My Best Friend's Brother // Young Love Book 1 ✔️

My Best Friend's Brother Ch. 32

Exactly like Gatsby, I thought to myself.

"Gatsby was described as enthusiastic, but to what extent do you agree?" he pondered, throwing glances at the class.

"When everything seemed to go wrong with Miss Daisy, what does he do?" he asked again, to no one in particular.

His (possibly) rhetorical question was met by silence. No one dared to speak. Except, of course, for my best friend.

"I wouldn't say he was enthusiastic, Mr Oliver," Cindy replied thoughtfully.

"And why is that, Ms Fellows?"

"Because Gatsby was a man blinded by love," she simply answered. "He might've waited for Daisy for a long time, but that isn't enthusiasm. Gatsby was a hopeful man, there's a difference."

We were all quietly left to think about Cindy's opinion. After a minute or two, Mr O observed the whole class with his smoldering gaze. Ever so sluggishly, his eyes found mine and I shrank in my seat. A smile gently inched up Mr O's lips and he said, "And what are your thoughts, Ms Walton?"

I shrunk a little bit more in my seat, feeling all their eyes on me. Building up my courage, I sat up and cleared my throat. Very lowly, I replied, "To be honest, I think Gatsby was just...sad. He knew what she did the whole time, yet he still chose to love her, to pursue her. It's knowing, Mr Oliver; he knew, but he never once cared. So, to answer your question, I strongly agree."

At lunch, I sat with Cindy. Di and Benjie were somewhere unknown to me, Hector and Henry were skating on the other side of campus, Charlie was sitting on another table, glancing my way every now and then (I'm sure this was weird for him), and Drew was with Anna. Yep, no surprise there.

I never understood Charlie, you know? But now, I think Drew is even harder to read. For one, he keeps sending mixed messages. Yeah, I know I said that about Charlie, but things are different. With Drew, he actually directs you those signals - when I met his parents, the redo date, everything. One minute, he's holding my hand, the next, he's holding Anna's. With Charlie, I just get it confused with his brotherly friendliness. We're friends, but he's probably just tolerating me most of the time.

Chewing my sandwich, I avoid Charlie's eyes burning into the side of my face.

"Uh, is it just me or is my brother pretending to blast you with his eyes?" Cindy mumbles with questioning, gray eyes. "I mean, either that or you're ignoring him."

"I'm not," I reply, way too quickly to be considered as true.

"Well, come to think of it, he has been a cranky baboon lately. Is this your doing? Are you still failing chem?"

"What?" I choke out, doing a double take. "FYI I'm getting better at that subject, so you don't get to say anything!"

Cindy chuckles, patting my back sympathetically. "You are such a child, Eli."

"And you're not?" I counter with a smirk.

"She is, eighty-six percent of the time," Charlie chimed in, laughing at his own joke that I thought was corny as hell.

It went quiet for a moment, and only noise could be heard. But again, Cindy interrupted the silence. She cleared her throat, her gray eyes flicking between me and her brother. She had this thoughtful look on her face, though I couldn't think of a reason as to why it was there.

"Hey, I'm kinda hungry so I'll just buy...six muffins, okay?" And then, she half-ran to the cafetiria. I always knew she was a weird one.

Not that I was any better.