CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
ANTHONY’S POV

Who the hell is that?

I stared at the girl with blazing red hair who just barged into Blake’s bedroom like she owned the place. Her coffee brown eyes were as huge as saucers as she looked from me to a crimson-faced Blake sitting beside me.

“Uh...” she drawled, unsure what next to say.

“Claire!” Blake exclaimed and quickly got up.

That was Claire?

It did not help my heart at all from knotting up that she was pretty. Though I didn’t particularly know her, she did look familiar, like someone I’d seen in passing, maybe in the hallway or during class.

“What are you doing here?” Blake’s voice was raised a few octaves, and he looked like he had just been caught stealing his dad’s wallet.

“I left my purse when I came earlier and I kept calling you but you didn’t pick up, so I...just wanted it back.” Claire looked from Blake and then to me and then back to Blake, the last look accompanied by a very teasing smile.

“I see you fixed your boy problem,” she said and bit her lower lip in an attempt to hold back her ever widening grin.

“Claire...” Blake tried to stop her from coming further inside his bedroom, but she dodged his arm like an expert and marched up to me with determined steps. I have to admit, I was a little scared by it.

“Hi. I’m Claire Reagan.” She stretched out her hand for a handshake and I just stared at it like it was a foreign object. I was still undecided about whether I should consider her a rival or a friend, but I guess she was done deciding because she grabbed my hand and put in hers forcefully.

“Claire, now is not a good time for you to make his acquaintance.”

“Oh, I know.” There was a hint of suggestiveness in her voice and she smirked naughtily at Blake and I. “I could tell that I ruined something when I walked in.”

“Okeeyyyy...” Blake quickly grabbed her hand and her purse that was on his night stand and shoved it in her other hand.

“Time for you to leave now, bye-bye.” He ushered her out of his bedroom and down the stairs, leaving me alone in his room to think about what just happened.

From the moment we made up at the hospital, I had gotten a feeling that Blake just wanted to touch me. I thought it was all in my head at first, but then we were in his car and his hand just kept moving from one spot on my body to the other. I tried my best to not read too much meaning into it, but then this happened!

Right here in his bedroom, he initiated a kiss! Or a brush of the lips. Whatever it was, he did it first!

I already knew there was no future for me with a good heart and it was all because of Blake Lindell. I had already accepted my fate and I was prepared to be on a life time of medication if the need arose. But for him to straight up want to end my life right now by doing that? Talk about fatal attraction!

Every manner of thought was swirling in my mind at the same time: Why does he keep touching me? Why did he kiss me? Why was he acting so...sexual and being so close to me? Why did he kiss me???

That last question was the most pressing one of all. No matter what way I thought about it, I couldn’t see any reason why a straight guy like himself would want to kiss me. I would have liked to assume it was because he was curious, but Blake had already kissed me before; besides, he wasn’t the kind to play with someone’s emotions just because he was curious about something. There was no way Blake was secretly gay like Gary...

“Sorry about that.” I snapped out of my thoughts when he walked back into his room. He looked flushed, a look that I would have sworn Blake Lindell could and would never wear in his entire life. I noticed that his eyes didn’t stay on me for a long time, and when he did eventually meet my eyes, he turned a deep shade of red and quickly looked away.

He was fricking adorable!

“She seems nice.” I didn’t mean that. I didn’t like this Claire girl. She was pretty and obviously so close to Blake. What if she liked him? I mean, what sane person wouldn’t like Blake? I already had my sister as my competition – though to be fair, it was more like I was playing chess while she didn’t even know there was a board game to begin with, sort of – I couldn’t afford to have another girl to contend with!

God! What the hell was I even thinking? I shouldn’t be thinking such nonsense.

“Uh, I have to go.” My sudden announcement shocked both Blake and myself. I looked around to see if I had brought anything and remembered I had come from the hospital. My wet clothes were in the trunk of Blake’s car.

“What?” he asked, sounding a bit disappointed. I swear, I almost took back what I said to stay back with him because of how cute he sounded, but I had to leave. I was thinking stupid thoughts and I was certain that I was going to act on them.

“Yeah, uh, I just remembered that I and Anderson had this photography/pottery collaboration we wanted to do so I have to go over to his place. I’ll sleep over there too.” I gave him a fake smile that probably looked like a grimace. Before he could say anything that’d make me change my mind and act like he was my master, I bolted out of his room, feeling his sadness trail after me as I descended the stairs.



“Do you know who Claire Reagan is?”

Anderson jumped, startled at hearing my voice so close to his ear from behind.

“Jesus, man, don't do that.” I ignored him and leaned against the locker beside his.

I had called him yesterday to see if I could go over to his place and stay there instead, but he said he wasn’t home and wouldn’t be in a long while, so I had to wait till now to get the information I wanted on Claire. I ended up sneaking into my own home to sleep in the basement since I couldn’t have Crystal seeing me and running her mouth off to her boyfriend about how I was at home instead of at Anderson’s where I said I was going to be. Although, the chances of her discussing me with her boyfriend were very, very slim seeing that I wasn’t exactly her favourite person at the moment.

“Do you know who Claire Reagan is?” I asked again.

“Not really. I know that she was in my Chemistry class but then got transferred to Blake’s when she had a little tiff with our teacher.”

“So, in essence, she’s a troublemaker?” I asked hopefully. I needed proof that this Claire girl was iffy so Blake wouldn’t hang out with her anymore. Call me petty or immature, but I just got him back and I had no intentions of letting him go ever again.

He brought out his camera from his locker and placed it carefully in his backpack before hanging it over his shoulders and slamming the door to his locker shut. “Not really. Claire’s pretty cool. She and Blake hang out a lot. I heard she was really, really smart too.”

Anderson was useless. He didn’t know how to read my mind and figure out I needed him to tell me that she was a horrible person so I wouldn’t feel bad about hating her.

“You really can’t read the room, huh?” He looked at me with his brows raised, his green eyes glistening with something I couldn’t identify. Irritation, perhaps?

“I thought you were sick? You don't look very sick right now.”

“I wasn’t sick-sick. All I needed was to see Bla...” I cut off myself before I spilled what I wasn’t supposed to spill. Despite the fact that Anderson was my befriend, there were just some things that I didn’t quite feel comfortable telling him. For example, he didn’t know about my little crush on Blake, or that I kissed him three times, or that I’d broken up with Michael and I wanted it to remain that way.

Groaning and rolling my eyes dramatically, I started moving in the direction of my next class. Someone hit Anderson, and his bag fell off his shoulders. It was unzipped, so the contents spilled out. Luckily, his camera was still intact.

“So many blind bastards in this school,” he muttered as he picked it up and wiped it. I was about to say something in response to that, when a shiny red object hiding underneath a few pieces of paper caught my eye.

“Anderson,” I called to him tentatively. His response was offhanded and unfocused, but I continued. “What’s my shiny, red Taylor Swift glitter pen doing here?”

He paused assessing his camera and looked at me then. His face was blank and he stared at the pen like he was just seeing it for the first time.

“You did hear yourself when you said that, right?” he said mockingly. He was deviating, I could tell.

“I’m serious. I have been looking all over for this pen.”

That pen was what I used to write down the things I felt in a particular moment. I always carried it around with me because, knowing myself, I was sure to have a crush on a guy that I could not have and it was going to kill me. I had to quickly write down my feelings in a book or a piece of paper when it got so intense that I couldn’t take it anymore. I had last used it in Biology class where I wrote down my feelings for Blake in a piece of paper. I threw the paper away and kept the pen in my textbook but then it went missing.

“I have no idea. You probably left it with me sometime and I picked it up by mistake. I haven’t really gone through my bag in a while.”

He started gathering his things quickly, dismissing the conversation, but I wasn’t done yet.

“But it was in my Bio textbook, I’m sure of it.”

“The same textbook that Blake gave to Gary?”

I froze. I never told Anderson about the textbook incident and Gary and the note. How the hell did he know about that?

As if reading my thoughts, he said, “Blake told me about it. I wanted to know why he was mad at you and he mentioned your textbook and how you got ticked off just because he gave it to the big guy. If it was in it like you said, you would have found it there when you got your book back from Gary.” He tapped my shoulder and smiled. “I gotta go now, man. See you later.”

He strolled away lazily, leaving me there to ponder on it.

I was certain I left it in my textbook, but like he said, if I had done that, it would have been found when I got my book back and not in his bag. Maybe he was right about me leaving it with him and he accidentally picking it up. That was the only logical explanation to it.

I sighed and put the pen in my pocket before heading to class. I came in contact with Gary just as I passed the threshold of the door. His look got sour when he sighted me, and he sneered and turned away. I tried my best to ignore him, feeling bile rise in my throat and my eyes go misty at the memory of our encounter in the external library.

Shaking back the tears, I focused on Mrs. Brown as she went on and on about Cell Division. I was not paying attention to her as my mind drifted off to Blake and I wondered what he was doing.

“What did I just say, Anthony?” To say that I was embarrassed at having being called out in class was an understatement especially since I had no idea what she just said and Gary and his friends were snickering behind me.

“Detention!” she declared and went back to her teaching.

Just great!