Trying to impress Matt

chapter 32

Important message at the end of this chapter

**

Making sure my towel was wrapped tightly around my upper body, I quickly made my way into Lia’s room, having forgotten to bring my clothes with me into the hallway bathroom earlier this morning. Thankfully, she was still in her en-suite, allowing me to get changed into my school uniform in peace. Lord knows she likes to talk early in the morning.

After eating breakfast, Lia and I made our way to school, with about five minutes to spare. Usually, I would be here by 8:30, courtesy of Joe hassling me to hurry as we made our way to school. However, I ended up crashing at Lia’s house all weekend, not returning home due to the massive tension between Joe and I.

“Rain, Lia, how are you two today?” Turning around, my eyes widened when I saw Dan standing there with a small smirk planted on his face.

“We’re fine thanks.” Lia responded, tone dripping with heavy sarcasm.

Dan chuckled, clearly not offended at Lia’s response. “Well some of us nee—“

Momentarily forgetting about Dan and Lia, I quickly scanned the front of the school, watching for any signs of Joe or Matt. I really wanted to see Joe. I just needed to see a glimpse of him. Maybe we could talk things out. Maybe I should wait until I got home today and spoke to him in private. Maybe I should just—

“...answer herself.” Hearing Dan’s deep, but comical voice, I was brought back out of my thoughts, watching as he continued to stare at me, an expected expression crossing his face.

“Huh?” I questioned, clearly confused.

Dan chuckled, scratching the back of his head. “I was waiting for you to tell me how you are.”

Lia snorted from beside me, clearly annoyed at Dan. “Uh, I’m fine.”

“I see you’ve been avoiding me.” Dan commented lightly, though it was evident he was hurting when I looked into his eyes.

“Sorry, I’ve just been busy.” I lied, looking down at my feet.

“Uh Rain, we have roll call now.” We all knew that was a ‘get-out-of-free’ card. Dan couldn’t very well stop us since there were students and staff members walking inside of the school. Lia and I actually needed to go to roll call, so Lia wasn’t out of line. It was just a way to brush Dan off, once again.

“I’ll see you in class.” Dan rushed out, seeing as we were making our way towards roll call.

As soon as we sat in our usual seats, Lia brought her chair closer to mine, watching as the teacher began to mark the roll. “What’re you gonna do about Dan?” She whispered, furrowing her eyebrows, deep in thought.

I waited until the teacher called our names, turning my head so that I could face her. “I’m going to tell him to leave me, Matt and Joe alone.” She nodded her head, undoubtedly happy with what I was going to do.

“You know he’s not going to listen to you. He obviously likes you.” Once again, she furrowed her eyebrows. I knew she was probably angry at the fact that Dan used her to get to me. I mean, I would be furious if Matt used me to get to Lia. I guess I’m lucky that she hadn’t used her wrath upon me. I guess Joe helped with that; if Joe had any effect at all.

“I’ll figure something out.” I mumbled, looking at my desk, keeping myself quiet.

“If you need any help, my fist would look great in between his—“

“No thanks.” I interrupted, chuckling softly.

“Well if you insist—“

“I do.” Still chuckling, I got a book out of my bad, pretending to read so that I wouldn’t get into any trouble from the teacher.