CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
BLAKE’S POV

I was waiting by his locker, a huge grin on my face. I was excited to show him the playlist I developed for him. While I was on my bed thinking about how uncomfortable he must be on his couch, I thought of this song that I sang to him when we were kids. He liked it, and I believe it was mostly because he liked my voice, so I decided to make him a playlist of the songs that he liked in my voice! I just hope it would make him a little happy and less uncomfortable since he declined my offer to use my bed.

I sighted him just as he came up to my locker. My hand moved up in a wave and a huge smile was plastered on my face, but he wasn’t smiling. In fact, he looked furious as hell. He reached his locker and before I could get any words out of my mouth, he punched me. I felt my lip tear and the taste of metal was vivid on my tongue.

He raised his fist to punch me again, but this time around I was quick to respond. Pinning his hands against his locker, I looked at him and said gently, “Use your words, Pearce.”

He didn’t want to use his words. He struggled to set himself free from my grasp but it was no use; I was stronger than he was.

“Let me go, Lindell,” he said through gritted teeth.

“So you can punch me again? Hell no. Use your words, Pearce. Talk to me.”

“Here’s three words for you: go to hell!”

This was useless. He was obviously not going to calm down and I couldn’t pin his arms up forever. Sighing, I let go of him and shoved him aside. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he glared at me.

“The hell’d you give my textbook to Gary for?” he asked. Out of all the things I could have possibly done to him, I didn’t think he would be mad at me for something as trivial as this. I thought he was kidding at first, but the cut on my bottom lip and the grey his blue eyes became told me otherwise.

“You’re joking, right?” I asked incredulously, though I knew he was not. To be fair it was a ridiculous thing to be angry about. I once set his new phone on fire and he didn’t even punch me for it, although he was pretty mad. He got yelled out by his parents for being so irresponsible and losing his phone less than a week after he got it. Lending his textbook to the guy he had a crush on shouldn’t be more maddening than that, that’s for sure, but apparently, it was.

People had started to gather and I hated when there was a crowd waiting to see something post-worthy happen.

“Let’s talk about this outside, Pearce.” I grabbed his hand when he didn’t move an inch, and started pulling him towards the exit, but he was proving stubborn and planted his feet firmly on the floors.

“If you don't move right now, I am going to fling you over my shoulder and march you out of here while you flail your arms and legs like a little bitch.”

I forgot how effective threatening Anthony was.

We got to the external library and he let go of my hand instantly like it was hot coal or something.

“You were saying?” I said and gestured to him. He scoffed and ran his hand through his hair, resulting in it falling messily to the side. He looked way too fine for me to even be mad at him, so I just kept a cool face and waited for him to speak. I had decided to be calm in dealing with him so nothing he said or did could offend me.

“Why did you give my textbook to Gary?”

“He asked me for mine and I thought what I gave to him was mine. I guess I just made a mistake. But I didn’t think you’d be angry about it. I had no idea how possessive you were about your learning materials.”

“You don't actually expect me to believe that nonsense, do you?”

God, whatever issues he was having with his sister, he was venting it out all on me and normally I would sympathize with him and try to console him, but he wasn’t even giving me a chance and so he was getting on my nerves.

“This is so typical of you, Blake Lindell. I can’t believe I was so stupid to believe that you’ve changed.”

“Anthony, if you don't start making sense, I’m going to shove my hand far up your nose until I get to your brain and I sort out the words that you are failing desperately to use! Make what you’re saying make sense or I’m walking out.”

“You gave my letter to Gary!” he yelled.  We looked at each other for a while, neither of us saying anything. Then, after his words finally registered and I was still unable to comprehend them, I said, “What?”

“The letter that was in my textbook. Don't act like you didn’t know about it. That’s the reason why you gave it to him. He asked you for yours and you found that to be the perfect opportunity to humiliate me again so you gave him mine instead with the note I wrote him.”

“You wrote Gary a note?” I asked disbelievingly. “Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?” Now, it was my turn to be mad. “I specifically told you not to write Gary a love letter. Did my warning mean nothing to you?”

“Oh, please, don't give me that bullshit. You totally wanted Gary to find out about it. You hated that I was dating Michael so badly, you probably wanted to cause some kind of quarrel between us so we’d break up. That’s why you did that. Either that or you just wanted to screw me over which will be no different, really.”

“Of course I hate that you’re dating Michael, and yeah, I might have said that I’d have preferred you dated Gary instead, but I was only joking! Anybody is better than Gary! The dude’s freaking straight and he’s a dumbass!”

“Well newsflash, Gary’s not straight!” he shouted back. Our voices were bouncing off the walls of the external library, echoing and filling up the space. Hearing that Gary was gay in 3D was quite shocking but at the same time comic. If the situation wasn’t as serious as it was, I would have laughed at the way “straight!” echoed.

“Well...damn. I didn’t know that.”

“Of course you didn’t. You wanted me to fail miserably and be highly embarrassed, and guess what? Your plan worked and now Gary is an asshole and you’re a bigger one!”

“Hold up. How the hell is that my fault? I didn’t know you wrote a stupid note to him and put it in your textbook. You can’t blame me for that shit. You can’t keep blaming me for all the wrong things that happen in your life.”

There, I said it!

I didn’t want to say it, but he was pushing my buttons. The silence that fell in that hall made me wish for the echoes to return. Anthony not only looked angry, he looked hurt as well. Like, emotionally hurt. Like my words wounded the sensitive lion that he was and now his blood was oozing and mixing with his anger and giving off this killer scent that enticed him and made him want to hurt someone in return.

“You’re talking about me?” His voice was low and menacing, quite unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him before. “You don't even take responsibility for your actions. Your attorney parents handle every shitty thing you’ve ever done and they cover it up like it’s nothing! You don't know remorse if it hit you in your face and shoved its ass down your throat. If I ever blamed you for anything that went wrong in my life, it’s because you caused it. You are the reason why bad shit happens to me all the time. You make bad things happen to a lot of people. Just take Blaire for example.”

“Shut up,” I said, my lungs suddenly losing their capacity to function as lungs. His words rang in my ears and caused my heart to shatter into a million pieces. If there was one person in this whole world who I thought would never say these words, it was Anthony. I can’t believe that he said that. I can’t believe he mentioned my sister’s name.

“If you weren’t such a spoilt brat, she would still be here today. Your mom knows it. Your dad knows it. My parents know it. Everyone knows it and most especially, you know it!”

“Shut up!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Shutupshutupshutupshutup!” I was looking at Anthony like I wanted to kill him because in that moment, after making me relieve an event that I didn’t want to relieve and blaming me for something he knew I thought was my fault and hurting me in a way I’ve never thought of to hurt him, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to watch the light in his blue eyes go out and I wanted him to apologize to me for saying what he did about Blaire. I hated Anthony Pearce more than I’ve ever hated him or anyone else in the world and I wanted him to disappear, preferably through spontaneous combustion.

“You pulled that stunt in ninth grade and here you are doing the same thing. I should have known you’d never change. Once an asshole, always an asshole.” At this point, I didn’t even care to know what stunt he was talking about. All I could think of was how Anthony used what I feared the most against me, the incident that has haunted me for the better part of my teenage life, just because the guy he liked found out about his little crush through a stupid note I told him not to write in the first place!

If I had known being friends with him again would cost me another bout of heartbreak, I wouldn’t have done it, regardless of how much I missed him and how wonderful the few weeks we spent together was. Anthony Pearce was officially my enemy again, and this time around, there was no room for making up. He had crossed the line when he said what he said and I wasn’t going to waste a second with someone who pretended they were my friend when they weren’t.

“I don't want to ever see you again, Pearce. If I so much as see your shadow close to my front door, or hear your voice or see you with my parents, I’m gonna break every single bone in your body and I’ll make sure you never hold clay again in your life. And rest assured, my attorney parents will get me out of that mess too, and I will not take responsibility for my actions since I’m such a spoilt brat.”

I turned around and left him, the sound of our friendship shattering into a million pieces echoing behind me. It was over. Five and a half weeks of being friends again and it ended it the most horrible way it could possibly end. Nothing was going to fix it now. Was I happy about it? No. But there was nothing I could do about it, and even if there was, I sure as hell wasn’t going to try and fix it.

Anthony Pearce was as dead to me as my sister was and there was no reviving him either!