Tyson POV
I walked into school with my best friend by my side. We were both quiet as I didn’t want to speak while Angel was giving me time to reflect on his words. Bits and pieces from our conversation in his mom’s car whirled in my mind, his last question louder than the rest:
“If I were to find another friend, someone else I started caring about, will you cut all ties with me as well?”
“No, of course not,” I answered silently. “But it’s different when it comes to Alex. She’s different, our relationship is different.”
I could almost hear him replying with “how so?”
“If you had another friend we can still be friends but if Alex has someone else, I can’t be there for her. I can’t share her, I won’t share her!” I replied to the Angel who was in my head.
“If you don’t want to share her, then fight for her!” The real, leaving and breathing Angel suggested from my right.
“W-what?” I stuttered, shocked by his words.
Had he read my mind?
I didn’t believe in all that psychic stuff, but how else could he answer me? We were close and he often knew what I was thinking about but being this accurate was impossible.
“I said that you should fight for her,” he repeated and then went on to clarify: “You said that you won’t share her.”
“I said that aloud?”
“Yeah. What did you think happened? Me reading your mind?” He snorted, finding the idea just as ridiculous as I did. That brought a small smile to my face; a smile that dissolved into a scowl as I saw a short brunette approaching us.
“Morning, guys!” Alex greeted in a cheery tone but she snuck a worried glance towards me. Just as Angel, she’d realized that I had been avoiding her although she did not know the reason. Well, I wasn’t planning on telling her.
“Morning, Alex,” my friend greeted the newcomer, tiredness creeping in his tone.
Okay, maybe I was sort of to blame for that but hey, I never asked him to butt in my business! It was him who decided to take the matter at heart and attempt to solve my problems. Not my fault he was so sensitive and sympathetic …
I sighed.
I could rant on and on in my head, claim that I was annoyed or even angry with him but the truth was that I was touched that he worried about me.
I turned around and saw that Alex was watching me, probably expecting me to greet her as well. I walked past her without saying a word. I heard two simultaneous sighs and I knew they came from her and Angel. I angled my head slightly to the side and using my peripheral vision I noted that they were walking a few steps behind me.
“What’s with him lately?” The girl queried through a whisper.
“You don’t know? You really don’t have a clue, Alex?” Angel responded just as quietly to keep me out of the conversation. I swear I felt like my ears were elongating in my attempts to listen to them. The girl must’ve replied as my friend went on.
“Then why don’t you ask him?”
Once more, I couldn’t hear her answer, but whatever it was it must’ve irritated Angel because his next words were a lot louder.
“Why do you two refuse to just talk to each other?!” He burst out and shouldered his way past me. I sped up to follow him, leaving Alex behind on her own.
*****
Alex POV
Today was so not my day!
No, make that this week because my irritation had started on Monday. And there was only one reason for it: Tyson Williams.
Ever since we came back from the pawnshops on Sunday, he’s been avoiding me.
At first I thought it was because I laughed at him when Polly called him a hooker, but now, three days later, he was still doing it. Even proud and pouty Tyson wouldn’t hold a grudge for that long over something this small. So I was starting to consider what else I could’ve done to piss him off royally. I’d even made a list:
One: I’d insulted him.
Two: I’d hurt his pride.
Three: I’d lied to him.
I knew I hadn’t done any of those, except maybe number two if you count me making fun of him at the pawnshop. But as I’d said, I’d already ruled that one out.
Not being able to figure this out on my own, I complained about it to Devon who was staying at my apartment. He had offered a number four for my list: I’d made Tyson jealous.
I laughed now as I laughed when Dev first suggested that. The very thought of it was ridiculous. Tyson did not have a crush on me so he couldn’t possibly be jealous and especially not of Devon since...
“What’s so funny?” Tara’s voice pulled me out of my thinking.
“Nothing,” I stated and bit into my salad.
Eww! Why had I bought salad for lunch? I hated most vegetables.
“I was wondering when you’re going to notice what you chose for yourself,” the redhead murmured and took a bite out of her sandwich.
“You saw me buying this and you didn’t warn me?”
“I did but you paid no attention to me,” the girl contradicted, insulted that I thought she wouldn’t fulfill her duty as a friend and caution me.
“She really did, you’ve just been distracted all day,” Danny hurried to defend her. I hadn’t even noticed he was there as I was sitting to Tara’s right and he was on her other side.
“Oh, my Gosh! You guys will so not guess what just happened!” The chatty Bella squealed, approaching our table. She started jumping up and down from excitement, her long blonde hair bouncing at the movement. None of us bothered to ask her what was going on; she was going to tell us anyway.
“I just got a date,” she made a pause for effect, but it wasn’t long before she blurted out: “with Angel!”
My head which had been lowered as I glared at my meal whipped up.
“Wait… My friend Angel?” I questioned, wondering how the hell that had happened. I mean, they were so different. Sure, I’d seen them say hi to each other at school and they were dancing together that time we went to the club for the wet party but the news still astounded me.
“Yes, Alex, with your hottie of a friend Angel. Although I have to admit he’s not as hot as Tyson Williams, but Glory’s got that covered.”
“What?!” I shouted and accidentally pushed my salad to the ground. I paid no attention to it as I went on: “What do you mean Glory’s got that covered?”
“We are all going out Friday night on a double date: Angel with me and Tyson with Glory.”
“What? H-how?” An agitated spark lit her brown eyes, the same spark that signified she was on to some juicy gossip. I realized that my stuttering might’ve given her the wrong impression and put some ridiculous though (such as me being jealous of Tyson and Glory) into her head. I composed myself and continued. “Their last date was a disaster. The girl was pissed off for days after and she didn’t even want to look at him.”
The thrilled flame subdued and I mentally cheered knowing I’d thrown Bella off the track.
“Well, apparently Glory has forgiven him,” she started to explain, gesticulating with her hands as she would usually do when she got excited which to be honest was most of the time. “We ran into them in the hallway and I was like “Hi, Angel” and he was like “Hi, Bells” and we started talking and stuff and he said I looked good and I said…”
“Oh, get to the point already, will you?” Danny moaned, exasperated with her babbling. I smirked, thinking I was just about to tell her the same.
Bella narrowed her eyes at the boy but quickly got over it and went on.
“Well, point is the two of us had just arranged to meet up Friday night when out of the blue Tyson blurted “how about we go out as well”. I mean, we were like so astonished. All of us. You should’ve seen Glory’s expression! Her jaw dropped; I’ve never seen her so dumbfounded before. Yet she said yes. Kind of like weird after what happened last time…”
“Wait! Tyson was the one who asked Glory out?” I questioned slowly. That couldn’t have been right! I clearly remembered him saying he was glad to be away from the Witch once we got out of the mall.
“Well, duh, that’s like what I said,” Bella chirped. “Anyways, I’m off.”
“Aren’t you going to eat lunch with us?” Tara queried, making the other girl snort.
“Who has time to eat? I have so many people to tell about this. I mean, I like already tweeted about it but still…”
She swirled around and scurried to a near by table to retell her story to the new group of listeners.
“Do you want one of my sandwiches?” Tara offered. “I took the second one for you once you ignored my warning about what you were buying.”
“I’m not hungry,” I stated without thinking it through but it was the truth: my stomach had suddenly knotted, I had a certain feeling that something heavy was clogging my throat and I didn’t think I could manage even one bite. “That nasty salad made me lose my appetite!”
I shot up from my seat and hastily moved away. I didn’t know where I was going, I just knew that I wanted to be left alone.
*****
“You know we are talking about this, right?” Tara queried, sitting next to me on the grass.
After I’d left her and Danny at lunch, I’d wandered aimlessly around the school until my feet brought me to a tree. I sat underneath it and it took me a while to realize it was OUR tree, mine and Tyson’s, the one where we’d decided on the baby schedule at a time that felt like so long ago. Come to think of it, just a couple of months had passed. It was strange how time seemed to fly sometimes. I felt like it was yesterday that we were running around Joey’s yard, chasing chickens. It was then that Tyson had first flirted with me.
“A penny for your thoughts, kitten!” I remembered his quiet chuckle when he’d uttered that; his hungry eyes running up and down my body; his purring voice and how not long after, he had leaned down towards me…
I’d often wondered if he was going to kiss me that night. And then I assured myself that it didn’t matter as he hadn’t kept on flirting when he’d sobered up. Not once. Except for that time when we were at my apartment and he was showing me that move of how to get on top when someone was pinning you to the grown. Just like the night before he had inclined towards me and then… then my cousin showed up.
And that had been it; there was no more of Tyson getting close to me.
“Your mind really isn’t here today, is it?” Tara asked through a sigh.
“Nope,” I answered and stared at my sneakers.
“Are you hungry? You missed lunch after all.”
“Not hungry.” Yeah, I’d missed lunch and some classes too. “What time is it anyway?”
“Just ten minutes after last period,” the girl responded. “I was about to go home but then I though “hey, I’ll give it a try and check by their tree, she might be there” and it seems like I was right.”
“Why did you think I’d be here?” That was a justified question, considering I myself did not know what I was doing under this particular tree.
“Because you meet up with Tyson under this tree and you got upset when you heard about him and Glory…”
“I did not get upset about him and Glory; I got food poisoning from the darn salad!” I hurried to contradict her and she snorted at me.
“And since when are bad mood and irritability symptoms of a food poisoning?”
“Oh, shut up!” I turned to Tara only to grimace and stick my tongue at her.
She was utterly unimpressed.
“Are you going to sabotage their date again?”
“No, Tara, I’m not going to sabotage their date… Wait, what do you mean “again”?”
“Like you did that time we went to the movies,” she explained it as if it was the most obvious thing.
“What have you been smoking? I did not do it to sabotage Tyson’s date, I was just bored,” I stated although even back then I was glad how things turned out in the end. I was hoping Tara will accept that explanation but alas, she wasn’t done yet.
“Then why did you leave with him? I searched for you once things quieted down, but when I found you, you two were already together. And you, Alex,” she stressed the name which I’d finally convinced her and Danny to address me by, “you looked very happy. And you still say you caused that muddle just because you were bored?”
“Pah! Of course I did!”
She rolled her eyes at me.
“So there’s nothing going on between the two of you?”
“Nope, Tyson and I are just friends,” I kept on insisting. He’d clearly showed me that he wanted nothing more than that when he asked Glory out. Glory of all people! He knew how much I despised the Witch. I’d told him so many things about her, well, I’d complained so many times about her, but the boy still asked her out. It was like he was doing it simply to piss me off!
“But you want something more right? You told me you thought Tyson was sexy,” Tara kept on pushing.
“Well, yeah, but… He’s… We… We are just friends, okay? I don’t want to ruin that.”
“Or what is left of that,” I added in my mind thinking about his attitude these past few days.
“If you don’t tell him you want more you might miss out on something big,” she concluded wisely, nodding with her head.
“Ha-ha! The pot calling the kettle black.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You and Danny,” I shot out without hesitation.
“Oh, that. That’s different.”
She suddenly got fascinated with a fiber that was sticking out of her light, green sweater. She pulled on it then tucked it in between the other threads of the clothing.
“How so?” I queried. I wasn’t going to let her get away that easily even though she was obviously trying to ignore the topic.
“We’ve been friends since we were children,” she announced as if that was a reasonable point.
“So? If you don’t tell him you want more you might miss out on something big,” I noted, grinning wickedly at her. Let Tara see how it felt when someone butted in your private affairs!
“Oh, shut up!” She ordered, reminding me I’d answered her the same way not that long ago. She did not stick out her tongue at me though.
“You know, this weekend is the perfect time to tell Danny you are crushing on him. After all you two are going away together…”
“We are not going away; not just the two of us anyway. My family is going on a fishing trip with his family so there will be plenty of other people there: parents, siblings, cousins…”
“You can still tell him,” I contradicted, glad that the focus had shifted away from me. But Tara was quick to retaliate.
“Don’t try to change the subject, Alex; we were talking about you and Tyson.”
“There’s no me and Tyson,” I protested and heard a snort coming from our left.
“Alex, why is the shrubbery laughing at us?” Tara queried, looking at the near by bushes, perplexed at the uncharacteristic sound that had come from them.
I straightened and approached the shrubs but before I could reach them, someone stood up and a familiar blond head smiled sheepishly at us.
“H-hi!” Danny croaked obviously nervous that we caught him eavesdropping on our conversation.
“Danny!” Tara squeaked and I knew what she was thinking as her face drained out of color: how much had Danny heard?
“I was just…” The boy started, but not finding an innocent explanation for his actions, he just took a deep breath and closed his mouth.
“How much did you hear?” I queried him.
“Nothing, nothing at all! Just something about you and Tyson.” He started shaking his head but was contradicted by his reddened cheeks and the fact that his Aussie accent was more pronounced than usually. And that was when I knew one thing for sure: Danny had heard much, much more than he was admitting to.
An awkward silence ensued between us until another figure approached; this one wasn’t a student though.
“So here you guys are!” The voiced laced with British accent stated as Devon walked casually our way. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah,” I replied and the four of us walked to the school parking lot.
“Who died?” Devon questioned, noticing our somber faces. Well, mine was somber while Tara and Danny appeared to be… scared. Yep, that was the word, scared.
I opened my mouth to speak but both of my classmates started frantically shaking their heads at me. Tara obviously didn’t want to recall what Danny had probably heard and the boy didn’t want to be reminded that he shouldn’t have been eavesdropping on us. I guess they had silently agreed not to discuss the topic. And just minutes ago Tara was preaching honesty and being open about how you felt!
Talk about hypocrisy!
But I couldn’t judge her too hard; it was always easier to give advice than to admit to someone that you had feelings for them.
“I’ll tell you later,” I muttered so that only Devon could hear me. He gave a small nod, one I was sure our two companions wouldn’t have noticed even if they weren’t staring at the ground as they walked.
“You missed the car,” I commented as they walked right pass Danny’s vehicle.
“Oh, yeah,” Tara let out a nervous chuckle and the boy next to her emitted a gurgling sound that I guess should’ve passed for laughter.
We said goodbye, Danny and the redhead got into his car and Devon and I walked to where he had parked. Before we got in Kevin’s vehicle we took a glimpse of Tyson; he glared in our direction and then sprinted away. I briefly wondered what he was still doing here but then I remembered he had gotten detention for lashing out on a teacher. He’d been moody and irritated the past few days.
“Seeing as he’s still angry, I take it you haven’t told him yet,” Devon commented as he got in the car.
“Why would that matter?” I queried, sitting in the passenger seat.
“I think it’s time to tell him, Alex,” he stated instead of honoring me with a straight answer. He didn’t need to; the look he gave me told me all I needed to know.
“I don’t think that is the reason for Tyson’s foul mood.”
“You asked me for advice and I gave you one.” He started the car and I buckled up. “I think it’s number four from your list.”
I snorted.
“Doubt that!” But what if it was true? What if Tyson was jealous? “So you don’t think he’s noticed?”
“Nope, he’s clueless.”
“Man, guys can be so inobservant sometimes!”
I reached out to turn the stereo on. Right now I needed a distraction. And tomorrow or some time soon I’d need to tell Tyson about Devon.
If only the boy would let me talk to him.
*****
A/N: So what do you guys think Devon is prompting Alex to tell Tyson? Could it be some big secret? Or maybe it’s something completely innocent? Read on and you’ll see!
Or you could just leave a comment and say what you think the deal with Devon, Alex and Ty is.
Have a nice day and don’t forget to vote!