Page 63 of The Baller

Millie: How’s it going?

Radley: Hey, you’re supposed to be having fun with your mom, not checking up on me.

Millie: I am having fun, but I’m also asking my best friend how her weekend is going… Been trick or treating yet?

Radley: Yeah, got my costume on right now… *eyeroll*

Radley: I’m okay though… I ran a new route this morning. Jake took mealong the river.

Millie: *Proud* And when are you seeing Mr. Weston again?

Radley: Now. I’m waiting for him in that brunch place we passed the other day ??

I nearly droppedmy cell as the screen buzzed with Millie’s face.

“Hello?”

“Are you telling me you’re sitting in a restaurant by yourself?”

I laughed quietly while also feeling incredibly proud of myself, because I was, in fact, sitting on my own. It was accidental, but I was still doing it.

“Yep.”

“Radley, this is amazing,” she gasped, and I could almost see her face, her big eyes open wide as she grinned at me

“I only just got here, Ethan and Jake are close by, and Lux will be here any second… he’s running late, so I figured I’d take the table, you know…” I trailed off, unsure why I was trying to dilute the magnitude of my achievement; that I had successfully spent a day and a night alone in the dorm, and I was now in a restaurantby myselfwaiting for my new… friend? No, that wasn’t right – Lux was more than a friend. After the way he’d been kissing me since the first time he kissed me… he wasmuchmore than a friend.

Two days ago, he’d taken me back to Asher’s to view a first edition of The Canterbury Tales, only I’d spent most of it with my back pressed into a bookshelf while Lux’s tongue reminded mewhy I’d done nothing but think about being kissed by him since we’d left the gym.

It took all my willpower tostopthinking about it.

“Radley,” Millie’s voice interrupted my thoughts, “I gotta go, but this is amazing. I love you and I’m proud of you. I knew you could do it.”

My entire chest inflated until I had to check I wasn’t floating.

For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was proud of myself. Even if I had worn my hair down, and buried my face in the menu every time someone walked past, I’d achieved something I’d thought was impossible for so long. I almost wanted to text Doctor Jessops to tell her, but that would probably be weird. I’d have to wait until our session next week.

“I love you right back. See you on Monday, and give your mom a hug for me.”

Right as I pressed call end, my chair jerked forward from the force of the table behind taking their seats. I turned around, but the guy clearly hadn’t noticed he’d nearly wedged me in half between the back of his chair and my table. I was so squashed he’d almost cut off my air supply. If Millie had been here, she’d have shoved him back.

Grrr.

There was no way he was going to move, and even less likely that I was going to turn around andask himto move; being alone in a restaurant was a big enough step for me, so I freed myself by pushing my table forward another couple of inches until I could breathe again.

I looked back down at the menu, my stomach rumbling loudly right as my phone buzzed.

Lux: So sorry, Goldilocks. Traffic. Be there in five x

I pushed down the panic which threatened to appear, breathing through the waves before it hit the point of no return. Five minutes. I could do five more minutes.

As it retreated, I found myself focused on the warm, fuzzy feeling I’d been waking up with every day. The notion that things were going to be okay; that I could do this.

“Turning a corner,” is what Doctor Jessops had called it in our session this week. I was “on the way the other side”, she’d said, like I’d died or something. Though maybe I had, and new Radley was being born.

Radley 2.0.

Radley who was making new friends. Radley who trusted. Radley who may or may not have a boyfriend. Whoever she was, was a far cry from the girl who’d sworn to herself she would never get close to another human being.

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