
But she was probably jealous that he took time away from her. So she’s happy it didn’t work out and wants to hurry me back along to just concentrating on “us,” on her and me and our friendship, without any guy to steal my heart and get in the way.
He didn’t steal my heart.
But I don’t even want to explain it to her. I don’t want to fight. I just want some alone time.
“A break from everything,” I finally answer her. “I’m tired.”
“You’re not going to come to practice?” she asks. “Everyone’s waiting on you…”
“Well, they’ll just have to make do without me. Practice the spirit cheers for the upcoming game. Or tell everyone to take a rest. It’s okay to do once in awhile, even intentionally.”
“Chelsea, I’m worried about you…”
“Well don’t be. I’m just fine.”
Even though I’ve realized some hard truths about my best friend. And even though I’ve lost the guy I’m really into.
I’m not really into him.
I’m fine. I just need more sleep. And then I can figure out how to make decisions on my own, without Taylor. Starting with how to move on from Wesley for good.