again. I took off for home and unfortunately ran into Julian along the way.
"Where's the rest of your gang, I thought you were afraid to leave the house alone?" I taunted, while trying to keep my distance.
"As it just so happens I'm heading over to play a little b-ball with them now."
"You play with each other's balls? Gay."
"What the hell, Lucy, can't you just be nice? Would it be so bad to say 'Hi Julian, you're looking very handsome today'?"
"I don't think I ever would have said that even when we were going out."
"Baby, I know you're missing me."
"I'm afraid I'm not actually."
"Oh come on, you know we belong together."
"No, I'm pretty sure I am much better off without you."
"No, I don't think you will ever find someone who loves you as much as I do."
"If you really loved me so much, you wouldn't have broken up with me right before the prom."
"Well you didn't really give me any choice."
"How is that exactly? I said I don't want to have sex with you and the next thing I know you break up with me. That's pretty much how I remember it, it seems like if you cared you would have been a little patient."
"That's not what happened."
"Yes it is!"
"No, I broke up with you because you told me you didn't want to have sex with me because you didn't love me. Now what else was I supposed to do? Just pretend that everything was fine between us when you just told me you weren't in love with me? Did you even like me? Why did you even spend your whole senior year with me? I don't understand you at all."
"It wasn't like that."
"What was it like?"
"I don't know, I was just having a good time. We had fun right?"
"It was a barrel of laughs until you ripped my heart out."
"You don't have a heart."
"Don't!" Somehow he had caught up with me and grabbed my shirt right below my neckline and was twisting it as if he was trying to choke me with it. I froze and stood there in a panic trying to remember self-defense moves to get out of this sort of situation but my mind drew a blank. "Don't you ever accuse me of not having a heart! You have no idea how much you broke me that night."
"I think you're the one about to break me."
He looked down and let go of my shirt. I started backing up away from him, and once I was out of arms reach I spun and ran home. Not that it mattered because he could easily outrun me if he wanted to, but he didn't follow.
Mom was just pulling roasted chicken out of the oven when I got home. "Oh good, just in time for dinner."
"Smells good," I said eyeing the steaming biscuits fresh out of the oven, wondering if I should tell her what just happened.
"Are you all right? Why are you panting?"
"Just ran for a few blocks, thought I could use the exercise."
She gave me her look that said I don't entirely believe you but I don't think I want to go there because I've just finished this wonderful dinner for my family and I don't want to ruin it by dealing with your crazy right now. "Dinner is ready. Why don't you go call everyone?"
"Is everyone actually home?"
"Yes, now that you're here."
"Okay." I wandered round the house alerting Natalie, Anastasia and dad that dinner was ready. It's been forever since we all had dinner together like this.
Mom said a quick grace and we dug into the food. Stazi babbled about her drama club and the plays they were talking about putting on this year. I realized there wasn't much time left of the summer, soon Nat would go away again, and I would be starting college myself. Stazi broke me out of my stupor when she suddenly turned the conversation over to next week's debut as a backup singer.
"Yeah that's me, I'm a superstar backup singer. You know the guys are all pretty talented, I think the practice sessions are going really well. But they lost their lead singer last night."
"What happened?"
"Um, artistic falling out? Jon's cousin Kate is going to be the lead singer now, she's the one we went bowling with that night, and I'm just on back up by myself now. I guess it will be okay."
"She's so cool, she was so much fun that night. And that other guy, he was crazy."
"Yeah, Spencer is