How To Be Straight

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CHAPTER 29

    [ Calvin ]

This was starting to get ridiculous.

I was starting to get ridiculous.

I loved Derek with all my heart and then some, but loving him had nothing but chaos attached to it. If I had just stayed with Nicolas and never let my feelings interfere with our relationship, Nicolas would have never snapped and he would have never acted the way he did around me. It was because I was selfish enough to take what I wanted without thinking about the consequences and not being thankful for what I already had.

I should have told Derek the truth. I should have told him everything. But everything that has been happening lately was all because of me. Nicolas blew up Derek's car because of me, Gina lied to me about her pregnancy because she wanted to get back at me, Mike hated me now because he was caught in the crossfire of something that had been triggered by me, Tanner beat me up because he was disgusted by me, and my parents got a divorce all because of me.

I was the common denominator.

Pretty soon, Derek would hate me.

Maybe that would be good. That way, I would be able to go back into the shadows and become the faceless person in the crowd. That way, I wouldn't have to worry about keeping up with what the popular people deemed acceptable. That way, people wouldn't look at me like I was different. They wouldn't look at me all. I'd be practically invisible.

And that way, I could let Derek go.

All this time, I thought Derek would be one to break my heart but that couldn't be further from the truth. He could break my heart a thousand times and I would let him because I loved him too much. No, I was the one breaking Derek's heart.

Because I was the problem.

As soon as school let out, I sulked my way to my car and slid into the driver's seat. I must have sat there for a full ten minutes, just staring blankly at the windshield and thinking about my messed up life. At some point, I felt the urge to cry but I stopped myself. Crying did nothing but make me feel weak and vulnerable and I wasn't going to allow myself to feel that way again.

Just when I got myself together, started the car, and prepared myself to back out of my parking space, the passenger door opened and Derek slid into the seat, wearing a half-smile. "Hey, I need to talk to you."

His voice sounded serious and I knew I owed him for how evasive I was being earlier. Nodding gently, I switched the car off and sat in the silence, waiting for Derek to start talking.

It took him a moment to gather his thoughts. He kept fidgeting and moving about on the seat, trying to find the right words to say. I knew this couldn't be anything good since Derek didn't really spend much time on his blunt replies.

His oceanic eyes burned into mine, still managing to send my heart into a frenzy despite my foul mood. "Calvin, I love you. I want to be with you, like really be with you. But lately, I don't know, you've been acting different. You get mad at me for the littlest things and I think it's because I'm a fuck up, but I realized that maybe it's because you're not over Nicolas? Maybe you still want to be with him or something, I don't know. And I don't want to push you into a relationship that you don't want, so..." He purposely trailed off his sentence, just so I could fill in the spaces.

I gave a short, dry laugh as I gazed down at my fingers. "I'm the one who is messing everything up, but you still think it's your fault."

Derek's hands soon found mine, letting his fingers wiggle their way between mine. "Why are you shutting me out, Calvin? Please don't. I want to know everything that bothers you. I want to know, so I can help."