silver springs ~ c. walter

chapter 9 !

"It's lake house day, right?" Isaac asked when Dorrie drove him and Danny to school that morning.

"Yep," she responded with a tight smile. At least, that was the date she'd put in her calendar a few weeks ago. Dylan had been insistent on her knowing every detail at first, but he'd been distant the past few weeks. As she got closer with Cole again, he seemed to grow farther and farther away. He hated when she'd spend time with the Walter boy, and she couldn't understand why. Dylan had never gotten upset when she hung out with Isaac or Danny, but always grew cold when she mentioned Cole and it made her uncomfortable. They'd been together for almost two months, and Dorrie felt like she barely knew him at all.

"You excited?" Isaac prodded, sensing something was off.

"Yes, of course!" Dorrie said it too happily, the Garcia boy noticed. He knew she was faking the excitement but didn't want to push her.

"You're going with Dylan in his car, right?" Danny chimed in from the back.

"Oh, um, I think so?" she replied, feeling suddenly unsure about that too. They'd never confirmed it, but she assumed she'd have a spot. Pulling into the parking lot, she texted Dylan and asked him what time they were meeting to go to the house but didn't get a response.

"You ready to go to the lake house?" Cole said, drumming on the hood of her car as Dorrie and the other boys got out of the car.

"Definitely," Dorrie smiled. When she went inside, she told herself she'd just find Dylan at his locker between first and second period if he didn't respond to her text by then.

Isaac and Danny were tasked with dealing with an anxious Dorrie for an entirety of the first period. "He's probably just busy," Isaac said to the girl who wouldn't stop clicking her pen during the entire class.

"I know, I've just been getting this feeling lately that something's wrong. Like he doesn't like me anymore, or something. But I don't know what to do."

"Well, if he doesn't like you anymore he's an idiot," Danny reassured her just as the bell started to ring.

They all packed up their things and Dorrie sighed. "You're right, I'm probably reading too much into it. I'm going to go find him now and see what the plan is."

As the nervous girl reached Dylan's locker, she leaned onto the door that was Cole's and knocked twice on the locker door that Dylan had open. "Hey."

Dylan looked around the door and saw Dorrie. His first thought was that he was excited to see her and was glad she'd sought him out. His second thought was that she was at Cole's locker for a reason. She probably was waiting for him. And so, instead of smiling and kissing her like he used to during the first few weeks of their relationship, he closed his locker door and said, "Cole already left if that's who you're looking for."

Before he could walk away, Dorrie grabbed his arm and spun him to look straight at her confused and hurt face. "What do you mean Cole's already left? I came here for you."

Dylan immediately felt bad, but he reminded himself that he needed to keep some walls up around her so he wouldn't get hurt. She was close with Cole again, and he knew that everyone in their right mind would choose Cole over him any day. He knew that on the field, everyone wanted Cole to be playing quarterback, not him. It was clear as day with the way that their coach talked about the injured boy. Dylan was always the second choice, and he was waiting for the other shoe to drop with Dorrie. He was waiting for her to break it to him that he wasn't good enough, that he wasn't Cole, and so she didn't want to be with him. And so even though he wanted to apologize for being so cold, he kept a neutral face and said, "Oh."