31-THAT IS A LAME IDEA
"Are you being serious right now?!" Crystal yelled.
"Dead serious." Caleb said, not blinking. Crystal started another round of ranting while Caleb kept his cool, occasionally rolling his eyes.
We were all gathered in a booth, everyone of us, including Drew, surprisingly, at an Italian restaurant not far from school. Apparently, the restaurant was owned by Brandon's grandmother who was an Italian. A very friendly and beautiful petite woman. They all felt at home in this place.
We were a committee of twelve consisting the male and female bullies together with Brandon, Shayne, Crystal and me. And right now, I was pressed between Ethan and Crystal whose voice was now a pitch higher.
Since Crystal had informed me of my being selected as a member of the school's anniversary committee, I had been attending all the meetings organized. Meaning, I had been attending this committee meetings since Monday.
And there was never a day Caleb and Crystal didn't argue!
It was almost becoming normal. I decided to block them out. Today's argument was about whether or not we should have a classical music competition between our school and invited schools. Personally, I agreed with Crystal that it would be awesome. But apparently, Caleb didn't think so.
"What do you think, Sam?" Crystal's voice brought me out of my reverie.
"What?" I asked. Someone snorted. It was Natalie.
"Why does what she thinks matter?" She sneered. Crystal glared at her.
"It's not like you've offered anything worthy so far in these meetings?!"
"Relax..." Natalie drawled, rolling her eyes. "I agree with Caleb, it's lame!" Caleb gave her a wink to which she grinned. I almost scoffed.
"Sure." Crystal said, gritting her teeth. "Sam, what do you think?" Unconsciously, I glanced at Caleb. He was already looking at me with a blank expression. But I knew deep down, he wanted to know my opinion. I cleared my throat.
"Well, I feel the competition is a good idea." Crystal gave me a wide grin, literally happy I took her side. "But-"
"Ugh!" Crystal groaned while Caleb smirked at her. "Go on." She said giving me a short glare.
"But." I continued. "To be fair, I think we should all cast votes."
"What?" They all said together, incredulously.
"Er?" I inquired, raising an eyebrow.
"That is a lame idea." Emily answered for them. I snorted.
"Actually," Crystal said, shooting Emily a quick glare. "It's really not a bad idea. At least, this way, everyone would have a say."
"I agree." Shayne said, offering me a toothy grin.
"So do I." Ethan said. Brandon nodded, followed by Drew and Ryan. Caleb rolled his eyes and soon everyone agreed.
We all cast our votes and Caleb's team won. I wasn't surprised. It seemed hard for anyone of them to go against Caleb. He had that control! Crystal obviously wasn't pleased with the outcome and sulked all through the remainder of the meeting. She basically had the power to overrule it but she obviously didn't so as to make it a fair decision.
As for me, I wasn't really concerned about the competition. All I just wanted was for Andrew to spare me a glance. But he didn't! In fact, he made it pretty obvious he was avoiding me which earned us curious and suspicious looks from the rest apart from Ethan who is basically aware of the whole situation.
That was why, immediately we all stepped out into the parking lot, I hurried towards Andrew as he walked to his car.
"Drew!" I called. He didn't respond but I noticed his back tense as he continued walking. So I walked faster, ignoring the stares I got from others.
"Can we talk?!" I asked as soon as I caught up with him as he unlocked his car. He still didn't reply.
"Please, Drew!" He paused, then shut the door of his car, before turning to face me.
"What?" He deadpanned. "If this is about our last meeting, you'd better turn around now. I wasn't joking when I said it should never have a reason to come up." I gulped, the look in his eyes was so distant. He had shut me out for good.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I'm really sorry, Drew." I said, swallowing the growing phlegm in my throat. Drew took in a deep breath and released.
"Whatever." He mumbled. I nodded. "Is that all?"
"I understand you're still pissed. But can we at least continue practicing? We haven't had any practice in the last two weeks." I said, my voice in a pleading tone. Drew chuckled humorlessly.
"You probably should forget about our collab.." He said, opening the door to the driver's seat of his car. "Focus on your solo. Good luck." He settled himself in his car and started the engine. I stared at him, shocked to my bones.
Did he just do what I think he did?
"Seriously, Drew?!" I yelled after him as he drove away.
Unbelievable!!!
"Sam?" I turned around to see Crystal and the others few feet behind me. They all had different expressions on their faces. Crystal, Ryan, Shayne and Ethan had curious looks on their faces. Caleb and Brandon had blank looks on their faces and while the former was definitely out of masked emotion, the latter was definitely out of disinterest.
The female bullies however were literally in between anger and shock. It was obvious a lot of things were running through their minds. It was then and there I remembered Drew was Alex's ex whom it was obvious she didn't get over. I internally groaned. The last thing I need is for my life to turn into a high school movie!
But the look in Alex's eyes promised me one thing- War! I didn't want to imagine what laid ahead of me in the coming weeks but at least I still had Sunday to prepare. I offered Crystal a tight smile in response to her call. There was no use pretending, they all knew something was wrong between Drew and me.
So I walked away from the crew and headed towards Shayne's car since he had been the one who had driven myself and Crystal to the restaurant. I sat down shotgun while I waited for them. Few minutes later, they both got into the car, Shayne at the driver's seat and Crystal behind.
As Shayne drove, we all stayed silent for a while not until Crystal couldn't hold herself anymore.
"Okay, seriously! What on earth happened back there, Sam? What did Andrew Baxter say to you?!" From her tone, she was obviously angry. I would have wondered why if she hadn't asked what Drew said to me. She definitely classified him with the bullies which was not far from the truth!
I noticed Shayne's hands were gripping the steering wheel, a frown etched on his face, but I didn't know why he was upset. I sighed.
"It's nothing serious." I said, trying to push aside the hurt I felt from Drew's words and action. "He pulled out of the performance. So I would be performing only the solo."
"What?" Shayne and Crystal said at the same time. From the corner of my eyes, I caught Shayne stealing a glance at Crystal. I then remembered Damon telling me about Drew and Crystal's fight and backing out of the music performance before Candice's death.
This made me confused the more. Why did Drew back out of the performance? I initially thought it was because of what I said but I remember few weeks ago, Drew had been hard on me when I had wanted to back out. He acted like the performance meant a lot to him. What changed?
What had happened between Crystal and Andrew that had made them opt out of the performance? Why had Drew refused to perform with that Bessie girl? And why now, of all times did he decide to back out from our performance?!
I glanced at Crystal through the rearview mirror to see her lost in thought.
"Why would he even do that?" Shayne mumbled. "I thought it meant a lot to him." I shrugged.
"Sam?" Crystal suddenly spoke up. "Don't you worry! I got this."
She said. I stared at her warily.
"What are you up to, Crystal?" I almost groaned. Crystal shrugged.
"The best pianist in Crystal High cannot be found wanting among various presentations. Especially not in that beautiful collab you guys had going on. I'll talk to him." What? A lot of what ifs began playing through my head. The dominant one being, what if Drew tells Crystal about THAT conversation?
Shayne gave me an assuring smile, literally trusting Crystal to take care of things as well as being oblivious of the turmoil going through my mind. I needed to act fast or my silly mistake would earn me more enemies than I can imagine or handle.
I unlocked my phone and texted the only person I knew could save the situation.
Me:
Ethan, I need your help!!!
A/N:
Hello everyone! Trust we're all doing great!
Next Update will be next week SATURDAY 6PM, GMT.
Have a lovely week ahead lovelies!❤️
Shirley!!!