Spoiler! :
Cassie’s grip on my arm was so hard that I was surprised she hadn’t pierced my skin through the three layers of clothing that I was wearing. I’d only just walked through the college entrance when she’d pounced. I’d seen her lingering by the vending machine with an anxious expression on her face and she’d looked like she was going to explode if she didn’t say something soon.
Now, she was dragging me back outside, towards the bench where we sometimes ate lunch if it wasn’t too cold or raining.
“Cass,” I said, trying to tug out of her grip. “You’re bruising my arm.”
Her intense expression lifted for a moment, and she lightened her hold, before her gaze hardened again as she pulled me down onto the bench next to her.
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like I hadn’t guessed by the way you took my hostage just now. I’m surprised you didn’t put a gun to my head.”
Cassie shrugged. “It’s important.”
“So important that you couldn’t just tell me inside?”
She nodded and her hair, that she was wearing down and wavy today, fell into her eyes and bounced around her shoulders. “I didn’t want anyone else hearing.”
“You could have just asked me to follow you outside. You didn’t need to almost yank my arm off.”
“Sorry,” she muttered. “It’s just that I had to tell you otherwise I would have exploded if I’d had to wait until break time.”
I shifted on the bench and pulled my jumper back down from where Cassie’s vice like grasp had caused the material to sag. “Go on then.”
A maniacal looking smile appeared on her face and her eyes were so wide that I was sure they’d fall out of their sockets. “Mike.”
As soon as I heard his name, everything made sense. Cassie did everything over dramatically when it came to Mike. Hence why she’d kidnapped me on my way to class. She was probably scared that some other Mike Finnegan stalker would hear whatever she was about to tell me, and get to him first.
“Yes,” I said. “Mike what?”
Cassie pouted. “Try to sound interested.”
I plastered on a smile. “Mike what?”
“Well, you know that guy on the College football team?”
I sighed quietly so Cassie wouldn’t hear it. I had a feeling this was going to be the long winded version of the story. “Uh no, not really,” I replied. “I only know Brandon and Lance.”
Cassie flapped a hand in my face. “It’s not either of them. It’s uh, what’s his name? The one with the bucktooth. Aiden’s not brother.”
I bit my lip. “Maurice Jackson?”
Cassie nodded emphatically. “Yes! Him.”
“What about him?” I asked, feeling as if I was going to have to constantly ask questions to keep Cassie on track.
“He broke his ankle.”
“So?” I heard the bell go for class in the background. Great. I was going to be late.
“So, the team’s short a player.”
“Don’t they have subs?” I asked. Then, spotting Cassie’s confused expression. “You know, extra players.”
Cassie shrugged. “I don’t know. But anyway, ‘cause this Maurice guy hurt himself, they were asking around for someone else to take his place.”
I finally had a feeling where this was going. “And Mike said he’ll do it?”
“Yes!” Cassie exclaimed. “God, you catch on fast.”
“Good for Mike,” I said, getting up to head to class. Second bell would be ringing any minute now.
“Don’t you get what this means?” Cassie said, digging around in her bag before producing a sweet and popping it into her mouth.
I shook my head as she offered me the packet. “Uh, not really,” I admitted.
“It means we’re going to football practise tomorrow night.” Cassie grinned.
I stopped mid-step. “We?”
She nodded. “Course. Why, are you trying to say you don’t want to come?”
“Sort of,” I replied, starting towards the College entrance again. I spotted a few people from my class and breathed out in relief. At least I wouldn’t be the last one to walk into the lesson.
“But you have to come,” Cassie said. “I can’t go alone.”
“Don’t go at all then,” I said. “Look, I’m not trying to be mean,” I added upon seeing Cassie’s deflated expression. In her head, I’m sure she’d expected me to have done cartwheels along the grass with her.
“Sounds like it,” Cassie muttered.
“I’m not,” I insisted. “It’s just that Brandon will be there. I don’t really want him to see me there and think that I came to see him. I don’t want him to get the wrong impression.”
“Yeah, but you’d be doing me a huge favour.”
“Cassie, I can’t.”
She actually stamped her foot. “Harriet!”
“I’m really sorry. I can’t deal with Brandon.”
“But I went to Leanne’s band practise with you,” she said pointedly. “I went even though I hate rock music as much as I hate Lara.”
I had a feeling she was going to try this on me, but luckily my arsenal of things I’d done for Cassie was a lot bigger than what she’d done for me.
“Yeah, I know. But you actually went because you wanted to see if Aiden was hot, remember?”
Cassie stuck her tongue out. “Don’t remind me. I still hate him after what he said the other day.”
“He was joking,” I said. “Besides, what about all the times I stalked Mike with you last summer? The café. The park. The bus station.”
Cassie seemed to understand where this was going as I pushed the College doors open to the sound of the second bell.
“Please,” she begged. “I’ll love you forever.”
I sighed dramatically, hoping Cassie would get the point that I wasn’t going to go. No matter how much she begged.
“P-lease,” she repeated. “I’ll never ask anything of you again. Promise.”
I wished I’d had a dictaphone on me. She was never going to stick to that.
“Cassie.”
“Harriet.” She was trying to stare me down, but I was determined to let her blink first. She usually did.
***
“What are you wearing?” I asked as we neared the College football ground on Friday afternoon. I’d wanted to go straight there after class, to get it over and done with, but Cassie had been adamant about going home to change first. I’d hung about in the library, doing that nights homework, until Cassie had text me to say that she was back.
Cassie smiled. “Like it?”
I chewed on a few words for a second before deciding on something that I hoped sounded right. “You’re not exactly dressed for the occasion.”
Her smile faded. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’re at football practise, Cass. Not a nightclub.”
I watched as her eyes fell to her ankle boots, pale blue ripped jeans and then her top. Oh, her top.
“I think I look great. Don’t you?” Her eyes were imploring me to tell her the truth.
“Cass, why are you wearing a push up bra?”
“I’m not,” she replied, studying herself with an innocent expression.
“Really?” I asked. “Then why are you going to poke me in the eyes with your boobs if I get too close?”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, H. Grow up.”
“I’m being serious,” I insisted. “I’m pretty sure if you went over to the guys right now, they’d all end up falling over each other trying to get the best view of your chest.”
Cassie’s smile was back. “Good.”
“Cass!”
“What? I want Mike to notice me.”
Knowing that I so wasn’t going to win this one, I stopped trying to. “Aren’t you cold?” I asked. “You’re not exactly dressed for the weather.”
Cassie shrugged and strode forwards, stopping when she came to the top of the small grass mound that looked down on the field where Mike would be training. I was wearing a hoody and jeans, a pair of boots with thick socks, and I was still cold. My hands were stuffed deep into my pockets but I was pretty sure they still felt like ice. Cassie’s lip gloss was in danger of freezing solid, casing her lips a bubblegum pink forever. Not that she’d mind.
I sat down on the grass next to her and followed her gaze to Mike. I could pick him out from the others, only by his height. He had the same spiky brown hair that most guys in College seemed to have, but he towered over them in size. Cassie said she liked the fact that he’d have to bend down to kiss her. She thought it would be romantic.
“Isn’t he buff?” she said, bringing my attention back to her. She had her knees tucked up towards her chest, but her boobs had gotten in the way, making her unable to actually bring her arms all the way around her legs. Her hands didn’t quite reach each other. Cassie was voluptuous at the best of times but the push up bra thing was ridiculous.
Even I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her chest, and I was as straight as a ruler. It was pretty cringey and Leanne would have described it as a desperate cry for attention, which it kinda was.
“Harriet?”
“Yeah.”
“I said he’s pretty buff, isn’t he?”
“Uh, yeah. I guess.”
“You guess?” Cassie scoffed. “Just because he isn’t Sonny, doesn’t mean he’s a colander.”
I had to hand it to her. I hadn’t thought she’d known what a colander was.
“I’m not saying he’s not hot,” I insisted. “I’m just saying he’s not my type.”
“Who’s not whose type?”
Cassie turned around first, her arms folded tight across her front. “Oh go away, Aiden. No-one likes you.”
I offered him a smile. “Ignore her. She’s still sour about what you said on Sunday.”
“Yes I am,” Cassie said. “I think it was unnecessarily mean.”
“You said I had stupid hair,” Aiden replied. “I don’t particularly think that was called for.”
Cassie slammed her eyes at him and I wondered for a second whether her fake eyelashes would get stuck together. They didn’t though, and she turned back around to face the football field again, ignoring Aiden’s presence.
“She’s so darn friendly,” Aiden said.
“Leave her alone,” I replied. “Or she’ll never forgive you.”
I heard Cassie harrumph from beside me.
Aiden held up his hands as if in surrender. “Okay, I’ll drop the comments.”
I smiled a thanks up at him “What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have band practise on a Friday?”
“Yeah, but not until later. I was just coming out of detention when I spotted you and it sitting over here so I thought I’d come and investigate.”
I made a point to ignore Aiden referring to Cassie as ‘it’. “Detention?” I tutted.
“My business teacher hates me,” he replied. “I think he’s jealous of my good looks.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Don’t you think?”
His tone had been playful, but for some reason he sounded serious too. Like he actually wanted me to give him a proper answer. I felt my cheeks warming up. “We’re watching the guys train,” I said, in answer to his earlier question.
Aiden stared at me for a moment before nodding. “Why’s that? You here to declare your love for Brandon?”
“Uh, no. Mike’s joined the team actually, and Cassie’s got a bit of a thing for him.”
I was surprised that Cassie hadn’t butted in yet. We were talking about her like she wasn’t there, but I just supposed she was intent on giving Aiden the cold shoulder, or she was watching Mike like her life depended on it just in case he turned around and spotted her.
“Really?” Aiden dropped his bag to the ground and sat down beside me. “This could be fun. Mike Finnegan, right? Lara’s boyfriend.”
“Don’t talk about her,” Cassie said, her tone sharp.
Aiden widened his eyes and opened his mouth to say something, but I grabbed his arm to stop him. He looked down at my hand on his jumper just as I let go of him.
“Sorry,” I whispered. “But you don’t want to get into it with her. You won’t win.”
“Really?”
I nodded hard. “Nope. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
He laughed. “So she dragged you here with her, to sit in the cold and watch a bunch of monkeys kick a ball around?”
“Yep. I’m just praying that Brandon doesn’t spot me. I’m not in the mood to deal with him today.” I felt myself sigh. “He’s hard work.”
Aiden rooted around in his bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Here.”
I took the paper from him. “What is it?”
“Our English grade from that piece of homework that you let me share with you. Mr. Lloyd gave it back to me a couple of weeks ago but I forgot to show you.”
I smiled when my eyes found the ‘A’ circled at the top of the page.
“That’s my first ever A in English,” he said. “It might just about pull all of my other marks up. Ta for that.”
“No problem,” I replied. “So I’m no longer blackmailing you?”
Aiden chuckled. “I guess not.”
“Good,” I said. “Now we’re even.”
“Good,” he agreed.
I tucked the paper into my pocket. “I wish getting rid of Brandon was as easy as getting an A without doing the work yourself,” I said, raising an eyebrow at Aiden as he smiled guiltily at me.
“Have you ever just told him the truth?” he asked. “You know, just come out and said, ‘I don’t like you. Quit bugging me,’?”
I frowned in thought. “You know, I don’t think I have.”
“Well that’s where you’re going wrong then,” Aiden said. “You know, us guys won’t get the hint unless you girls spell it out to us bluntly. It’s no use giving us subtle clues. If you don’t tell us the hard way, then we’ll keep believing that we’re in with a shot.”
I observed him for a second, watching as he rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Am I keeping you up?”
He laughed. “No. Detention always wipes me out. I think it’s the sitting doing nothing part.”
“You know, you are allowed to do your homework in detention.”
“Yeah, but that’s worse that sitting in silence. Besides, how would a goody two shoes like you know that?”
I grinned. “Leanne’s my sister, remember? She had detention every week for one thing or another.”
“You really are two completely different people,” Aiden said.
“We’re only sisters. Not twins,” I said pointedly.
Aiden cocked his head to the side and I noticed he had an eyelash on his cheek. “Yeah, but you’d think you’d be kind of alike. But you’re normal and Leanne’s all crazy and unpredictable.”
I shrugged and reached up to retrieve the eyelash from Aiden’s cheek. He moved back a touch as I raised my hand, but I continued forward until my fingers brushed the skin just beneath his eye. The eyelash stuck to my finger and held it up to him.
“You had an eyelash,” I said, noticing the way Aiden was looking at me. The tops of his ears were pink.
He cleared his throat. “Oh, right. I thought you were going to slap me for calling you normal.”
“No,” I replied. “You didn’t say boring this time. I prefer normal.”
Aiden smiled and I mirrored him, until I heard Cassie laughing behind me. I twisted around to face her. She had her head thrown right back, pushing her chest up in the air.
“God, get you two!” she exclaimed once she’d regained control of herself. “Jeez. Why don’t you go make out behind that tree over there?” She pointed with a manicured nail to a point over Aiden’s shoulder. Aiden, however, was staring right at Cassie’s chest.
“Blimey,” he said, his eyes as round as saucers. “Are you wearing a push up bra?”
Cassie stopped giggling immediately, her face becoming deadly stern. “Uh, excuse me?”
I slapped at Aiden’s arm, trying to break his gaze. It worked.
“You are though, aren’t you?” he insisted. “God, Cassie. Try hard or what?”
I tackled her to the ground before she could scramble around me to get to Aiden. I had a feeling she wanted to scratch his eyes out.
“You’re such a dick!” she shouted, almost deafening me as she screamed in anger. “Just you wait until I get a hold of you. I’m gonna castrate you with a pair of blunt scissors.”
Aiden’s laugh filled my ears before Cassie’s screams topped the loud-o-meter.
“Cass, calm down.”
“I hate him!”
“He was joking.”
“No I wasn’t.”
“Aiden!” I reached behind and flicked his shoulder. “Not helping!”
“I hate him!”
“Cass, stop it. I’m not letting go until you promise not to hurt him.”
“Never!”
“Harriet,” Aiden hissed. “Incoming.”
I snapped my gaze up from Cassie’s angry face to see what Aidan meant. My blood ran cold when I saw Brandon and Mike jogging up the slope towards us.
“Cassie,” I whispered. “Mike’s coming.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she replied. “Stop lying.”
I let go of her and she sprang up towards Aiden until the sight of Mike made her stop dead. She began frantically patting her hair down and readjusting her top so she didn’t look like she’d just been trying to wrestle out of my grip.
“Harriet, you came!”
I sighed at the sound of Brandon’s voice. “Hi.”
He gave me a huge smile before setting his eyes on Aiden. They looked at each other for a moment until Brandon broke Aiden’s gaze to look back at me. I glanced to my right to see Cassie staring dumbly at Mike, who was standing just behind Brandon. Almost half of Mike was towering above Brandon’s head.
“You watch the game?” Brandon asked, an eager look on his face. “Did you see the goal I scored? Right in the top corner it was.”
“Go you,” I said, though my voice was completely drained of enthusiasm. I couldn’t stop thinking of what Aiden had said to me about guys needing things to be spelled out to them.
I’d thought about telling Brandon the truth in the past, but I’d always chickened out when it had come to actually saying anything. Now though, with Brandon’s eyes watching my every move as I glanced at Aiden and then Cassie, I knew I couldn’t let it go on any longer. Not being one to be intentionally horrible, I got up and brushed grass from my jeans.
“Can I have a word?” I asked Brandon. “In private.”
Brandon glanced behind himself and at Mike, who I swear gave him the thumbs up signal, before nodding.
“Sure,” he said.
I breathed out deeply as I lead Brandon away from the others. My heart was racing with nerves and I could feel my stomach trying itself in knots. I really hated being mean but, after listening to Aiden, I couldn’t see any other way out of it.
I stopped when I got to the tree Cassie had pointed out just now. I made a mental note to ask her about what she’d said, later, before leaning back against the tree, my hands tapping out random rhythms on the bark.
“What did you want to talk about?” Brandon asked, stepping towards me. There were only inches between us. He smelt of sweat and grass.
“Uh, I wanted to talk about us actually.” I wanted to start slow, with the basics, and then work up to the finale.
“Oh really?” He sounded intrigued. “Go on.”
“It’s just that, I’m not sure we’re both on the same page.”
Brandon’s face lit up. “I think I know what you mean.”
I frowned. “You do?”
“Yeah. You’re wondering where we stand.”
I looked around at the tree for a moment, until I realised what he meant. Oh God. I really was going to have to be blunt.
I inhaled sharply, hoping to suck in some courage from the cold, winter air. “Uh, no. That’s not what I meant.”
Brandon narrowed his eyes. “No?”
I shook my head, running my hands up and down the legs of my jeans. “I was thinking that you thought there was something between us, when there’s not.”
Brandon took a step back. “Oh.” He scratched the top of his head for something to do. “Oh.”
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re cool or anything. It’s just that.” I stopped. It was just that what? That he creeped me out? He was too upbeat? Too big headed? I was trying to let the guy down gently, not destroy every ounce of confidence that he had. I bit my lip. “It’s just that there’s someone else.”
Brandon’s face fell in realisation and I could almost feel my heart breaking along with his. I felt like a bitch.
“You’ve got a boyfriend.” He sighed long and hard. “I’m so stupid.”
“No, I don’t have a boyfriend.”
Brandon’s head rose in false hope and I felt ten times meaner than I had just now. Just cut your ties and leave.
“I don’t have a boyfriend yet, but I might have soon.”
“Right.” He took another step backwards.
“I don’t want you to think there might be something when there’s not. That’s all.”
My stomach sank to my feet as Brandon nodded to himself. “Okay. Sure. See you later, Harriet.”
I could almost feel tears in my eyes as he slumped back towards Mike. The two of them conversed for a second before they headed back to the football field. I knew I’d complained about Brandon all the time, but in truth he wasn’t a bad guy. He hadn’t shouted at me for leading him on or anything. He’d just accepted the truth and left. It still surprised me though when I found myself hoping we could still be friends.
Gender:
Points: 30280
Reviews: 529