THE LAST LETTER

Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 9 // 𝐶𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑦 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦

《What do you mean? ooh,
When you nod your head yes;
But you wanna say no,
What do you mean?

What do you mean - Justin Bieber》

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The next day, I woke up early than usual just to avoid Lucas. I got ready before he could come to pick me up after his practice and hurried down the stairs to see Sam talking to Paul and Mom. I didn't want to face Lucas after last night, because it'd be too awkward so I called Sam to give me a ride to school.

"You are early today." Mom said, handing me a peanut butter sandwich.

"It's just that last night her and..." I cut Sam off before she could tell Mom about my fight with Lucas, "Last night, I remembered that I have some important work to finish at school, today." I lied. "Can you please tell Lucas when he comes, that I left for school early with Sam?"

"Sure." Mom replied and I grabbed Sam's hand before she could stuff anymore of those cookies into her mouth and headed to the door.

"What were you thinking, telling Mom about my fight with Lucas." I hissed at her.

"Oh my God, I was just going to do that, wasn't I." She scratched her head.

"duhhh..." I frowned at her.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly as we walked out into the porch, to see Lucas standing by his car, looking devilishly handsome as always.

No Rach, you cannot get his good looks- get to you.

"Hey, Samantha, what're you doing here? " Lucas asked as his eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.

"Sam and I have some important business to handle before we went to school," I answered before Sam could say anything stupid.

"You do?"
"We do?" Lucas and Sam asked at the same time.

Told you, I'll get caught in this stay-away-from-Lucas mission, because of Sam.

"Yes Sam, we do." I gave her a knowing look and her eyes widened in realization, "Oh god, yes we do. I can be so forgetful sometimes."

"So, we will leave." I said, tugging at Sam's hand when Lucas pulled me towards him and whispered, "Is it because of yesterday? I thought we were past that, Grace."

"We are. I just - I just..."

Now that I was so close to him, all my previous confidence in staying away from him disappeared. I had been going to school with Lucas for as long as I can remember, and suddenly I was ditching him? That small 'no' seemed a lot difficult than I thought it'd been.

Say something Rachel, say something...

"Whatever," he turned his back on me before I could see his facial expression as he took off without a second glance.

I felt a pinch of guilt as he got into his car and tore out of the parking lot. Sam gave me a sympathetic look but I didn't say anything as we went to school. Sam has known forever that I liked Lucas, even though I never admitted it to her. She was my first and my long-time best friend and I know without a doubt that she wants to see me happy. Maybe a part of her knows or believes may be, that my happiness is with Lucas. Just a couple of days ago, I eavesdropped on their conversation.