A New Love

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

"Shelby..." Duke starts again after I calm down a bit, "I need to know what happened before I can help you." I understand him so I tell him everything from people telling jokes about me on the streets to not being proud in myself. Of course, he tells me that I am a gorgeous girl and I need to accept that.

"I do accept that, now. It's just hard knowing that if I eat, I could go right back to that place I was in a year ago. I don't know if I can handle that." I feel the tears pricking my eyes and I blink them back.

"Okay, Shelby," he lifts my chin off his shoulder to make me look at him," You are gorgeous and I know you don't believe that but you need to."

Hearing that from him does make me realize it. He is so serious right now that I know he's not joking. He makes me feel safe and he makes me feel beautiful. Duke is the only one who I has ever made me actually feel beautiful.

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At my school we have this thing called "First Friday Five" it's where you spend the fifth period of the first Friday of the month with your home rooms - we have cross graded home rooms (where we have grade 7's 8's and 9's in your home room. - since the Olympics are going on they streamed the hockey game over the gym projector. All the home rooms went to watch.

Duke is in my home room as well as Skye. We made our way down to the gym as a group and our teacher said 'stay together as a class' even though nobody did.

Duke came and sat by his friend Riley and Skye sat by me. We started watching the game and when Canada made a goal the whole gym became livid. Everyone was cheering.

The four of us started talking about random things and after about two minutes Duke moved over to sit by me claiming that he wanted to be 'part of the conversation' when I know that he just wanted to sit by me.

"BOO HE SUCKS!!! He shouldn't be on the team." Riley yells when our team misses a pass and Duke agrees.

"Why do you hate him so much?" I ask them both.

"Because should be on the team instead." Riley replies.

The game continues for a while and I don't really know what's going on. I'm a typical girl but I love to watch hockey games.

I notice then that Riley keeps putting the dirt that is on the bottom of his shoe on Skye's Lulu Lemon leggings. Typically, Skye gets annoyed and moves to sit in front of me, out of reach of Riley. So now Riley is sitting by his other friend and Skye is sitting in front of me and Duke and I are still sitting beside each other.

"What's the most painful thing that has ever happened to you? Physically or emotionally." I ask Duke. The silence was killing me.

"Umm, probably when I got kicked in the ribs by my older cousin, he broke two of my ribs."

"Ouch." I reply. My ribs hurt just knowing that.

"What about you?" He asks me.

"When I moved away from Coaldale. I know now how much I hurt everyone by moving away." I feel the tears again, they are threatening to fall, I blink them back.

Duke interlocks one of his hands in mine. "You can't best yourself up for that, it wasn't your fault that you moved. Do you still talk to your friends there."

I think of Celeste, "yes." I reply blankly.

"See," he squeezes my hand a little tighter," you have nothing to worry about then."

I know he's right. I lean my head on his shoulder and just breathe deeply for a minute.

"Thank you." I whisper.

"For what?" He inquires

"For helping me feel happy." My breath hitches as I'm on the verge of crying again. I stop as soon as I feel Duke's fingers under my chin lifting it upwards. He moves my head up so I'm staring into his eyes.

"I am always here for you." With that, Duke leans in,

And kisses me.

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~ Shelby xoxo