Cross My Heart [2]

13.) Apologies

“Holly… Holly… HOLLY!”

“Go away.”

“Wake up!”

“Go. Away.”

“I’m not going away until you wake up.” The voice sang above me.

I shook my head, fully determined to keep my eyes closed and go back to sleep. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Holly, I will drag you out of this bed and dress you myself if you don’t get up.” I finally recognized that voice as Ryder, which really got me up, considering I thought he was avoiding me. I sat up slowly to see the very Ryder West sitting on the edge of the bed and when he saw me looking at him, he grinned. “That’s more like it.”

“Why are you here?” I grumbled, sitting up to look at him.

“It’s time to get up.” He chirped with that stupid, too-wide grin.

“Why?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Would this ‘surprise’ involve your jackass brother?”

He grinned again. “Maybe.”

I sighed and quickly stood to my feet. “Well then you can forget it.”

“See, that’s not an option because my job is to get you up and dressed and if I don’t do that, then everything goes wrong and it’ll be my fault and that's not okay.”

I turned to glare at Ryder. “Well then you can tell Kale to take his surprise and shove it very far up his ass because I’m not interested.” There was a tremble in my voice, betraying me. Of course I was interested, of course I wanted to go back to Kale. But I had to have more self respect than to just go along with some plan that he conjoured up to get me to forgive him and pretend like everything was fine. I just wouldn't do it. My pride wouldn't allow it. I turned to go into the bathroom and Ryder followed me, stopping at the threshold between my room and the tile of the bathroom.

“Oh, come on. This is really cool and you can’t just say no.”

“I can just say no.” I corrected him as I began brushing my teeth. I hated how hard Ryder was making this to say no, but I still did. “And I am. No.”

“But it’ll be really fun.” He sang.

I glared at him, viciously scrubbing my teeth. “No, it really won’t.”

“What could he have done that you’re so mad at? He’s trying to say sorry.”

“Don’t get involved.” I said, spitting in the sink and rinsing off the brush.

“He’s my brother, I am involved. Everybody’s involved because everyone cares about both of you and everyone can see that you two are just feeding around some annoying bush and just need to makeup already.”

“Well, since he’s your brother I’m sure he won’t mind telling you why I’m royally pissed off.”

“At least get dressed and go downstairs.” Ryder pleaded. “That’s all.”

“Do you know that he still thinks that something was going on between us last summer?” I asked him, rinsing off my tooth brush and walking out of the bathroom to my dresser.

“No he doesn't, he just said that because he's stupid.” Ryder said with a sigh, leaning against my dresser beside me as I started to run the brush through my morning waves. “Is that why you’re so mad?”