CHAPTER TWELVE-Groveling…It Isn’t Anything Like Grover, You Know

As soon as I was released from Jake’s bear hug, I went straight to the phone. I didn’t even bother finding dry clothes-my relationship with Lo was far too important to waste time on a silly little thing like my health.

I dialed the familiar number frantically and waited for it to start ringing through. One ring…two rings…I was tapping my fingers against the countertop…three rings…

“Gilmore residence, this is Lauren,” I heard Lauren say, and I rolled my eyes at the familiarity. Her parents always made her answer the phone like she worked at a fucking Hilton.

“Hey Lauren, it’s Vannie,” I said, my voice sounding small in my own ears. I had barely gotten the final vowel out of my mouth before I heard a resounding click, followed by a rather distinct dial tone…

Shit.

I sat down at the table, the phone feeling like a dead weight in my hand. In the three years that we had been friends, Lo had never hung up on me-it was one of her biggest pet peeves. I felt Jake move to stand behind me.

“What happened?” he asked, noticing my shocked expression.

“She hung up on me,” I managed to get out before I buried my face in my hands. I could feel the hard plastic of the phone digging into my forehead for a moment until it was removed from my hand. Jake took the phone and placed it back in the cradle.

“What do you want to do about it?” he asked.

“What do you mean what do I want to do?” I replied, my voice muffled by my palms. “She obviously doesn’t want to talk to me, and I’m not about to grovel at her feet…”

Jake grabbed me by the shoulder, shaking my face out of my hands. I looked up to see a fierce look on his face. “You’re telling me that you’re not even going to try to win back your best friend in the entire world? What the hell happened to my sister, the stubborn ass bitch? Don’t tell me that you’re willing to give up just because it requires a little bit of effort from you.”

“You just want us to be friends again so you can put the moves on her,” I shot at him, attempting to sting so he would just back the hell off. Instead, he rolled his eyes at me.

“That’s only out of courtesy,” he replied bluntly. “Honestly, if you don’t get your shit together and do something about all of this, then I’ll ask Lauren out anyway. Maybe then you’ll wake up and stop acting like a fucking five year old for a change. So I suggest you get up from the damn chair, change your clothes, and get the hell over to Lauren’s house and grovel at her damn feet.”

I opened my mouth, ready to throw out a good retort, when Lauren’s smiling face popped into my mind. It was her image that sparked my memories-our first high school party; our victorious battle with the tanorexics in the beginng of tenth grade; my sixteenth birthday; the night of Little Margarita; the football game we’d been forced to go to where we’d nearly beaten the shit out of a stupid ninth grader; the last concert we’d gone to together…

I stood up and looked at my brother. “Fuck getting changed. Let’s go.”

 ==========

Twenty minutes later we pulled up in front of the Gilmore’s palatial estate. One thing about Lo that she didn’t care to share with the rest of the student population was that her family was filthy stinking rich. Her dad had gotten in on some major plastics dealings about fifteen years ago and had struck gold after he’d sold his partial share of the company. He now sat around on his ass all day and made it his goal in life to order around his wife and his youngest daughter like he was a fucking maharajah.

I looked over at Jake, who was staring up at the house. He’d been here a few times to pick up Lo while they were dating, but it seemed that he had forgotten just how huge the house was. After a moment, he glanced back at me.

“Do you want me to come in or do you want me to stay out here?” he asked, looking as if he wanted to flee from under the shadow of the impressive mansion. I didn’t blame him-there was a reason that Lo and I hung out at my house most of the time.

“How about you head off and I’ll call you when I’m ready for you to come get me?” I replied, giving him a means of escape. He gladly took it.

“Sounds good,” he said, nodding. I grabbed the handle of the car door and popped it open. Just before I stepped out, Jake put a hand on my arm. “I know you can make this right, Van. Don’t let your stupid ass stubborn side get in the way of your friendship, all right?”

I glared. “You know, for all that you’re a pretty decent brother, sometimes I want to punch you in the nose,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But I get your point.” I stepped out of the car, wincing as I felt fat raindrops hitting my shoulders. It seemed the morning’s weather had returned. “And Jake?”

“Yeah?” he asked, his left hand flicking to turn on the windshield wipers.

“Thanks.” With that, I slammed the car door and turned towards the huge white house. I ran across the lawn, trying to avoid getting even wetter as I trekked to the huge front porch. I jabbed the doorbell and waited for someone to answer, tapping my toes against the red bricks.

I was just about to give up when Lo’s mom arrived at the door. She looked me up and down-clearly, I was a sight with my wet, frizzy hair, disheveled clothing, and my banged-up Converse with the dirty shoelaces untied and hanging off of my shoes like wet noodles. “Is Lauren here?” I asked, peeking into the house.

She nodded. “Yes, Savannah, she’s upstairs.” No one in the Gilmore household called me Vannie except for Lo-her parents and two older sisters, who were just as snobbish as their dad, all called me by my full name.

“Thank you,” I said as she moved aside to let me in. Noticing her hesitant expression, I slid my damp shoes off and put them next to the doormat before stepping into the house. I padded across the white tile floor and up the stark white carpeted staircase, noticing for the first time how dingy my white socks looked in comparison to the freshly cleaned carpet.

I made my way down the hall, looking at the pristine family photos where everyone wore white, their fake smiles plastered to their faces. Lo looked nothing like herself-she looked almost angelic in her sleeveless white dress, her blonde hair perfectly curled and not a touch of black eyeliner around her light blue eyes.

Truthfully, it was like seeing an alternate version of my best friend.

I finally crept past the creepy Seventh Heaven-esque photographs and knocked on Lo’s bright white door. I could hear the faint sounds of Oasis’s “Wonderwall” playing through the wood.

“Yes, Mother?” I heard her yell through the doorway. I laughed-it was so bizarre hearing Lo be so formal, and it only occurred inside of the Gilmore household. The second the laugh escaped my mouth, I knew my cover had been blown. The music was turned down and I heard a pair of socked feet padding to the door. “Vannie, I know that’s you. What do you want?”

I sighed. “Would you mind opening the door? It’s kind of disconcerting talking to a destroyed tree, you know.”

“Give me one good reason why I should,” she demanded.

“Well, here’s one-I can tell the way you’re standing right now just by the tone in your voice-you have one hand on your hip and the other one is resting on the wall by the door. I know you way too well to be standing on the opposite side of the door from you, Lo.”

There was a pause, and I waited with bated breath to see what her reaction would be. Finally I heard the sound of the door creaking open in front of me. I looked up to see Lo standing there, her hair twisted back in a messy bun, her nicer school clothes ditched in favor of a gray hoodie and stretchy black pants. She glared at me, her ice blue eyes boring into mine. “Okay, I opened the door. Care to say something?”

I nodded. “Lauren…” I hesitated. I hadn’t said these words to someone in almost five years, but I knew this was worth it. Our friendship was worth it. I swallowed nervously, pushing my pride down my throat with my saliva. “I’m so sorry.”

She looked at me, evaluating my expression. She knew my aversion to apologies and always had. Doubtlessly she was surprised that I had even made the trip over to her house to say this in the first place. “Sorry,” she repeated, sounding incredulous.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Look, Lauren, I know I was a first class bitch to you, and you totally didn’t deserve that. I mean, I told you when we first started being friends that I would always be honest with you and I expected you to do the same for me. But the second you did in a situation that actually mattered, I turned into a total—“

“Bitch,” she said, crossing her arms.

I bit my lip. “You’re right. I was a bitch.”

“Wait, I’m sorry-what?” I realized that I had just done something else unprecedented. “You, Savannah Leanne Morrison, just admitted that someone else besides you was right?”

I shrugged. “I guess I did.” I rocked back and forth on my socked feet, hoping that she would accept my apologies-I was starting to feel a little embarrassed, standing in the middle of her pristine hallway looking like something the hobo’s cat had dragged in from the alley.

She looked me up and down. “You look like shit,” she said after a moment.

“I feel like shit,” I admitted, tucking my hands into my pockets.

She laughed. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the fight was finally over. Though it had only lasted a day, it was far too long to go without my best friend. She reached out her arms and pulled me into a hug. Lo was one of the few people that I was comfortable hugging, simply because she never took no for an answer when it came to physical affection.

“Come inside my room,” she said, gesturing into her messy bedroom, her walls covered in Oasis and Jane’s Addiction posters and a pencil cup full of black eyeliner pencils on her dresser. I breathed a sigh of relief-this was my best friend, not the snow palace that she was forced to live in.

I walked in the door behind her and flopped into the black butterfly chair next to her bed with a sigh. I heard her shut the door before she came back into my vision, throwing herself down on the queen-sized bed.

After a moment, she sat up. “So, did Jake bring you over here?” she asked, looking at me.

“Yep,” I said, crossing one leg over the other. I suddenly remembered my promise to myself on Saturday morning. “So, Lo…” I knew my grin was positively wicked. “What’s going on with you and Jake?”

She groaned. “Oh, God, please,” she said, begging. “I so don’t want to talk about this…”

I leaned forward and looked at her. “Please, woman. You know I’m going to sit here and stare at you until you decide to talk, so you might as well start talking now. It’ll save us a lot of time.”

She rolled her eyes. “All right, all right. But we’re going to have to head down to the kitchen and grab some Oreos before we start talking. This could take a while.”