Dismissing Dakota | ✓

»8. Kiss It Better«

"What the..." I trailed and shut my car door. "How?"

"There's not really a waiting list here."

"Yeah, I know." Boulder Valley had a larger population than Crescent Heights. It was a bigger town, which naturally meant there would be more people attending their high school. "But why the hell would you do that?"

He raised both of his brows at me. "Shit. If you didn't want me to—"

I didn't let him finish his statement. "It's not that I don't want you to. Think about it in a logical way, Heath. There are far more people who don't like you or Boulder Valley students."

He snatched the scheduled back from me. "Oh, don't worry. I already have that figured out."

"Which is what?"

"Don't worry about it. It's not anything dangerous. Or illegal."

"That's really clears everything up," I said humorlessly. "Tell me."

"No."

"What's with all of the secrets?"

"You are the last person to call someone out for being secretive." He lowered his eyes on me.

When I had told Silvia about my involvement in Segg, I had told Heath in the attempt to get some sympathy. I needed someone to vent to. Every fiber of my being was against her proposal to remain separated. Initially, Heath  sided with me when I said a Segg member had information about Diana.

He expressed to me that he would do anything if it was for his own sister, who had gone missing around the same time of Diana's death. But the sympathy on his face began to fade when I said what I had done while deceiving Silvia. 

"I don't blame her for hating you," he had said. "Look at it from her perspective, Dakota. I'm only guessing here, but if she has previous trust issues and got screwed over by someone she cared about, then it's no surprise that she's mad at you for following the footsteps of the ones before you. Instead of bitching about how she won't take you back, you could take a breather before begging for her back. It's a little pathetic, man."

It was the first serious conversation we had ever had, besides the times when we talked about getting information about what happened to Sherri or Diana. He sucked at giving advice though. His type of advice was telling me to go sleep with someone so I could forget about Silvia.

The serious tone in Heath didn't last very long. He was kind of known for saying something smart and then finishing it off by involving sex or getting drunk to solve problems that would make you question everything he said prior. He was my best friend, but I could honestly admit that and say it to his face. And he knew it was true, too. 

He concluded his advice for me, this time, with something that wasn't as idiotic. He said that if I wasn't going to listen to his "stay away from her" advice, that I should at least try to make her trust me again, show her that she had fallen for the real me and that it wasn't some artificial version of myself to manipulated her into liking me.

By that point, things got all sentimental and shit so he started cracking jokes about how I'd make a great house wife because I was acting really clingy. Then he proceeded to say I had "forever a bottom" written across him forehead. That particular joke got him a slap to the back of his head.

We were in front of the student porch now, going up the steps. "Be honest though, Heath. Why did you transfer?"

"I saw you freaking the fuck out at going here for the last semester, so I figured I might as well support your wimp ass. If you're going to get beat up at lunch, at least I can be there to get punched with you. But for whatever reason, if I turn up late to the fight, I'll be there to record it and post it online and I'll even make sure to scream World Star in the background."