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Chapter 9: Her secret, his secret

9 Her secret, his secret

Nicky could not breathe. Her heart grew heavy and it ached. The pain was eating her that she could cry. This is worse than what Josh did to me.  This is much worse. She finally understood the feeling of being dumped by someone you really like. Being rejected. It felt like he had broken up with her, but the funny thing was they weren't even yet together. She went from a seemingly all-time high to an all-time low in just a span of ten minutes. A few moments ago, she thought fate had finally come to senses and set them up together, but apparently, it all just turned out to be a practical joke, as fate seemed to have a knack of throwing curveballs at her. And Iggy wanted out all along. How could this day turn out to be so bad?

"Hey," a voice shook her out of her wallowing.

She looked up, expecting the biggest and loudest boy in class but she saw Red, instead.

"What?" She asked, confused and slightly cranky.

"It's seems like we're gonna be partners," Red said as he then settled on the seat that Iggy had just a while ago sat.

"What? But I thought it was Robert—"

"Robert doesn't wanna be paired with you, and he said he'd rather have her girlfriend as her duet partner."

"Girlfriend?" Nicky never thought Robert had a girlfriend. He was mean and acted like a bully, and Nicky assumed no girl with a decent mind should find him attractive.

"Danica. They'd been going out for months now. Are you sure you're in this class?"

"Nope. I felt I'm in a different class, too, " Nicky muttered with all contempt.

Red drew a small laughter. Strangely, it did not come off as insulting to Nicky especially that she already had been feeling hurt enough, a mocking laugh could no longer do her anymore harm.

"So Danica was supposedly your partner, then?

"Uh-huh. I'm glad I got rid of her, though. She can dance and all, but sing, I don't think so."

"As if you're a good singer."

"Wait till you hear me."

Nicky was smirking as she thought of the last time she heard Red sang. She actually could not remember. Maybe it wasn't worth remembering after all.

"So what's the deal, Nicky? Why doesn't everybody want to be paired with you? Do you smell that bad?"

Nicky glared at him. "You think? You know what. If you're just like Ynigo and Robert who all want to be paired with their girlfriends and don't want to be paired with me, you can actually go now and save me the pain of another rejection."

"Okay."

"Okay, you'll go?"

"Okay, you're mad. But I think I'm good with you. I can take the smell."

Nicky looked at Red icily. "Thanks, " she muttered sardonically.

"Lighten up, I'm just kidding. But you could really use some cologne, you know."

With fist clenched, Nicky glared at him.

"So, what's this?" Red then asked as he took Nicky's note pad. "Are these the songs you're about to sing with Iggy?" He asked as his eyes ran down the list.

"No. They're a list of my favorite songs."

"But you plan on singing one of them with Iggy just the same, right?"

"It doesn't matter now. He's not gonna be singing with me."

"Will we be singing one of these songs, too?"