Smile Innocently Lie Easily

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Jeremy wasn’t sure why but suddenly it felt like a huge rock was on top of his chest. When he made up his mind to track down Rachel and really hash out what was bothering her he never imagined he’d be walking into…whatever the hell was going on. 

Just two days ago they were in his bedroom discussing their lack of experience with the opposite sex and now here Rachel was making out with some guy.

The feeling in his chest felt oddly enough like hurt. It stung and it left him tense.

A girl stomped past him muttering some curses. That’s when Rachel and the guy stopped kissing and she turned to see him there. Her heavily made up eyes went wide and her mouth parted with shock.  Yeah, that made two of them because he felt pretty shocked too.

Rachel said something softly to the guy and walked away. Her words reached him before her long strides did, “What are you doing here?”

“You avoided me all day at school and even left ahead of time to keep avoiding me. Yes, I did notice that.” There was a sharp edge to his voice he hadn’t intended. His emotions were getting the best of him and he wasn’t sure how to control it.

She shrugged and pretended to be aloof about their tense situation. “School was a bore and I left. Not everything is about you.”

“That’s good. I wouldn’t want you making out with strange guys for me.”

Her brows tensed, it wasn’t like Jeremy to dish out sarcasm and obvious taunts, that was normally her role. “That’s Jay and he isn’t strange.”

“I thought you said he was a friend.”

“He is and I was helping him out of a jam.”

“With your tonsils?”

“Yeah—what’s it to you?”

Jeremy took a deep breath and tried to figure out what was gnawing on her nerve endings. He was angry and that was an area he didn’t have a lot of experience in. He was used to feeling sad and lonely, or weak when he was bullied, but never angry. “I’m mad at you.” He confessed minutes later.

“Me? What the hell for?!”

“For shutting me out and making me the bad guy!” he tossed her temper right back at her and refused to back down. “You always run away when you think it’s going to get too serious and you might be disappointed. You’re the one pushing me away and you convinced yourself that it’s all my doing. Now I’m not the wounded puppy you have to baby and you want to throw in my face you can just go find another person to hang with? Friendships don’t work that way.”

Her mouth was clamped shut and her eyes focused on something else other than him. It didn’t take long, mere seconds, for her to find her voice. “You don’t know me as well as you think, Jeremy Hansen. You’re right, you don’t need me anymore and I sure as hell don’t need you. We’re obviously not on the same page anymore and we should just cut our loses before we say something we don’t mean.”

Jeremy mentally cursed. She sure did have a great way of hitting him where it hurt only using words. “What do you mean cut our loses?”

“You stood up to Brian and his friends and they haven’t bothered you since and you got the girl too. I’ll be by later to grab my stuff and I’ll move back home.”

“Rach—”

“It’s better this way. I don’t want to be your friend anymore Jeremy.”  There was nothing else to say and Rachel took off running for the bathroom.