“Some big crime boss thinks I’m his long lost daughter and wants me to come ‘home'. We’re just waiting on DNA test results for him to make his move. Either he’ll leave me alone, or come to get me. He sent the walking landmass to set up cameras to make sure I don’t bail.”
It actually only took me fourteen seconds to tell him.
I know. I’m the worst secret keeper ever.
Landon wasted one minute and six seconds of the time I’d allotted him staring at me with incredulity, before wasting another twenty-two seconds laughing.
Chapter 18: Concert Prep Craft Time
“Eighteen seconds left.”
That sobered him up.
“I thought you were all, mature, now.” He paused on “mature” as if he wasn't sure that word could possibly apply to me. “I didn’t ask you to give me a plot for one of our little games.”
“Twelve seconds.”
Yes, I was using the timer app.
“You owe me the truth Jade. A deal’s a deal.”
“I told you the truth. I can’t help it if you don’t believe me.”
“Serious?”
“Time’s up. Out.”
Landon didn’t move to get out. After yesterday I should have realized I’d need to use some Wing Chun to force him into anything. I gave one last stab at diplomacy.
“Lan, I’m not going to waste my time trying to convince you of anything. Okay? And until you choose to believe me, I’m done talking to you.”
“Come on Jade. Grow up. You just won’t let me back in, because you’re still hurt from that one thing I did. Are you going to let one mistake ruin years of friendship?”
Please tell me he isn’t going there again.
“This has nothing to do with that. And, we’ve talked about this. Please, just stop.”
“Why Jade? It doesn’t have to be like this.”
Yes, it looks like he is going there again. Maybe I’d been wrong when I asserted that he’d had a big enough slice of humble pie.
“I know you’d like to think that the reason I don’t want you is because I can’t get over what you did to me. But the fact is; I just don’t want you. I don’t want to be friends, or anything else with a guy who asks to be my ‘secret’ boyfriend, then turns around and calls me a ‘genderless freak’-”
And by the way, using a big word like “genderless” at the age of fourteen had to be premeditated.
“And then laughs at the idea that he might ever be interested in me when talking to the girls with whom he wants to be a ‘public’ boyfriend.”
“Can’t you hear yourself Jade? The only thing you have against me is that one occasion. Can’t you just forgive a fourteen year old kid for one mistake—”
“Lan! It wasn’t just the one mistake. I heard your little comments all the time.” I just didn’t believe he meant them until I heard him laughing with Chrystie at that party.
“That was just the A-bomb that annihilated any chance that I might have ever wanted you back in my life, and that was before you started your campaign to sabotage every major holiday and special occasion.”
I took a slow breath before continuing.
“But the thing is Landon, I forgive you. I did a long time ago. If it weren’t for you, I would never have had the guts to be the real me. You made me realize that I will never know what other people are really thinking.
YOU ARE READING
A Little Bit Ninja
Mystery / ThrillerLiving in a world where the dance team is her kingdom, fashion her passion, and judo her secret pastime, Jade Wright's life is as close to perfect as it can be without her mom to guide her through the perils of dating and Nordstrom sales-that is, un...
