Old Strings Broken

Old Strings Broken [Part 1]

Jace winced at his middle name and threatened to tip the whole bucket of roses over my head. He never likes his middle name which was named after his great grandfather, he thought it was old fashioned and made him sound like an old grouchy man for the 80s.

“Anna Douglas? I know where her locker is,”

He went off with the order and without needing to look up for the locker number, he managed to find Anna Douglas of 9A’s locker without any trouble. Go Jace, a person who knows some many people and could chose whoever he wanted to hang out with but instead he chooses me, the plain, boring wallflower with hardly any friends and most of them are acquaintance of Jace’s.

“Cass, come on, hurry up and where’s the tape?” Jake called after me.

Jace helped me on several more orders. I felt useless as I watched him worked seriously through each order, taping roses neatly on doors, placing bouquets on top of lockers and handing them personally to the recipient. That’s another thing I like about him, he’s always earnest at everything he does and when things gets tough he’s as stubborn as a rock, still I don’t understand why he doesn’t take the spotlight already.

As we finally finished the orders, Jace and I walked around the school selling the extra flowers that was left in the bucket. We talked about our favourite bands, the latest movies that we wanted to watch during the weekends and the car that he have saved for working at the local pizza store. Occasionally, in every one minute or so, he pauses and eyes wonders around the school as if he had a better place to go which was unlikely of him to abandon me that leaves me only one possible answer; he was search for someone.

“Hey bro, one red rose for my girl,” a boy from a year below us came jogging to us.

I waited for Jace to respond but his attention was somewhere else. I quickly grabbed a red rose and then quickly nudged Jace in the ribs.

“Sorry, what was –  ” Jace snapped back.

“That’s fifteen dollars, thank you,” I told the boy.

“Oh right,: Jace was finally back into the game. “Would you like a message card with it?”

“I’m cool thanks,” the boy took the rose and walked away.

I dug into the rag sack, searching for one particular draw string bag and loaded the money in then swung the rag sack over my shoulder again.

“Hey Cass, remember that I told you about this girl I known for a long time? Well I want to get her by surprise so can you take care of this on your own? I mean it’s about time to get it off my chest and you’ll wait for me right?” Jace gave me a mischievous smile and shoved everything into my hands.

I felt my face glower exactly like the first time when he told me about this girl he’d like for a long time. He never once mentioned a name and every time I tried to fish it out of him he’ll go red and look away while giving me knuckles in the head. Could that be a high chance that that girl he always talked about be me? I shook away the silly thought of Jace giving me a red rose for the first time and tried to finish everything on my own before the end of lunch without on relying on Jace anymore.

The final two periods dragged on forever and when the bell finally signaled for the end of the day, my heart hammered my chest. Then immediately the feeling stopped. My mouth dropped open, tears pricked behind my eyes and my knees were giving out a nervous jerk. I ran to my locker and searched high and low. No twelve yellow roses, not even one single one and there were definitely no red ones lying around. Why? Did he forget it or did he spend all his money on changing his radio for his car yesterday? I wanted to know why. How could he possibly forget? Each year he never fails to leave me a bouquet of roses on top of my locker, why would he stop now?

“Hey Cassie, so where’s the roses?” Chanel bounded to me, her books still wrapped in her arms, hair swished side by side behind her.

I pushed back the tears and turned to her with a smile. A smile that took double the effort to pull but luckily she doesn’t know me and couldn’t tell the difference between my smiles.

“Oh my God, Cassie!” Abbey came running down the hallway like a mad woman, pushing through the crowd of students needing to get to their lockers. “Jason didn’t forget, well I me thinks. I heard from the ValD that he brought a red rose for Taylor Goodwin! He even asked her out right on the spot,”

“And?” Chanel was in for the gossip then turned to me realizing I was still there. “Sorry Cassie and are you okay?”

“Um yeah…” I lied as I backed away.

Was I really okay? How could I? I liked Jace longer than anyone and knew him more than I know myself, how he was a test tube baby and how his mother used to secretly dress him up as a girl before I met him. And all these trivial things are not enough to hold him and what right do I have to do so? I was too shy to tell him how I feel and was too confident that Jace will be with me forever but I was wrong. He is free to fall in love to whomever he wished and as a friend who known him for a long time, I have no choice but to wish him and Taylor well and I bet he would wanted that.

“HEY CASS! Cassandra Walsh!”

A car honked behind me twice. I turned around, a battered old white Volkswagen Jetta pulled up behind me. The windows of the car were wound down and a pair of striking blue eyes held my glaze.

“Hey Cass what’s up?” Alex greeted me with a quick head up.

Hamish, a man with few words just gave me a swift nod then looked through me.

“Oi, why’d you leave? It’s so rare of you to do so,” Jace honked the car again. “Jump in; I’ll take you homes since it’s on the way.”

I forced a smile and walked around the car to the front passenger seat. The guys were crammed up at the back as usual and the front seat was left open. It was my seat, everyone knew it and I wonder how long it is till I’ll be thrown to the back like an abandon doll.

“But first let’s throw a buck’s party!” Alex was shouting in the back seat with Hamish telling him to shut up and defining the meaning of a buck’s party.

“Wait, Taylor answered you?” I whipped my head to Jace.

“Yep and aren’t you going to congrat your long time buddy?”

*****

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PART 2 

COMING OUT ON 9TH OF FEBRUARY 2013!