My Fictional Boyfriend

Chapter 29 ~ Grudge

"Oh good! Seemed like Ms. Gomez is tired to act the leader this time, eh?" She smirked and whispered, "Afraid to be hit by a volleyball again?"

I was avoiding to look at her really but this time I faced her right after she whispered. That made us face to face. I was about to say shut up when Marc took over. "Shut up,   Candice. I won't let you touch anyone from my Group."

"Wow, really brave of you. You want me for yourself?" She laughed, of course our conversation was only exclusive for me and my team, she couldn't risk the whole room could hear how awful she really was. "Anyway, good choice. I'll write it down." She flipped her hair, winked at Marc in particular (or me or anyone in our direction), and she turned around. "See you."

~

"They're right, Ella. Sorry for being mean in the introduction." Marc apologized while we were on a long desk, each of us drawing on the designs for the costumes we would make. We planned to start for the first five main roles.

I glanced at him but he still concentrated at the costume of Marius Pontmercy aka Liam. "It's okay. Maybe that's how I'll react too. I'm sorry too, I think I was the one who  brought it up."

He kinda laughed, like real laugh, not sarcastic. "I should be thanking you. If it weren't because of that, I'd still be holding this heavy burden with Candice."

We're not really close, and this won't help to decrease my nosiness, but I couldn't help but ask, "By the way, you said you're slightly pushing away that burden, uhm, is it because you still love her?"

He stared at me for several seconds, reading if I was serious and laughed harder. "Me? Love her?" He continued laughing that his pencil accidentally wrote few marks on his drawing.

"Watch it!" I said, pointing to the paper.

"Ohh," he erased the marks carefully while recovering from his laughter. "I just didn't imagine that it was how you interpreted it." I was confused. If it wasn't because he still loved Candice and she did something bad to him, why the hell was he so angry at her? "Yes, well, me and Candice did have a thing, but I don't think it was entirely romantic."

"What?!" Ever since I thought he and Candice were ex-boyfriend and girlfriend. I never knew it wasn't the whole story.

He laughed again, but lighter this time. "Well, you clearly don't know do you?" I shook my head and stopped drawing, focusing all my attention to him. He leaned forward to me. "Can you keep me a secret?"

"Uhm," I wasn't sure if I deserve to know, I was just being curious, how could he think I was trustworthy? I still nodded.

"I'm gay." He said and went back to drawing.

"Wait, what?" I couldn't hide my surprise then he just smiled. I felt I somehow offended him so I apologized. There's nothing wrong with that I just never expected he was because of how manly he seemed. He was even good-looking, no wonder he was issued with Candice.

"You heard me right. Don't worry, I get that expression a lot. Didn't expect, huh?" He said while drawing the coat of Marius.

"No, honestly, but... but what happened with Candice?"

"Hmm, it was long ago so I hardly know the exact details on who she said it, but I will never forget why and what she did." He couldn't help but shook his head again. "One of her friends told me that she liked me, no one knows then that I was... you know. We were both in the volleyball varsity team, back then. I was the captain ball for the men's and Frazzie was for the females. We became friends, like real close friends even after I told her that I had a crush on one of my team. Then one day she tried to threaten me to tell to our coach that she has potential to be the next captain ball for the female because she beat Frazzie on one-on-one. Though Frazzie was her friend and way looot better than her. Else, she'll tell my team mate that I have a crush on him." He shrugged.