Leviticus

Chapter 39

《NICK'S POV》

One month later

Time didn't solve everything. It only seemed to have made things worse. He and Riven were still friends, that was for sure. But something was just strange now.

Nick would love to change that and just become friends like they used to be, but he couldn't. Because he was not the one acting different... Riven was.

He was acting normal at school, even joking around with him like they had done before all of this went down. And even when they were alone nothing had changed, but that was because they were never alone with each other anymore.

Nick had tried to meet up with Riven after school before, but he always had an excuse. He had even invited him over to his grandparents' home, which he had never done before, but Riven told him he was going to meet up with Matt.

Matt and Riven had actually gotten pretty close over this past month. Since he and Riven were pretty awkward for a while, Riven would usually end up taking to Matt instead during lunch.

Nick was happy for Riven that he had found a good friend like that, but he couldn't help but feel sad that Riven seemed to prioritize Matt over him now. Then again, he kind of prioritized everyone and everything over Nick nowadays, so that shouldn't be a surprise.

Nick was constantly wondering what he could do to restore their friendship, to the point where he could barely concentrate on his schoolwork anymore. His grandparents had noticed, and berated him for his bad grades, but Nick obviously couldn't explain what was going on.

"Nick, what are you thinking about?"
Felix's voice woke him up from his daydream. They were in history class. The teacher let them study for the last 15 minutes, but nobody was really doing that from what Nick could see, and most importantly hear.

He let out a deep sigh, which alarmed Felix a bit. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Nick murmured to himself, sounding not particularly confident in his own words.

"Alright then..." Felix said in an unconvinced tone.
"Have you congratulated Jay yet, by the way?"
"Huh?" Nick asked, while trying to remember what was going on this time.

"He has been in a relationship for 1 month now, and Levi still hasn't ran away screaming. I think that is a pretty big achievement for someone like him."

"Hey!" Jay tuned in on their conversation. "Are you badmouthing me again?" He leaned over his table to try and hit Felix, who moved away quickly.

"Congrats." Nick grinned.
"You're making it sound like you're making fun of me now." Jay said, frowning at him to show his discontent with both of his friends' misbehavior.

"One month? It's already been that long?" Riven interrupted. "Well congratulations Jay."
He sincerely smiled at his friend, with cute dimples appearing in his cheeks.
Nick looked away, afraid Riven would catch him staring.

"Well, we should also congratulate Nick though." Felix suddenly said, drawing everyone's attention back to himself again.
"What for?" Nick asked.

"It's been nearly a month since him and Riven broke up-"
"We didn't break up." Nick interrupted him, but Felix continued his sentence without paying attention to him. "And he didn't even go out with a girl yet! I swear, that must be a record or something."

Riven was now staring at Nick, with a strange look that made him feel kind of uncomfortable. "He didn't?" He sounded sort of shocked, which confused Nick since he had been pretty clear about the way he felt about Riven.