Oh, Dakota

19- Clarity

“You have a good reason to be mad, but I’m sorry,” He ignored my last attempt at convincing him that I wasn’t mad- which I obviously was.

“Yeah, I know that I have a good reason to be mad,” I agreed with a nod, beginning to walk down the hallway as Todd followed me, walking by my side. “I mean, you just sat there while your mother basically mocked me so yeah, I think I have a pretty good reason to be mad.”

“She wasn’t mocking you,” Todd said quickly. “She really does like you, I promise.”

I snorted softly at that. “Well, she sure has a funny way of showing it then.”

“Look,” Todd sighed, grabbing my hand in his to stop me from walking down the hallway. He pulled me to the lockers so that we weren’t in anybody’s way and then looked me in the eye for more emphasis. “Maybe she doesn’t like us together, but I don’t care. And I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything to her, but after you left I gave her an ear full, I swear. She shouldn’t say stuff like that and I shouldn’t not say anything to her, and I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, please stop being mad.”

I closed my eyes to think it over before opening them again and leaning over, placing a soft kiss on his lips, but it was soft enough to let him know that I didn’t fully forgive him yet. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

“So we’re good?” He wondered.

I shrugged, purposely leaving my answer vague and aggravating. “I’ll see you at lunch,” I repeated before turning around and going into my classroom before Todd could whine to me about how vague and annoying I was being.

When lunch rolled around, I wasn’t mad anymore and that’s probably because I had that hot chocolate, which always could put me in a good mood, and I just didn’t stay mad at people for very long, no matter what. It was an annoying flaw for me, but I couldn’t help it, I just could never stay mad at anybody ever.

So when Todd came and apprehensively sat down beside me at my lunch table, I wrapped my arm around his waist to let him know that we were okay and I wasn’t mad at him anymore or anything. I felt him let out a huge breath of relief and then he kissed my cheek without us actually having a conversation at all.

“Did we miss something?” Marnie wondered curiously. “That seemed suspicious.”

I shook my head and started tapping away at my phone. “Nope, you didn’t miss anything.”

“There was definitely a thing there that we missed,” Nikki insisted. I didn’t know why she was sitting there with us instead of over with Levi, which is where she usually sat now, since he’s her boyfriend and all, but I didn’t question it because I just figured she wanted to sit with us for the day.

“Don’t worry about it,” I laughed.

“You’ll tell me later,” Marnie confirmed with a small smile. “Now, I’m declaring a girls’ night tomorrow night because my mom won’t be home.”

“Why not?” Nikki asked curiously.

“Because I think she has a boyfriend. She won’t tell me because she always tells me that it’s ‘none of my business’ but yeah, she just doesn’t come home sometimes, which is cool.” She explained. “So yeah, girls’ night tomorrow?”

“The game’s tomorrow,” Todd pointed out from beside me, wrapping his arm around my waist.

“Way to go, Einstein,” Marnie laughed. “We’ll go to the game and then we’ll go hang out and we’ll watch movies and eat popcorn and talk about girl stuff like boys and tampons.”