The weeks passed by uneventful and I found myself smiling again. Things were getting back to normal for me and for that I was grateful. My brother stopped being my shadow and I hung out with friends, went shopping with my mom, and worked at the restaurant which was a big help to my healing. Staying busy meant I wouldn’t have time to dwell on things. Of course I still saw Shane and Cara all the time, we shared a couple classes but I never saw too much of Deke. We’d pass each other in the halls now and then but it almost seemed as if he was avoiding me. I heard through the gossip mill that his girlfriend Tanya broke up with him shortly after the fight with Shane. I had been doing a lot of thinking over this time and realized how hard it must have been for Deke to keep what was going on from me so I decided a big part of my moving on would mean forgiving. There was no way in hell I was forgiving Shane and Cara but I could fix things with Deke. To be honest I really missed his friendship. Yeah he was Shanes’ best friend but with all the time we spent together, I kind of considered him my best friend too.
With that thought in mind I decided to approach him. I waited till Monday after school and knew I could catch him at his locker before football practice so I quickly left my last class and waited there for him. I saw him come around, spot me and stop in his tracks looking unsure. After a brief pause he continued towards me.
“Hi!” I smiled.
“Hi!” he returned my smile a bit apprehensively.
“Look..”
“I…” we both started at the same time.
He motioned for me to go ahead.
“Look Deke, I’ve had a lot of time to think lately and I realize now that you never intentionally set out to hurt me by not clueing me in and you were in a tough spot between your friend and his girl. I just want you to know that I do forgive you and I was kinda hoping that if it’s not too awkward for you, I’d like to be friends again. I know we hung out because of Shane before and I wouldn’t want to come between you two but I really miss hanging out with you.” I rambled on quickly.
He looked at me so closely I felt as if I were under a microscope and then said smiling, “you just totally made my day! I’ve wanted to talk to you but I remember you saying you wanted nothing to do with any of us so I kept my distance. I would love to be friends again and for your information I didn’t hang out with you because of Shane, I did it because he was always so self absorbed doing his own thing and you and me had fun together while he did it. As for coming between me and Shane, there’s nothing to break because we haven’t been friends since the day I punched him by your locker. I realized any guy wanting me to cover for him while he screwed over his girlfriend would probably screw me over one day and I didn’t want to wait to find out.”
“Really” I asked lamely.
“Really” he smiled then surprised me by asking, “so would today be too soon to start hanging out?”
I laughed, the boys smile really was charming, “no it wouldn’t be but don’t you have practice?”
“I do but if you don’t mind waiting we could do something after” he asked hopefully.
