When you really love someone, you’ll do anything to be with them. Sometimes it also means letting them go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I was soaked wet in the rain, completely drenched and feeling like I have failed everyone, especially myself. I looked at the sea waves that continuously crashed against my bare feet. How did I ended up in this situation, you ask? Well, it actually started this morning in homeroom when a particular person from the past ended up coming back into my life. A certain ex-girlfriend of Jason’s.
(Hours earlier)
“Do you think this orange dress looks weird on me?” I asked in an uninterested tone. Basically, my whole cheerleading crew were in my room, insisting that I should try and dress ‘the best’ since I was their cheer captain. I tried talking them out of it because honestly, I didn’t see the point in dressing up. I didn’t want to be ‘special’, I just wanted to be ‘Alison’. But the girls were persistent and so in the end, I had them going through my closet and laying a blue dress and an orange dress on my bed for me to choose.
I had wore my blue one at Brenda’s New Year’s Party so I decided to just go with the orange one.
“Oh Alison, you know you look pretty in anything!” Louise waved a hand in the air. I looked at her, she was lying on my bed, hugging onto one of my pillows. There was one thing that my cheer squad and I silently agreed on, that was to never speak of the wedding dresses that Mr Westwood had placed in my room. I didn’t want to look at them so I hid them behind my closet.
I rolled my eyes, taking off my shirt. I didn’t really care that the girls were in my room because we had changed our clothes in front of each other thousands of times before cheer practice. Right after I took off my shirt, my door opened, revealing Jason in a towel. His hair was still wet and he looked surprised to find the girls in my room. Before he saw me shirtless, I dived for my blanket and wrapped it around me.
“Allie?”
“Um here!” I squeaked while tightening the blanket around me, causing the girls to giggle.
Jason’s eyes widened when he looked at me. “Oh, you’re changing. I am j-just going to wait for you in the car.” He stuttered, slowly closing the door behind him. Then, we heard his footsteps slowly fading away.
“It’s so cute!” I looked at Haylee who had a dreamy look on her face.
“What is?”
“You and Jason! He’s the cute and sweet football captain while you’re the down-to-earth cheer captain. Plus the both of you were best friends, it’s just adorable!” I heard the others giggling and agreeing with her.
I shook my head. Those girls didn’t know what they were talking about. After changing into my orange dress, I said goodbye to the girls as I rushed downstairs to grab a sandwich and go. Jason was already in his car, waiting for me. He didn’t seem to notice me coming towards the car, then I realized that he had his blue headphones on as he leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed. A peaceful smile was on his face.
But the both of us didn’t know how un-peaceful it would be when we get to homeroom.
~~
“Hi, my name’s Rachel.” Jason and I looked at each other, bewildered. I remembered the last time I’ve seen Rachel was the time I went to Paris with Deanna and Keith. What was she doing here? “I’ve just moved here from England, I came here once a few years ago.” Her eyes instantly looked at Jason and she smiled.
Jamie narrowed her eyes at Rachel before whispering to me, “That girl is trouble. I have a feeling your cheer squad would kill her before you could even say ‘stop’.” I nodded, completely agreeing with her. Rachel was definitely trouble. She was worse than Myra. On the outside, she may seem sweet and everything, but on the inside, she would plot ways to take down a person just to get something or someone she wants. It was just how she functioned, I guess.
By the time lunch time came, I already lost all my appetite. I didn’t even touch my chicken burrito due to all the flirting I have witnessed. Rachel kept choosing the seats that were near to Jason and the whole time, she kept batting her eyelashes or asked him random questions that didn’t even relate to the topic we were learning.
“Alison, you’re stabbing your food!” I snapped out of my thoughts, realizing I had been gripping tightly onto my fork. Keith held my hand, stopping me from stabbing my chicken burrito. “If you’re thinking about that Rachel girl, then I have to tell you that there’s no use.”
“Keith is right. Almost everyone in school told her that Jason was taken, but that didn’t stop her from wanting him. I say, just go up to her and confront her.” Leslie suggested, banging her fist on the table. Everyone looked at her, startled. From all the cheerleaders that I knew, Leslie was one of the most toughest.
Just as I was about to say something, someone cleared their throat, making everyone look up. Rachel was standing there with an innocent look on her face as she smiled at everyone. “Well, hello! I used to be seated in the popular table too. May I join you?” She asked, her eyes lingering on Jason. Honestly, my first instinct was to say no and brush her off but that would seem rude.
“No, you can’t, sweetie.” Leslie faked a sweet smile at Rachel. “So bounce.”
“Leslie!”
“What? The girl is obviously going after Alison’s man!”
Rachel’s eyes flickered over to me. “Alison? You’re dating him?” she asked me with an amused expression. Oh, so no one told her that the football captain was dating the cheer captain. She must’ve thought that Jason with some shy quiet girl so she could scare her off by flirting with him.
“Yes. Why not you sit down, Rachel?” I had to admit, it was really hard to be nice to her when thoughts of screaming and shouting at her kept filling up my mind. The others gave me a ‘what are you doing’ look while I just continued to act nice to Rachel.
Rachel sat down right opposite of Jason and I saw her smiling at him. “So Jason, what are you doing tonight?” I swear, I heard Jamie choking on her food as she rushed off to get water. Leslie went after to check on her while the others kept a close eye on Rachel, just like what I was doing.
Jason looked at me nervously. “I was going to study with Alison, she has a Biology test coming up.” I felt myself smiling, it was sweet of Jason to sacrifice his night to study with me when he could go partying with the others.
“Studying is boring, how about you go to the park with me? I heard there are going to be fireworks and a show tonight!” Was he asking him out? In front of me? But then again, I really shouldn’t be so selfish to let Jason study with me when he could be having fun with other people. He wasn’t the one with a Biology test coming. I bit my lip, knowing that I should let Jason go have some fun.
“You can go. I mean, you’re going as friends...right?” I looked at Rachel while everyone else looked at me like I have gone crazy.
“Right. So it’s a date then!” Rachel stood up, smiled and left before I could correct her choice of words.
“Allie, are you sure about this?” Jason asked me, worried.
“Yeah, you don’t need to be stuck studying with me. Go enjoy, okay? Neil can go with you.” I said. I excused myself from the table and went to dump my food before going to the nurse’s office. I told her that I didn’t feel too well so I just spent the rest of my day there. One, because I didn’t really want to continue witnessing the flirting. Two, because I felt sick to my stomach about the ‘date’ between Rachel and Jason.
~~
“Would you stop worrying? You’re the one who insisted the boy to go!” Jamie rolled her eyes as she continued to roll on my bed while I was lying flat on the ground, staring at the ceiling. Forget studying for the Biology test, I couldn’t even hear myself think as I worry about Jason. I thought calling Jamie over would help me calm me down and maybe get my thoughts off him, but that obviously didn’t work. So, Jamie had an idea of asking Neil to text us every ten minutes on how everything was going. So far, fifteen minutes had passed since his last text came in.
Then, we heard the sound of the front door slamming, followed by footsteps up the stairs before my bedroom door flung open. “That’s it, I had enough of playing spy. That chick annoys me the hell out of me and I swear, if I hear another ‘Oh Jason, you’re so cute!’, I would-“
“Neil!”
Neil gave me an apologetic look while I gave Jamie a thankful smile.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure the night’s going to get better.” Jamie said, giving me a reassuring smile, rubbing my back at the same time.
No one knew how wrong she was until an hour later when Rachel and Jason came home. Drunk.