Promise

Chapter 27

"I-I have to try," I told my dad. "Honestly, if I can't handle it I will consider other options. For now, I want to try."

"You have nothing to prove, are you sure you want to?"

"Yes, Dad. Please, I'll be okay and Chris has been pretty protective lately. He wouldn't let anything happen to me."

My dad nodded reluctantly but he did seem to relax after that reminder about Chris.

"Okay," Dad said with a small smile.

I smiled back and reached for my food. Eventually my dad left and I got full from eating and I felt a lot better. It made me wish I'd started opening up to my dad a lot sooner. Talking had proven to help me a lot lately. I was still nervous for tomorrow but I was ready.

The next day at school, things were going smoothly the first few minutes I was on campus. I'd made it to school on time with Chris and I was able to make it to my locker without throwing up. I actually wasn't as nervous as I thought I'd be. I was trying to treat this day as any other Monday.

As I reached for my Chemistry book on the locker shelf I saw a pair of familiar shoes standing behind my locker door.

"Hey," Darius said.

I slowly closed my locker and looked at him. With Darius it was a different set of nerves that came over me, it was the good kind. I'd given up on reaching out to him so I was surprised he was standing in front of me with an apologetic look.

"Hi," I said. "Where have you been?" I cocked my head to the side and raised an eyebrow.

Darius smiled nervously. "I didn't mean to ignore you all these days. I shouldn't have done that, I was just upset."

"I see," I said. I knew why he was upset but I was getting tired of people treating me a certain way because they couldn't control their anger or frustration towards me. It wasn't fair especially since I was the one who was going through all this yet everyone still managed to find a way to be mad at me.

"I saw you at the game on Friday," Darius said, trying to lighten the conversation.

"Yeah," I said. I considered bringing up how I'd been waiting for him outside the locker rooms and ran into Jay instead, but I chose not to. It wouldn't do anyone any good. The less people knew about my interactions with Jay, the better.

"You want to walk to class together?" Darius asked.

"Sure," I said.

At first I wanted to be stubborn and say no but having him walk with me would be beneficial for my nerves. I hadn't seen Jay around yet but who knew when he would pop up. I walked side by side with Darius, engaging distractedly in his small talk. I was too busy concentrating on all the people in the hallway, making sure Jay wasn't anywhere in the crowd lurking. I may have decided to come to school and try my best not to be afraid, but I hadn't thought about what I would actually do if I did run into Jay. I knew I wanted to ignore him but there wasn't a guarantee that would work right away.

"Have you heard anything about Jay?" I asked Darius.

"I mean, I've been hearing he's coming back," Darius said.

"Is that why you're talking to me again? Walking with me?"

"I've been wanting to talk to you, I just didn't."

"Why, Darius?" I stopped walking once we reached the classroom and looked up at him.

"I guess I got jealous. I shouldn't have let Jay get to me. He made me believe you and him were seeing each other again and I thought about the way you've been acting lately I believed him. I'm sorry."