Chapter fifty

Chapter fifty
Arielle

I stared at the door unblinkingly, my chest heaving from the aftermath of what Drayton and I almost did. He was about to kiss me. And I realized with terrifying clarity that I would have let him.

The sound of someone approaching grew louder and I was forced to tear my gaze away to see who the intruder was. I didn't recognize the anger I felt at the arrival of the person and what it had interrupted.

But as I took in the person, my anger slowly melted away.

“Laura?” I called

I've been running into her a lot these days. First, she came to Chuck's but I managed to avoid her. Now, she interrupted my almost kiss. Laura and I didn't have any classes together and we didn't even run in the same social circle. This was really starting to get suspicious.

“Are you okay?” She signed, her eyes fixated on my face.

“Yes, why wouldn't I be?”

I mean, it's not like you interrupted what was about to be the most memorable kiss of my life.

I didn't say the last part out but it was like Laura heard it any way. Her eyes narrowed on me. I shifted uncomfortably under her heavy scrutiny.

“Your face is red.” She signed slowly almost hesitant.

Well, shit. I didn't think of that. I racked my brain from a believable excuse.

“I'm fine. I'm just a little cold. Why are you here?”

I realized too late how harsh my question sounded and immediately plastered a smile on.

If Laura noticed my harsh treatment, she didn't let on. Instead, she signed,

“I'm in trouble.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Well, Ms Brown arranged a tutorial for me when school resumed. But I've kinda been blowing it off for the last few weeks. I'm pretty sure that's the reason she summoned me here in the middle of lunch.” she scoffed.

“Oh,” I said simply and nodded. I might have respected her when she confronted me few weeks ago and didn't shy from her disability, but that didn't really make us friends. We haven't interacted and our almost run-in at Chuck's just made things harder.

Besides, I have zero ideas on how to make friends on my own. I've never had to befriend someone before. Everyone wanted to be friends with me.

“Well, you might want to wait. There's a student in there with her.”

She gave me a nod in response. Her eyes darted around like she's searching for more words to fl the silence but I'd already had enough of it.

I began walking away but she grabbed my arm.

“Listen,” she began signing, “I'm sorry for the way I came at you that day. That's really not me.”

“It's okay. I totally deserved it. I came at you first, remember?” I smiled.

But she didn't smile back. Her frown deepened as she signed,
“It didn't make what I did right.”

“Alright, it's fine. Apology accepted.”

I walked away before she could say another thing. Lunch break was already over so I headed for class. San bombarded me either questions before I could even properly settle in my seat.

“How did it go with Brown? Did she finally stop forcing you and Drayton together?”

“Things went well actually. She gave Drayton and I detention after school today.”

“How's that ‘well’? And why would she do that?” Dan asked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Well, uhm, I sorta have been skipping the tutoring session and Ms Brown found out.”

My heartbeat increased erratically as I realized how close to the truth I had gotten. I prayed Dan doesn't ask anymore questions. I don't think I had the energy to lie to him further.

But I was saved from further questions when our teacher walked in and class began. Drayton walked in shortly after and my eyes immediately found his. My body lit up at the remainder of what happened few minutes ago.

I could tell by the way his nostrils flared slightly that he was remembering the same thing.

“Mr King, will you please take a seat?” The teacher's voice echoed through the classroom, dragging me back to reality.

Drayton nodded and went to take a seat. It took a lot of self restraint to not trail him with my eyes. I had already set off too many suspicion by staring at him for so long. I could already feel Dan's eyes on me.

I managed to keep my gaze firmly on the board till the end of the class.
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The bell rang signifying the end of the final class for the day. By then, I had pushed all thoughts of the ‘almost kiss’ to the back of my head. That was until my eyes found Drayton as he walked out of class.

“Are you going to be fine?” Dan asked.

“No, I don't think so.” I said truthfully.

I was going to spend over an hour in detention with Drayton, go to work with him, study with him, and sleep in the same house with him after what happened earlier. I wasn't ready for how awkward things would get.

“Should I come with you?”

“To detention on a school night? No. I'm a big girl. I can handle Drayton. Go read one of your smutty books.” I poked his arm jokingly.

Dan sucked in a breath, a faint blush staining his cheeks.

“I told you, they're not mine.” He groaned.

“Oh, they're from your ‘ghost girlfriend’ who you still won't introduce to me.” I said with a chuckle.

I knew Dan didn't have a girlfriend. He was a strong believer of ‘dating in high school is a distraction’. He had gone on a few dates in the past, but nothing serious. And he has definitely never taken a girl home to meet his parents.

After the first time I caught him reading a dark romance in class, I had seen him a few times with different books.

He claimed he was ‘borrowing’ them from someone. He complained whenever he was reading the book and claim not to understand why ‘she’ loves it so much, but he never stops reading.

Whoever the girl was, he definitely likes her a lot. And she had great taste in books.

“She's not my girlfriend.” He mumbled. “

I laughed as he hurriedly shoved his books in his bag and walked out of the classroom. He was clearly avoiding the conversation about the girl but I wasn't going to press him about it. Not when I was hiding a mountain of secrets from him.

I slung my backpack over my shoulder and made my way to the gym. Drayton was already there when I arrived. He was talking to the coach.

I couldn't hear what they were saying but from the look on both their faces, neither of them was pleased about it. Coach walked away before I could get to them.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Drayton shrugged, but I could tell something was bothering him.

“You don't look okay.”

I didn't want to press him about it but I was genuinely worried about him. He seem resigned, and not in a good way. I knew about masking emotions and he was clearly trying to mask his.

“Coach just kicked me off the team. He made someone else captain but he wouldn't tell me who.”

“Oh my God! That's so terrible. Are you okay?” I asked and took a step closer to him.

“I really don't know how I feel, but yeah, I guess.” He said.

“Well, I'm here if you want to talk about it.” I said and he nodded.

We fell into a tensed silence, echoes of the hallway incident came rushing back, making me shift uncomfortably. I didn't move away but I also didn't move forward. I didn't know what I wanted at this point.

“El!” I swerved my head towards the direction the sound came from despite already knowing who it was.

Jack Sinclair walked into the gym with his cousin by his side. He had a wide smile on his face, but Laura didn't look as pleased. They sure have horrible timing.

“How are you, babe?” Jack purred in a sickening sweet voice.

He made a beeline towards me and slung his arm around my neck. My eyebrows shot up and I glared at him, but how gaze was on Drayton.

The two of them fell into some kind of eye battle. I ducked out of Jack's arm and walked towards Laura.

“Let me guess, Ms Brown gave you detention too.” I said to Laura.

She sighed in clear frustration and began signing,

“Yes, and big head over there offered to accompany me. I told him a hundred times not to. Now, he and Clayton seem like they want to kill each other.”

I refrained from correcting her of Drayton's name as she was clearly frustrated with her cousin.

I followed her line of sight to see Drayton and Jack exchanging words with each other, but we couldn't hear what they were saying.

“Let's go grab some brooms and leave them to their testosterone battles.” I said.

Laura nodded in agreement.

We hadn't taken more than one step before the tension between the boys finally broke and Drayton drove his fist straight into Jack's face.

And everything went to hell.