Fireworks

10| Distance

"What is wrong with you?" he asks me, annoyed. "You've been rude to Caryn all night."

"Oh," I scoff, my voice dripping with sarcasm and false sympathy, "forgive me for not immediately admiring and adoring your little girlfriend like everyone else does."

"She's not my girlfriend," he says, sounding hurt. "You don't have to adore her, but can't you just be a little more polite? And where do you get off being mad at me for bringing her along when you were all over Nicholson tonight?"

I scoff indignantly. "I was not 'all over' him! We talked briefly. Mostly about clearing up the confusion over how I was cheering for you and not him!" I take a few breaths.

Jonah groans, running a hand through his blonde hair out of frustration. "Gosh, I just—I can't believe you would get the number of a Camber player. Do you know how annoying that is?"

"I didn't get his number, okay, he wrote it on my hand. And I can't believe you're seriously being jealous right now," I cross my arms.

"Me? Jealous?" Jonah points at himself and guffaws. "Of Theo Nicholson? Hilarious."

"Really?" I ask, uncoiling my arms. "So if I called him up tonight, you wouldn't care? If I told him how much I enjoyed talking to him and how I'd LOVE to hangout next week?"

All the color drains from his face. "You wouldn't."

"If you ever had the guts to be honest and upright about your feelings, then yeah, I wouldn't. But since you're dancing around them like you're starring in the Nutcracker? Yeah, I would."

Jonah stares at me, a crazed look in his eyes. "You can't be serious." When I don't say anything, he laughs like he can't believe what I'm saying. "I'm the coward? I'm the one dancing around my feelings? Who confessed their feelings that night in James's car? Me. I told you how I felt about you, and you just left me hanging for months."

I'm less sure of my stance now, and it's my turn to just stare at him.

He takes a step closer to me, gently taking my hand and intertwining our fingers. "So, please, Lia." He's practically begging. "If you have anything to say to me, tell me. Now. Please."

Say it. Say it.

"Jonah," I whisper, my vision starting to blur. "We can't be going back and forth all the time like this."

"Lia?"

"I think we should keep some distance between us," I say, looking at our interlocked hands and subconsciously twiddling with his fingers.

His expression turns cold. He drops my hand and backs several feet away from me. "Fine. If that's what you want." He turns his back and stalks away to his car where Caryn's patiently waiting for him in the passenger's seat.

I watch him get in his car and put on his seatbelt. He gives me one last look, his eyes full of nothing, and then he drives away with Caryn's arm snaked around his bicep as she lays her head on his shoulder.

We were in the car, just the two of us. We waited while James and Travis went into Pizza Hut to pick up our order. I was laughing at something he had just said, a remark about the libero on Camber High's volleyball team walking like a crooked penguin.

I wiped the tears out of my eyes and look at him, but somewhere along the way, he had stopped laughing.

"What is it?" I asked, referring to his serious expression.

"Ophelia..." he said.

"Yeah?" I answered confusedly. The atmosphere in the car suddenly changed, like something was waiting to happen. Like silence that air before a bomb goes off.