It's a Strawberry!

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I sneezed. Again.

"Bless you." The three chorused at the same time.

I sniffled and reached for another tissue. "You guys are creeping me out with that triplet telepathy thing you got going on." I blew my nose and groaned to myself. My nose was already irritated and red. Not to mention that every time I rubbed it with a tissue the material felt like sandpaper against my raw skin.

I had slept in all day yesterday. It had been a long night, the only thing that had kept me awake was the sheer cold. It had been freezing, the rain hadn't helped much either. But when Blake found me I was too shocked and cold to register what was going on. Now it all made sense why he hated me. Every little piece of the jigsaw puzzle was put together to find the picture. All the bricks that formed that wall of mystery over him, toppled over. Sure he still had his secrets and he wasn't exactly nice like Cole and Shawn, but he was working his way.

Destroying Mr. Cuddles meant a lot to me. He knew that and that's why I was even more  shocked when he gave me his fathers ring. Blake probably expected me to destroy it, to just hide it and never give it back. Truth be told, I was never going to take it off. Just because he did something bad to me doesn't mean I have to repay the favor. I wasn't going to stoop down to his level. When he cut Mr. Cuddles up he was at level negative infinity, now I'd say he's on level zero. Working his way up with his brothers, even though they were always going to be a step ahead.

Blake the Cake couldn't get out of my mind though. Everything I had remembered from elementary I had tried blocking out because it reminded me of my mom. All I remembered was Mark being my best friend, the shoulder to cry on. He is still my best friend and no one was going to change that. I love him too much to let him go to easily.

But when Blake told me he remembered, everything came back. The days him and I would lay down on the hill and watch the clouds. Or play hopscotch and jump rope. He'd sometimes play basketball with his guy friends and I'd join in. But Blake was right, I went distant in second grade. I wasn't sure why, mom hadn't even died then but it had something to do with Chief Deliv and dads job.

How could I have forgotten? Cake had been his nickname after I had stuffed a handful of cake on his face. Some kid in our class had his birthday at school and decided to bring in his birthday cake. I 'accidently' shoved some in Blake's face and was he angry. It almost made me laugh at the memory, knowing that even then he had that scowl on his face.

Cole chuckled and glanced over at Shawn. "You keeping score?"

About an hour ago Cole carried me downstairs to the basement where we all sat around watching a movie in the theater. Shawn had picked it out, which meant watching an animated movie. He chose Ice Age.

"Yup," Shawn clicked his pen and wrote another dash on his hand. The guys thought it'd be funny to keep track of how many times I've sneezed. "That's fifteen in twenty minutes. Now shush. I love Sid."

Blake smirked, "Course you do. He's your great great great great great ancestor."

"That means he's yours too." I said in a duh tone. My voice came out weird like someone was pinching my nose. I hated having a cold.

Blake laughed again, "Please I'm obviously Diego."

"Why do you get to be Diego?" Cole whined. "I want to be Diego."

"You can't be Diego." Blake said matter of factly, "I'm the sexy cool one. You can be the big fluffy elephant."

"His name is Manny." I told him.

"Why am I Manny?" Cole asked.

"Because your nice." Blake said. "And...you have brown hair. So ha! I win."

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