Of Love And Hate, You Were My Greatest Mistake

Of Love And Hate, You Were My Greatest Mistake ~51~

"Aw, really?" She smiled, feeling extremely flattered.

"Don't feel special." Jace waited a second for her smile to falter, then laughed and walked away.

"Ugh, he's so rude and mean," Laila grumbled to herself. "I don't understand."

She spun on her heel and made her way back to the cheerleader's side of the field. A portion of her mind was stressing about Jace having witnessed a kiss between herself and Alex, but the other half could not care less.

I just don't want him to think it was mutual, she thought. But why? Why do I even care?

"You ready, Laila?" Katie called to her. She was barely within earshot.

She nodded and took her place amongst the girls and Caleb. Practice went by smoothly, filled with its usual stunts and flips, cheers and chants, and a couple flying tricks that she and two of the other girls knew how to execute. By the time it was over, the kiss between herself and Alex was all she could think about.

"Why won't you stop ignoring me?! LAILA!"

"Huh?" Laila jumped at the sudden screaming in her ear. "Why're you yelling at me?"

"Because I was talking to you about how you've been ignoring me for the past five minutes, and you even ignored that. What the fuck are you thinking about that's so interesting? I wanna know!"

"Sorry, I guess I tuned out. It's nothing important."

"Oh it's totally important," Ramani continued, "I can tell."

"Hold on. I'll be back," Laila walked after Jace as he passed, then skipped a couple steps and jogged when she realized she wasn't catching up. This time he was alone, just as she wanted. "Jace!" She called loudly. Surprisingly, he stopped to wait for her.

"What do you want now?"

"About that.. um, you know when..."

"You kissed Alex?" He guessed.

"He kissed me!" Laila exclaimed. "I didn't kiss him. It was all him. I didn't do anything." She couldn't stop herself from ranting.

"Are you done?" Jace asked. He was sort of smiling. It wasn't even a malicious one.

"Uhh," Laila wasn't quite done, but she didn't know what else to say.

"It doesn't matter," Jace said. "Do what you want, Rabbit. It makes no difference to me."

"Oh," Laila's heart sank.

"But if it did matter, that would be good to know."

"Oh," Her voice lifted. "Okay. Good to know."

"Yeah," Jace paused, and it looked like he was about to say something else but then he stopped himself.

"Lala, are you ready to go?" Caleb strolled up holding his backpack and Laila's bag. He handed it to her.

"Yeah, I guess." She hesitated before saying, "Bye, Jace."

"Bye."

Her heart skipped a beat and she smiled as she and Caleb walked away. For some reason she felt better knowing it might sort of matter to Jace. Possibly. She couldn't quite tell, but it seemed like a good thing.

"Hi Mandy!" Laila waved happily as they reached Caleb's car, where Amanda was waiting impatiently.

"Finally! I feel like I've been waiting here forever," She groaned and draped herself across the car. "How was practice?"