Choices

Chapter 24

"So how did it go?" Julie asked Nate immediately he returned.

"Yeah, that was real awkward," he said as he collapsed on the chair.

I looked at him. "But do you feel better now?"

He reached up to flip his hair backwards to make it more arranged. "Yeah. She can be a bit reasonable when she's not flirting with you."

"That's good I guess." Julie said.

I leaned forward. "So... Did you tell her you don't like her?"

"Yeah. She said some pretty ridiculous things at first, that I did like her but didn't know it. She said that she understood the look in my eyes that clearly highlighted my feelings for her."

He cleared his throat and shifted, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation, while Julie and I tried to mask our amusement and stop ourselves from laughing out loud.

"Yes, go on." I waved him on.

He continued. "She um.. said that maybe my friends were making me confused about what I felt."

Julie scoffed. "So in other words, we were brainwashing you?"

He scratched his head as if guilty for listening to her. "We've cleared things up though and I made it clear I didn't have any romantic interest in her."

"She actually listened and let it go?" I asked.

"Well at one point she looked really angry and sad, so I might have suggested that we could be friends?"

"Might or did?" Julie asked sarcastically.

"Ok I did. But she calmly said that if I wasn't interested in anything more then she didn't want to be just friends."

"Really?"

He shrugged. "I gave her an alternative and she said no which I was completely fine with, by the way. So what was she expecting me to do? Go back on my words and plead for a relationship?"

"Well, we've crossed that hurdle so let's not worry about that anymore. After all you came back with all your body parts intact." Julie said as she pointed at him.

"Come on Julie, stop being ridiculous, she's not an animal. In the end she nodded jerkily and left without arguing."

Just then, Camilla came into the cafeteria. She walked pass our table obviously not looking at any of us on purpose. She walked to her table and calmly sat down.

Her friends started chattering to her and she shushed them while whispering something to them. Assuming her air of confidence, she raised her shoulder and started laughing with her friends.

"She seems okay to me." Julie shrugged.

"Yeah." I replied and looked away deciding to change the topic.

"Anyways.... Julie?" I asked.

"Yeah?"

"Did you finish our maths assignment?"

"Yup. Done and dusted."

I smiled sheepishly. "I might have had some problems with some."

"You always do." Nate intoned with a smirk."

"Shut up." I replied

Giving her my best cute look, well as much as I could manage, I said, "Can I just take a look at some solutions?"

"Of course" she reached into her bag and then slid the book across the table to me.

I opened the book and quickly scanned the answers, easily spotting my mistakes. Julie was very good at maths. She didn't take it very seriously, but understood more than me even when I studied. I may be better than her in other subjects but she always bested me in maths.