Dancing In His Storm [BxB] √

20.1: The Storm Is Coming

AUGUST

I have not been the greatest throughout the succeeding days of my life and to be quite honest, I have never expected all of this things to happen, not in a million light-years or whatever time means. I wanted to cut myself a bit of a slack but it doesn't seem to be fitting. It's quite difficult to balance all of the things that are going around me and I'm utterly stunned that I'm still breathing and kicking and basically just sailing through all of them. I feel like I'm just a one-man troop that's battling a whole battalion of predicament and I'm clearly being owned by all of them. I know for a fact that there soon will be a time, perhaps not today, maybe in the next few months, that everything would inevitably explode and I'm going to be that one pig caught in between.

It's definitely hard to live my life as a student who needs to keep his grades above the average while still being one of the most popular person at school. Everyone knows exactly who you are and what can you do. Everyone's expecting something that's not mediocre from you and that's completely giving an amount of pressure to perform well. That's already tough and just when you thought it couldn't get any tougher than that, there's still your social and romantic life waiting and keeping you trembling on your feet. It's even harder to hold two different steering wheels and drive two different ships at the very same time.

My relationship with Rachel have been staying unsurprisingly strong, flirtatious and still quite the talk of the town ever since it began. We have been staying committed with our roles as partners even though I know what Rachel did. I can't confront her about that considering the underlying truth of my own unfathomable sins. I think I never will. I'm just going to keep my mouth shut as tight as I could and hope for the best that Rachel doesn't catch me doing my own sneaky thing. I know I'm only using her to stay popular among my peers and that I don't really hold some kind of a romantic feelings for her, not even in the slightest. One of the reasons why I'm dating Rachel was because of this reason that she offers me protection against Ambrose Haylock, but looking at the three sixty turn of events now, I don't think I need that protection anymore. I'm deeply contemplating about it and I may have fucked up a little. I'm starting get this realization that I never actually needed the protection that Rachel provides. There's a higher percent of probability that I'm not dating her now if Ambrose had just confessed his true feelings to me earlier.

Speaking of Ambrose Haylock, he's the other ship that owns the second steering wheel I'm trying to drive. It's quite obvious that I'm a two timer kind of guy but it's not in my purest intention to have two relationships at once. I know Ambrose and I are going out every once in a while and in a very sneaky situation but we haven't really talked about the biggest elephant in the room. I guess the bottom line here is Ambrose's not my boyfriend, yet. And I guess that's somehow making my sins less heavy than it already is. I don't know if this crazy little thing between us would eventually evolve to the next level but I'm holding on to that as tight as I could.

Last week, Ambrose and I sneaked out twice and I thought I did a pretty good job at lying to Rachel. She believed my little bull crap lie that I have to help my mom with some work stuff at home when in reality I'm just spending my time with Ambrose. This week was something interesting for me though. Days have already gone and passed and Ambrose and I never had the chance to sneak out to somewhere private. I'm well aware that I'm the one to blame for that and I don't know what to say to Ambrose. He's probably yearning to spend some time with me and I'm yearning for his company too. The feeling was just mutual for the both of us, but for me, it's quite sticky and complicated. It's easy for Ambrose to just wait for me whenever he wants to hang out. However, the story was way different for me. I have to be the one to hustle and create some bull crap lies to Rachel just so we could spend time together. I know Rachel's smart and although she just believed all of my lies, I still think there's a part of her that's deeply contemplating the credibility of my words. I don't know what's going on inside that pretty head of hers and it's quite fitting to be wary of it. Perhaps she's starting to doubt and grow skeptical of me. Perhaps she's just using this sweet and clingy persona to catch me red-handed. Sometimes, I feel like I'm going to be caught in the middle of these lies. I know I haven't created a good web of lies yet but I'm already shuddering at the thought that I would eventually end up trapped in between my bull craps.

Rachel had become extra clingy to me this week and I'm not sure why. I just don't want to put my relationship with Ambrose at risk and that's the reason why we haven't sneaked out together and its already Thursday.

The set up between me and Rachel seemed to warrant an upgrade in the most expected way. Just like some applications there's a new update every day. The usual public display of affection between the two of us became even more intense and I'm honestly bewildered that I'm going along with it. We were now feeding each other every lunch and I thought that's bringing a whole new level of cringe, at least If I'm the one watching it. Even Victoria and Nicole were telling us that we should stop feeding each other like we were some kind of toddlers. If the decision was up to me I would rather stop and just eat like a normal teenager.

We were having our lunch and there seemed to be some sort of commotion at Ambrose's table. I saw what happened almost instantly because I have a clear shot view of his spot. He stood up looking quite upset and I think I know the reason for that. It's not even a thought but it's really what it is. How obvious it might be, he's jealous. He's jealous that I get to be flirty and clingy and sweet with Rachel while he was watching. Ambrose was looking at Phil and suddenly, he grabbed Phil's head and smashed it on his tray of food.

"Woah!"

The act of violence was quickly followed by a gasp throughout the cafeteria. People were like 'what in the hell' and even me, I'm looking him quite stunned.

"What the fuck!" I heard Nicole curse out looking at Ambrose's direction.

"Mhmm. That's some jerk move right there," Victoria followed up shaking her head.

"Why are you guys surprised?" Rachel doesn't sound shocked and I get it. "He's always been like that. He's always been a jerk." Rachel added and I don't know if she's right about it.

I know there's a reason for that, although it was really a jerk move of him to smash his best friends' face on his tray, I still want to give him this chance that he didn't do that just because he feels like it.

I felt extremely awful about everything that I've heard but I can't even say anything to defend Ambrose. I'm well aware of the fact that I'm the reason as to why Ambrose was acting like that and lord, just punish me for it. I had a lot of things to say but my lips seemed to be sewn in together very tightly that I can't even let out even just a small groaning sound. I'm maimed by the situation.

Ambrose was talking about something but I can't quite hear it because of all the buzzing noise reverberating through the room. Ambrose then grabbed his tray and walked out of the cafeteria.

"I'm glad you never dated that guy," Nicole muttered pertaining to Rachel.

"True to that! He's such an awful person. A gorgeous lady like you could never." Victoria trailed.

"I will never date a guy like that. Over my dead body." Rachel replied and I'm still out of words to say.

"You mean, over your hot and sexy dead body," Nicole blurted out and they all shared a burst of hysterical laughter.

I had to fake my way with the group. I was laughing with them in a very fraudulent manner but I'm really feeling the pang on the inside.

***

I was actively listening to our teacher's lectures during our last period when I felt my phone vibrate and my focus was subsequently stolen. I fished my phone from my pocket while trying to act as if I'm taking down notes. I looked at my phone under the table and I saw a text message from Ambrose asking me to sneak out.

"Mr. Levisay!" Our teacher called for my name and I was thrown into panic mode really quick. I thought she caught me using my phone. "Please take over Mr. Towery and solve the equation on the board."

I felt a rush of relief as I stood up from my seat while casually hidingmy phone back to my pocket. I took a quick look of the equation written on theboard just to get a sense of what's waiting for me. I saw Jessie was having ahard time in solving the equation written on the board. I ushered myself infront to solve the equation and by the time I was done, I was already back atmy seat trying to sneak out my reply to Ambrose's text message. I was alreadytyping for my response when I suddenly remembered Rachel and I had alreadyplanned to go to the movies after class. I ended up erasing all of the wordsthat I've typed and shut my phone off.