The Upside Of Us

Part 23

"What if I cropped out your face?" Kalen asks, sitting properly in his chair like he was having a serious meeting with his boss.

A familiar hair of curls sways indignantly, "I'll seriously harm your face Kalen if you don't get out of mine." I suppress the urge to lift my head and continue skimming the same exact sentence in my book that I've been reading for the past 5 minutes.

It's not my fault they are severely entertaining.

I hear him sigh, "C'mon babes get with the program, we've ain't got all day love." Weirdly enough he speaks in a british accent, a very bad one at that.

I suppress my laugh, Xina would kill me.

"Kalen I'm not letting you use my pictures to catfish someone."

"And why not." He says whining. "I need someone hot enough to do damage." He begs.

Xina turns her sharp eyes on me, oh no.

"So you've completely forgotten about Mila." Her grin tells me she's done that on purpose. Evil wrench.

I'm dreading a response before someone speaks up.

"What about her?" Oh right. Jonah has been slowly coming back to— I don't know sit with us? Spend time with us. Its all been weird really.

I think he's had a talk with everyone, he speaks a lot more occasionally to Kalen because he pesters him. As for Xina she cares for him as her family, and obviously we all do but a pang of guilt rings in my chest when I catch her whispering lowly to him in hopes I won't hear but still do and she abruptly stops talking to him.

I think she's afraid she's taking sides by doing so, or hurting me but there's no sides and I'm just trying to move passed it.

What Jonah did wasn't the end of the world, he was drunk and like drunk people do they say things they don't mean. I just happen to be in the receiving ends of that more often then I'd like to.

Kalen ignores him a look of excitement on his face, "You're so right! You brilliant human being." Kalen turns to me grabbing my hand in his.

"Kalen ..." I say cautiously.

"Mila ..." He copies back, with big pleading puppy dog eyes.

"I don't think—" I don't get to finish before he starts.

"Of course you're a perfect fit!" I grimace and slowly start shaking my head.

"Kalen I'm not completely averse to violence." I warn. His eyes open wide.

"Mila you're a lover not a fighter get with your character script." He chastises, I ignore him.

"Think about it this way you'd be riding the world of one less homophobic jock, and I'll get in my kicks of the week."

"I'm not listening to this." And I'm not. Kalen has a lot of stupid ideas but this one tops it.

"Why are you even entertaining this? We could just key his car." Xina implores, like she didn't just say they could commit a crime.

"Xina are you crazy?" What is wrong with everyone today.

"No, smart, beautiful, enchanting yes." She pauses and rolls her eyes. "Okay maybe not my greatest ideas but look at him!" I do. I look over at Kalen and he looks like a dog salivating for a bone as he's plotting someone's demise.

Kalen tucks my hair behind my ear and caresses my cheek while I glare at him because I know what he's doing. Jonah slaps Kalen in the head making him drop his hand and effectively stops him from touching me, he yelps.