The Exchange

Chapter 9

A knock came from the other side of my door. "Amanda?"

Blaine.

"Blaine, you know I love you, but I really don't want to talk to anyone right now," I replied.

"Should I just go then?"

That was the last thing I wanted.

I stood up and opened the door. "No. We should stick together. I guess you're the only friend I haven't lost to Viktor. Just don't talk to me. I'm still not in a talkative mood."

"Are you okay?" he asked me anyway.

I let out a sigh and let him into my room. "Why would you even bother to ask that? Do I seem okay?"

"You seem pissed off. You're normally such a positive, happy-go-lucky person, so this is kinda unsettling for me." He smiled at his joke, despite the shitty situation. "I actually do have a shovel in my car if you want me to go get it."

I smiled. "I love you."

He nodded with a grin.

"Anyway, are you okay?" I asked.

Even though he liked Arti from the moment she first talked to him, he was good at keeping those feelings out of the way most of the time. He loved her as a friend first, and he knew she didn't owe him a thing (besides loyalty, but that wasn't exactly the case, apparently).

"I'll be fine. It's not the first time I've dealt with something like this, you know, but it still sucks," he replied.

I nodded. Raised by a single mother, Blaine kept anyone who was willing to stay in his life close to him, and Arti and I were no exception. He wasn't fine, but he never said he was.

"Well, it's just gonna be you and me for a little while. We should make the most of it," Blaine said.

I crossed my arms. "What do you mean? I'm trying to be upset here, so don't start getting any ideas."

"But being miserable is the worst. Let's just pretend that everything's perfectly wonderful for a few hours, then you can pout by yourself again."

"I wasn't pouting."

"Look, I like you a lot better when you're pissed off for no reason. When you're sad with a reason, it's just weird," Blaine said.

"I'm not sad."

"Okay, Amanda."

"And to prove that I'm not sad, I'm totally up for whatever fun distraction you have in mind."

His eyes lit up. "Let's go to the park and swing."

"I'm sure we woke up the girls with our loud discussion with Arti earlier, so we should probably take them with us."

"Really?" he asked, smiling. "Yeah, let's take them. That way we have a valid excuse."

I laughed. That idiot always cured me of my feels.

Shortly after, we had the triplets loaded into Blaine's car (the shovel was actually in the trunk, to my surprise), and he drove us to the park.

When we arrived, he stopped the girls from sprinting to the playground. "Let me see if I can get which one of you is which."

"You never get it right," Natalie said, clearly unimpressed with this delay.

Blaine held a finger up to his face, then pointed at Melissa. "You didn't say anything the whole way here, so you're Melissa." He looked to me.

I nodded. "That's right."

"And the difference between Natalie and Leah is that Leah's a little bit taller. So you're Leah, and you're Natalie," he said.