Love Is Not The Enemy

IT'S NOT THEIR BUSINESS

Cari's PoV

The next two days I spent in sweatshirts and hoodies. It wasn't a too strange sight, me living in too warm clothes for the season. But usually, taking them off and wearing a t-shirt instead wasn't a problem. Though, with small, red marks littering my forearms and wrists, I felt it was better to keep them on, to not have people question why I suddenly seemed to have started doing things I obviously haven't.

I know Shannon has noticed how I try to hide them, her face falling visibly every time I pull at the sleeves to make sure the marks are hidden. Her guilt is so obvious when I manage to catch her eyes, before she turns away, denying my gaze.

I don't like how tense things are between us now. Yeah, we're not fighting or particularly angry with each other. Though her sudden, but not unfamiliar change of mood, in relation to her father and the state of mind that puts her in, has caused a weird shift between us that has me walking on eggshells around her to not set her off. Adding the fact that I've spent the last few afternoons over at Ryan's house to get our video done, doesn't help at all. It's only a few days left until I'm going to present a project I've worked on for the past almost half a year and expose a relationship I've kept hidden in the same period of time, for most parts, leaving me the most vulnerable I think I've ever felt in front of the student body. Not only is it the first time I'm going sing in front of people, but I'm going to let go of something that's been so close to my heart for so long.

For the past over half a year of my life, I've kept hidden the most intense feelings I've ever felt. Both positive and negative ones. Feelings that involve another girl I've know my entire life, but now in an entirely new way. Exposing my feelings, would be exposing hers as well, which is what I find to be slightly terrifying. I have to be both our voices. I have to speak up for the both of us. I have to be the one standing on stage in front of the entire student body, opening up the last over half a year of our lives. It's my vulnerability the school will be presented with.

To be able to do just that, I need to know we're both ready and in the right mindset to possibly put ourselves out there for people who're just there to eat at our self-confidence and confidence in our relationship. We both have to be wrapped up in an extra layer of thick skin and we need to both be prepared to just stick our fingers into our ears and close our eyes for whatever might come our way. And with Shannon currently being in the process of climbing up a ladder from the hole she has been pushed into by the current time of the year it is, I don't know if we're both quite there. Now, I feel like we've fallen into one of our down times, even if we shouldn't. As Shannon's current turbulence, surely affects me as well. Exposing every emotion she has filled me with in the time since we both started feeling our friendship slowly but surely light on fire, isn't at all walking on eggshells.

But I know I can't just back out now. Ryan and I have been working on finishing up the music video every afternoon since Monday and we're actually seeing an end to it now. The song I'm preforming is rehearsed to a point where something really scandalous has to happen before there's even a chance I won't be able to remember the words having stuck themselves to my mind, even if I tried. I almost can't open my mouth anymore, without my own lyrics being all I'm able to voice. The only thing I'm not prepared for, is the speech. A speech that's still just a blank page in my notebook.

But speech or not, I can't drop out now. The date has been set for a long time. Both Shannon and I were well aware that the day would come. That it doesn't fit into Shannon's scheduled 'down-time' of the year, isn't something any of us can do anything about. It's still a project I have to present.

As Wednesday rolls around, and Ryan and I have been given our thirty minutes in the auditorium, just like the rest of our class, to make sure everything was ready for Friday, it just becomes even clearer that there is no longer a way out of this. I watch Ryan in silence from the edge of the stage, where I had been sitting since we entered, as he connects his devices to the projector he has already made sure works. I gently grip onto the edge of the sctage as I look out over the empty room that, in only two days, will be filled up by every student and teacher in this school, along with my brother.