Frigid Flora

twenty - secret boss

Chapter Twenty

//so sorry I've been gone ages, hope the length of this makes up for it. this isn't proof read so I hope it's not too much of a state. if you spot a typo feel free to point it out and mock me thoroughly for saying something like breast instead of best. it happens to the best of us. and yes, that typo has actually happened to me before in a critical essay for advanced English. why am I like this//

There was a lot of things I wasn't. I wasn't what people of today would class as normal, I wasn't by any means a smooth talker, I wasn't exactly approachable, I wasn't great when it came to sports. I wasn't good at anything other than sleeping (I could confidently say I excelled at that activity.) The list could go on. The list of what I was, however, was considerably shorter, but there was one of which I was certain. I knew for a fact that I was most definitely a Parker Heywood repellent.

Things had gone from bad to worse. It had been awkward and slightly uncomfortable after we'd had our... Moment of sorts at his house, but things had changed since then. Drastically. One day it was as though Parker had decided to fall back into his old ways. As in the before-he-knew-me type of way. He no longer picked me up for school or dropped me off. He stuck to his friends' sides like glue, some times even Jason's if I was in the vicinity and nobody else was there for him to latch onto. He didn't say hello in the corridors. For crying out loud, the boy didn't even look my way. At first I thought it was just him being weird, that it was something he'd quickly overcome and that he'd return in time because he'd changed. I knew he had. He wasn't the player I'd originally thought him to be. Yet after a month of his behaviour, dare I say it, I'd lost hope.

I couldn't help but think of it as my fault. Wasn't it too much of a coincidence that just as I'd admitted I liked him he fled? Or had this been the goal all along? Making the freak fall for someone? Call me paranoid, but for his abrupt change in behaviour to happen so closely to my admission... Well, I just couldn't believe it was a fluke.

As I lay on the couch, cocooned in a thick, woollen blanket, I couldn't help but miss him. I hated those girls in films and novels. The ones that moped over lost loves and whatnot. They were always so whiny and depressed. I'd vowed to myself that if by some miracle I was ever in any form of relationship, I'd never stoop to that level. Alas, there I was. Very much below that level. If I said that there hadn't been tears staining my face on multiple occasions then I'd be lying.

It was as if nothing that had happened between us. As though all of those months spent together hadn't mattered to him. I knew that it wasn't as big a deal for him - the whole being able to touch fiasco - as it was for me, but still. Without him, not only did my life lack any excitement, amusement and tedious pick-lines, but I was also left spiralling downhill. I couldn't touch. I missed his warm hands, his hazel eyes. The way I craved his company was embarrassing and, quite honestly, extremely pathetic. I could scarcely stand the fact that he was acting as though I didn't exist. Like we hadn't known one another. I felt like the stupid sock that you dropped on your way to the drier, lost and forgotten.

I threw a plum stone at the television when an advertisement popped up for perfume that featured a loved up couple showing off the scent. Continuously reminding myself that Parker and I hadn't actually been together was surprisingly difficult. His absence also seemed to make any other people's happiness quite literally unbearable to watch.

"Hello."

The voice startled me and I spun around too fast, toppling over the edge of the couch before landing in a heap with my limbs tangled in blanket. "Why hello intruder, what are you doing here?"

Axel frowned in distaste at something over my shoulder. "I see you've been eating plums."

I followed his line of vision to find the pile of plum stones that had collected on the rug below the television. "I disagree with things on TV."