Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,41
you to extend yourself. Even if she’s the one inviting, it feels like an option you can choose, not something she really wants.
Before I realize I’m doing it, I mirror her posture, crossing my arms, popping a leg out.
Ugh, why did I do that? It looks like I’m imitating her. But I can’t change now, or I’ll look fidgety, like I have to go to the bathroom or something.
Anger surges through me, so I don’t change my posture. Make it mocking. Feel my eyebrow go up.
“Are you asking something, Blair?” I ask, and goddamn does it feel good.
Of course, she doesn’t actually ask it again. She ignores me like she never said anything, and looks at Siggy instead.
So, now I can’t laugh in her face at the offer. But I guess I sorta already did that.
“How about you, Siggy?” Blair smiles, a forced showing of teeth. “I’m sitting right in front of Linus’s seat.”
“Is Annie next to him?” Siggy blurts out. Then she leans back, putting a hand over her mouth, like she’s shocked she spoke. “Forget it,” Siggy says, her voice firm. She steps closer to me, our shoulders brushing.
“I can see fine from here, thanks,” Siggy says. And she crosses her arms like me, and pops a leg out.
A rush of love for Siggy pulses through me.
And so I turn to look at her.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask her. “Take the seat.”
“No way,” Siggy answers.
“I love you, girl. I want you to take that seat.” I tell her.
Siggy leans in, bumping shoulders. “Nope, I’m staying here. I love you, dork.”
Blair is watching, eyes cutting between us, forced smile on her face.
And suddenly I’m tired. And sad. The hurt is still there, breathtaking if I think about it. If I stop to notice it.
But I can push it down, can’t I?
I have Imani standing next to me, giving Blair a direct, hurt stare. And I have Siggy, still ready to throw off righteously angry sparks for me. True friends. Sisters of my heart. Loyal.
I don’t need Blair.
Today isn’t about her. It’s not supposed to be about what she did to me. So it’s not supposed to be about me, either.
I put my arm around Siggy’s whippet-waist. My voice is a low murmur.
“It’s okay, Siggy. Take the seat. Then come back after the panel and tell us exactly what he looks like from row two, center.”
“Are you sure?” Siggy asks, and her voice isn’t eager, just worried.
And that alone makes me sure.
“I bet he’s even more perfect in real life,” I answer.
“Right? It’s like he doesn’t have pores at all,” Siggy says.
“We’ll wait here,” Imani says, slapping Siggy on the butt. “Go have fun, goober.”
I look at Blair. I want her to see it in my eyes: that I’m choosing to let Siggy go. That I’m a good person.
The better person.
That me giving the seat to Siggy means more than her sharing the pass she wanted to give to her boyfriend.
Okay, and that makes me less of a good person than I thought, but I still get points for this, dammit.
Blair acts like she doesn’t see it.
But it’s plainly obvious, and I might be naive and hope too much of people, but I’m not naive enough not to realize that when Blair got those two VIP passes, they were for her and Scott.
Two passes.
So a part of me has a little jolt of extra life now, that something happened between them, because he’s not using the pass. At least not now.
And he tried to talk to me.
Not that he’s going to get another chance, it just feels good to know he wants one. That maybe after choosing her over me, he would try to re-choose me again.
Ugh. It sounds gross when I think about it like that, though.