Smoke Screen

Chapter 13

When school was out, Tony immediately approached Layla. "Hey, Gray. Wanna hang out today?" He asked.
    "Why? The project is over." She said.
    Tony's heart sank slightly, but he was not going to give up. "I don't wanna hang out because of school." He told her. "I wanna hang out because you're fun to be around."
    "Mhmm." She made a sound of disbelief. Why would he want to hang out with her? He was popular. Surely he had plenty of other friends that were more fun to be around than her.
    "Cmon." He kept trying to convince her. She gave it some thought. It would have been nice to have a friend to hang out with and she did enjoy being around Tony. But then the thought of what her dad told her came into her mind.
    "Sorry, Toretto. Even if I wanted to I can't." She rolled her eyes as she spoke. Before he could question her, she got up and left. Her unreasonable dad wanted her home right after school, so she had to go.
    She hated complying with what he told her to do as he always made contradicting statements. There was no way she could ever make him happy when he wanted her gone but hated it when she was out. When he hated seeing her but accused her of avoiding him when he did not see her all day. When he would get mad when she did not speak yet also got angry when she talked back.
No matter what she did, he got upset with her. It did not matter if she followed what he said or not. It was always the same. She was starting to get the feeling that he just liked hating her.
As Layla rushed out of the school, Tony was left in confusion. They were getting along so great before, or at least he thought so. What happened? Why was she shutting him out again.
He shook those thoughts out of his mind. Layla was probably busy or something. He was used to her giving short answers and not explaining herself. It was not anything she had against him, right? She was done with avoiding him.
That was what Tony hoped, but for the next several days Layla continued to avoid him and rush home right after school. Whenever he would ask if she could hang out she replied with the same answer. Most of the time he felt like she was purposefully staying away from him as she would try to leave before he could even approach her.
All the progress he made with her seemed to have gone down the drain. He thought that they had been getting along quite well, but perhaps he was wrong. He was beginning to lose hope in them ever becoming friends.