CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
BLAKE’S POV

“Personally, I don't see what the problem is. I think you’re over reacting.”

“Claire! I am dating his sister! I’m not supposed to be having tingling feelings for him!”

“Well,” she drawled and gave me this look that she had whenever she was about to say something that she knew I wouldn’t like to hear. “To be fair, you’ve liked him longer than you’ve liked her, you just didn’t know it then.”

I sighed, not having the strength to carryon with this conversation.

I was at Claire’s house mostly because I didn’t want to go home after school just in case I’d run into Anthony at home. I know I invited him over to my place, but I just wasn’t ready to be in the same room with him, just the two of us. The idea that I may or may not have a teeny-weeny kind of tingling feeling for him terrified me. For one, I was straight. Two, I was dating his sister, whom I loved and wouldn’t want to hurt for any reason ever.

“Look, can’t we just all agree that Crystal is like one of those people you date in your life who was only there to pass the time until you met your real soulmate?”

“No. I will not think of my girlfriend as someone I used to ‘pass time with.’ She’s way more precious and important to me than that.” Claire gave me a deadpan look.

“Blake Lindell, up until earlier this semester when she came back from her summer trip to Florida looking like a drop-dead gorgeous supermodel, be honest, did you ever think of Crystal in any sense, really, except for the fact that she was Anthony Pearce’s annoying younger sister who had a crush on you?”

I did think Crystal was Anthony’s little sister who had a crush on me, although I never thought she was annoying. She seemed cute and adorable and I liked the fact that she liked me because it infuriated Anthony and made him want to rip his hair out.

The truth was, I only ever looked in Crystal’s direction because she came back hotter than ever and it drove Anthony mad to see the two of us together. But I did grow to like her so very much and I really wanted our relationship to work out. All this shit with Tony meant absolutely nothing!

“What about Anthony then?” she asked when I didn’t respond to her question.

“What about him?”

“You obviously like him.” She sounded like she was trying so hard to control her temper. It was clear that she wanted to yell at me and scream until I accepted that I liked a boy and didn’t want to date his sister anymore.

“If you didn’t, why would you kiss him? Why would you feel butterflies in your belly when exchanging saliva with him and trying to see who can shove each other’s tongue farther down the other’s throat? Why would you be thinking about him all the time?”

“I don't think about Tony all the time.”

Liar!

“And I already explained to you that the only reason I felt all fuzzy was because the kiss caught me off-guard and it meant absolutely...” My speech was interrupted by her lips pressing softly but firmly against mine. We were like that for a few seconds before I pulled away.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, staring at her wide eyed. She looked unperturbed by what she did and stared at my face looking for God-knows-what.

“Is your heart racing like crazy right now?” Despite the fact that she did not answer my question, I stood still for a second to examine the state of my heart rate. It was normal.

“Nope,” I responded, shaking my head.

“What about butterflies in your belly? Do you feel that?” Again, I assessed myself and concluded that I felt no such thing.

“See? Caught off guard my foot.” She muttered that last part snidely and stalked back to her bed. It was then I realised what she did by kissing me. My face turned beet red at the thought that Claire just did an experiment to invalidate my statement about not having any sort of attraction towards Anthony at all.

“That doesn’t count at all!” I screeched in my attempt to disregard her little experiment. She snickered and rolled her eyes, then faced me with her head cocked to the side and her eyes emitting sparks of silent rage.

“Oh yeah? So, when I kiss you without warning and your heart doesn’t do jumping jacks, it doesn’t count, but when Anthony Pearce kisses you, your heart can fly to the moon and back and your belly can feel like it has an entire zoo in there, but it’s all okay because he simply ‘caught you off guard?’ Yeah, right.”

“I am not attracted to you at all.”

“Of course you’re not, because you’re attracted to Anthony Pearce!”

I opened my mouth to deny what she said, to come up with another statement to dispute her claims, but I realised I had dug my own grave myself by yelling that the reason I didn’t feel any of those things when she kissed me was because I wasn’t attracted to her, which just meant I was attracted to Tony.

“I’m going home,” I said after a while. Claire was pissing me off and I clearly wasn’t thinking straight. There was absolutely no way I liked him. I wasn’t even gay! And there was no way on earth I was going to hurt Crystal like that. I liked her too much to do that to her.

“Blake Lindell?” Claire’s voice was soft and calm when she called my name. I found my anger slowly dissipating at the sound of her voice and by the time I turned to look at her sad, droopy face, it had completely melted away.

“Are you mad at me?”

I wasn’t, but then...

“Yes, I am.”

She sighed and bent her head. She started picking at her nails and when she spoke again, her voice was strained and pained.

“I’m sorry. I just...I’m doing the same thing my friends did to me when they were trying to make me see that I was a lesbian even when I refused to admit it. I hated it when they kept stating obvious facts like that to me and here I am doing the same to you. I’m really sorry about that.”

Claire had never spoken about how she realised she was gay and how she came out. She made it seem like it was the smoothest, most natural occurrence that ever was and that she knew instantly and accepted the fact that she liked girls. I never thought that maybe, it wasn’t like that at all.

“Claire...” I moved over to the side of the bed she was sitting in and bent down and grabbed her hands.

“I’m sorry for being too nosy and pushy. I just don't want what happened to me to happen to you. It took me so damn long to accept who I was and by the time I did, it was too late. The person that I loved the most in the world had already gone and left me and there was nothing I could do to bring her back. I don't want to see you lose Tony and I know I shouldn’t force you to admit something that you’re not even sure of. Maybe I’m the one just speculating and I’m sorry for that. I just want you to be happy, that’s all.” She held my face in her little palms and smiled softly. Her intentions were pure, so there was absolutely no way I could be mad at her now.

“Claire, it’s okay. Really, it is. You’re not the first person to think that. My mom’s constantly badgering me on when I’m going to stop kidding myself about being straight and when I’d finally get a boyfriend. I don't know what makes her think I’m gay or why she wants me to be gay, but I know she thinks the same way you do. I’m not mad at you. But I’m also not into guys, Claire. I really don't like Anthony and that kiss was only because he was sad and he wanted me to cheer him up. And what you saw in my bedroom the other day, it was...”

“Nothing,” she interrupted. “I know.”

I went back home after my conversation with Claire. I was determined to not let what she said bother me. I didn’t like Anthony. I liked his sister instead. I only kissed him because he asked me to when he was sad and the proceeded to kiss me first. I did it as a friend. I only kissed him as a friend.

I had managed to convince myself of this all the way from Claire’s house up until I got to the driveway of my house. My basketball that I left in front of the garage was still there which just meant that neither of my parents were back. I pulled out my phone and started dialing my mom’s number as I jogged up the stairs to my room. It went straight to voicemail, but before I could dial it again, my senses got knocked out of me like I was sucker punched and the phone slipped out of my hand.

Standing in the middle of my room, his hair wet from obviously just taking a shower, his cerulean eyes smiling at me like I was the most precious thing in the world, his beautiful torso that housed his adorable birthmark hidden underneath my shirt, was Anthony Fricking Pearce!

My heart began to beat abnormally again, but this time it was louder, more intense, and it reminded of the first time I saw his face shinning underneath the magnificent light of the moon, how utterly beautiful and breathtaking I thought he was even though he was scared shitless and couldn’t move because he had peed himself and how I so badly wanted to protect him from any form of danger. I was eleven then and I think that was the first time I ever thought I loved him more than I loved myself.

My feet became rigid and fixed to the floors so that I could not move. My tongue became tied and knotted up so that I could not speak. My eyes remained glued to him so that I could see nothing besides his pretty smiling face. And my nose was only able to pick up the scent of my soap that was emanating from him. I wanted to move closer and sniff him. Touch him. Feel him. I wanted to be near him. I felt my groin stir up a little.

“Guess you’re not the only spider monkey around here, Blake. Guess who just climbed up your bedroom window?”

Yeah. You don't like Anthony Pearce at all.