Frustration -SERIES- [Part 1] [boyxboy]

Chapter Ten

'I'm not happy about this,' I muttered, scanning the public schoolyard sourly.

'You think I am?' Sally replied bitterly.

We were leaning against the wall of St Vincent's, right by the gate, waiting for Jackson to come out of school. There were a few kids hanging out in the yard in sweatpants, and Sally and I had spent a good ten minutes wondering the who the hell they were before we realised that sweatpants were the uniform at St Vincent's.

Suddenly, as though in a freaking cartoon, the orange main doors opened and hundreds of kids spilled out onto the tarmac, screaming, shouting, talking, singing, kissing, fighting and, every now and again, walking past us at the gate to get home.

Against my will and better judgement, Sally and I were here to officially ask Jackson to use his play for our school performance. Of course, it transpired that Sally had known all along that Conor had changed his mind about the fairytale play, and in the midst of trying to come up with an alternative Jackson's play had just fallen into her lap.

'What if he doesn't want to let us show it?' Sally murmured as we both scanned the crowds for Jackson.

'Then Conor will just have to get over it,' I muttered, though I didn't mean it.

'Yeah, cos you haven't hurt him enough today,' Sally said under her breath, which I clearly wasn't meant to hear.

'You know it's better that way for now,' I muttered, turning away from her.

She was having a hard time forgiving me for what I'd done that morning and I couldn't really blame her. I was angry with me too. But I really was just trying to cause minimal long-term damage.

'I don't know wha the fuck you were thinking,' she muttered. 'Rachel told me she sent you to fix things with Conor, not make them immeasurably worse. In what universe is what you did better?'

'This one,' I said firmly. 'The one where I have to play boyfriends with Jackson for who knows how long and Conor has to see it. He gets to be angry with me now, instead of himself for engineering this situation.'

Sally didn't say anything, but the way she was glaring at the ground let me know she was grudgingly agreeing with me.

'Do you see him anywhere?' I asked, conciliatory, after a minute.

'No... Oh wait, no, there he is.' Sally nodded in the direction of the school's main doors without uncrossing her arms and I followed her gaze. Jackson was standing at the bottom of the steps with a group of four or five others, laughing and talking. For the first time since we'd started going out, I didn't feel that little pull in my stomach as I registered how cute he was. I could still appreciate it on an aesthetic level but it didn't make me want to wrap my arms around him from behind and nuzzle his neck. But as Sally and I pushed ourselves off the wall and started walking over, I prepared to do it anyway.

'He sure is cute though,' Sally muttered to me while we were still out of earshot, and I glanced down to see her looking at Jackson and kind of smiling.

'Hey, you,' I mumbled, hating myself, as I slid my arms around Jackson's waist from behind and kissed his neck.

'Tyler?' Jackson asked, turning around, surprised.

'Well I would hope there isn't anyone else kissing you on a regular basis,' I replied, as I burned in my own hypocrisy.

Jackson wrapped his arms around my neck and hugged me, then turned around and started introducing all his friends. He introduced me as TyTy. It strengthened my resolve.

'And this is Sally,' he finished up, motioning to her as she stood to the side of the group uncomfortably.

'Oh my god,' one of them mumbled to another. 'That's Sally Evans.'