CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
BLAKE’S POV

“Mind explaining what I saw in your bedroom yesterday?”

I had to grab a hold of Claire’s mouth in the middle of the hallway because she didn’t seem to understand the concept of an inside voice.

“Dude? The hell?” she asked, laughing like an evil mastermind who knew exactly what they were doing after she had brushed my hand away. “If you have nothing to hide, you wouldn’t be this antsy.”

“I don't have anything to hide, but the walls have ears and people tend to misinterpret things. C’mon.” I grabbed her hand and started pulling her towards the direction of the exit, intent on going to the pool side.

“So, we’re skipping lunch then?” she whined. “I didn’t have breakfast yet and I had to run to catch the bus this morning. I might pass out.”

A kid with dark brown curly hair passed by us in that moment, heading in the opposite direction while holding a bottle of orange juice. I grabbed it from him, waved off his protest and handed it to Claire.

“A bully and a thief. Is there anything you’re not, Blake Lindell?”

My response was swallowed back down my throat when I came face to face with my girlfriend. Now, usually I’d be all smiles and talking to her like I haven’t seen her in ages, but my ability to speak immediately got lost on me the moment I realised where her eyes were focused on.

Crystal wasn’t a crazy girlfriend. She was very reasonable and she didn’t give me hell whenever any girl walked up to me at the mall and looked like they were going to flirt with me. She has been quite understanding of the fact that I attract that much attention, knowing and believing that I will never, ever give another girl my attention. But lately, she’s been acting overly possessive of me. She called to ask me where I was and who I was with and if there were any guys/girls present. And, though he and I were not exactly on speaking terms, whenever someone mentioned her brother’s name, her grip on me tightened, like she had absolutely no intentions of ever letting me go. In that moment that she looked at my hand in Claire’s hand like she wanted to laser it off with her glare, I knew that she was no longer going to be chill about me hanging out with other girls.

“Babe...” Her tone was freakishly calm, so calm that it sent a shiver down my spine. “Where are you going? It’s lunch time.” Due to the nature of my male brain, it took a second glare from her to let go of Claire’s hand and step as far away from her as possible.

“Uh...”

“We were just headed to the pool.” I swore silently when Claire spoke up. She clearly didn’t understand the situation we were currently in. I wasn’t scared of my girlfriend or anything, but I had no intention of pissing her off.

“Reall? I didn’t know we had a pool.”

“It’s closed down, actually. No one’s there, it’s just gonna be us two so, you know, we have to go there.”

Damn Claire Reagan! I knew for sure she was intentionally riling Crystal up.

My girlfriend played her role as the ever sweet and calm little girl that didn’t display her displeasure at all times.

“Well, can I join you? I thought we were going to have lunch together.”

“Well...” I started to say but Claire cut me off.

“I’m sorry, but we have really important things to talk about and no one else is supposed to hear it.” Crystal looked like Claire had called her out on stage in front of the whole school and given her the loudest and most humiliating slap of all time. But she didn’t end there, no matter how many times I signalled to her to shut up, she just kept on going. “I get that you two are dating, but there are things that even couples shouldn’t know. It was nice meeting you, Crystal. Hope we can have lunch some other time.”

It was my turn for my hand to be grabbed. When we got to the exit, Claire burst out laughing.

“That was not funny,” I said trying my best to be serious.

“You’re wrong and you know it. She looked like she was going to kill me and you. God, what would she do if she found out you had a thing for her brother?”

My stomach dropped to the sole of my feet and it felt like the blood in my veins was replaced with ice water. I stared at Claire, unsure how best to react or respond to that statement she just made.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I didn’t mean to sound so terrified, but what she said had that effect on me. Her smile started to fade slowly, and she stared at me with her head cocked to the side, looking almost like she was confused about something.

“You and Anthony,” she stated slowly. “Don't you guys like, like each other?”

It started out slowly. My mind was blank at first, not knowing what images or words to conjure up. Then her words started to seep in, scrambled like the letters in a scrabble pack at first, but then rearranged themselves to make readable words and sentences. When I finally understood what she meant, I laughed. It seemed so funny to me for some reason, and the more I laughed the more her face contorted into a very confused expression so unlike any of her expressions.

“What? What the hell made you think that?”

“Uh...the whole...everything!” She sounded frustrated and I found it comic. I had no idea that Claire thought that I and Anthony liked each other. A lot of her comments and advice now seemed understandable.

“You guys are like...peanut butter and jelly. No, no, those two go well together.”

“So, Tony and I don't go well together?” I teased.

“No, you do. You’re more like water and oil, although those two don't go well together.” Her brows furrowed angrily as she though of what other food item she could liken I and Anthony’s relationship too.

“What about all those times you guys used to act all cute together?”

“I tease him a lot because I like how easily embarrassed he gets whenever I make a sexual innuendo and he retaliates because he can’t let me have the last laugh. We go back and forth all the time, doesn’t mean we have a thing for each other.”

“Then what about yesterday in your room?” My smile faltered when she brought that incident up and my heart started to beat erratically. She smiled triumphantly as if fully aware of the internal struggle I was facing in that moment.

“Wh-what about yesterday?” I stammered. Claire looked to her left, then to her right and behind her, checking for any signs of life, before moving closer to me and whispering, “The kiss?”

Getting nervous and developing clammy palms in a situation, even one as uncomfortable as this one, had never been me. So, it came as a surprise to me when I started sweating in that cold November air and breathing became a myth of some sort.

“I know what I saw, Blake Lindell. Even though I didn’t exactly see it happen, I know it did based on what I saw. No two people sit that close to each other without anything happening. You and Anthony were mad at each other for some time and I knew how sad that made you despite your tough boy facade and your decision to never speak to him again. Then you guys make up the same day I spoke to you and you said you were never going to forgive him, and the next thing that’s happening is you two making out in your bedroom? What the hell does that mean then? Are you just playing with him?”

“Of course not!” I screeched defensively. “I will never play with Anthony. I won’t hurt his feelings like that...or anyone else’s.” The thought of treating Anthony like that sickened me. I couldn’t believe Claire would even ask such a question.

“Then what was it?”

“It was nothing. I...” I wanted to tell Claire about the first time I kissed him at the park when he asked me to. It felt nice doing it back then, but that didn’t mean anything. It was just a kiss between two friends. I just wanted him to feel better, that’s all. To be honest, the fact that I kissed Anthony while dating his sister made me feel guilty. I needed to tell someone and I trusted that Claire wouldn’t make me feel even shittier for what I did.

“It really was nothing, Claire. Anthony can attest to that. It’s not the first time we’ve even kissed.”

Her gasp was as dramatic as a Bollywood movie. Her eyes bulged out of sockets, her mouth formed a well rounded ‘o’ and her hair shook with the rest of her body as she struggled to grab a hold of my arm for support.

“The fuck?” That yell alone echoed through the now empty hallway. Standing right in front of the entrance was risky and I was getting uncomfortable with the direction in which our conversation was heading.

“C’mon.” She let me lead her to the external library and then she plopped me down on the musty old armchair where Anthony sat when Gary sketched him almost nude.

“Tell me everything.”

And so I did. When I was through, she was so gobsmacked and flabbergasted, for a moment I thought her soul had left her body. She looked at me like she was looking at the most alien alien.

“How was it?” she asked finally.

“Em... I don't know. Good, I guess?”

“And did you feel anything at all when you kissed him, like butterflies in your belly and shit?”

“I mean, yeah, cause he kissed me first and that caught me off guard.”

“And how do you feel when you’re near him?”

“The same way I always do – happy and glad that we made up. He’s fricking adorable.”

“Aww,” Claire gushed. “Look at you blushing and turning all red.”

I quickly quelled that look and cleared my throat, readjusting my sitting position.

“How often do you think about him?” It didn’t take me more than a second to come up with the answer to that question, but I didn’t tell her. I thought about Anthony all the time, every moment of my waking hours and even while I was asleep, but friends can think about each other that number of times, right?

When I didn’t answer her, she sighed and took a step close to me before kneeling down in front of me and grabbing my hand in hers, while looking me dead in the eye. Her voice got all serious and she looked like she was about to cry tears of immense joy.

“I am no love doctor, Blake Lindell, but I am a hundred percent, undeniably, most definitely sure that you have a crush on Anthony Pearce.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just gaped at her like a robot whose batteries have been removed and could no longer function. Her smile kept getting bigger and bigger until it could no longer contain her face.

“Welcome to your bi awakening!”