Miracle Girl [DISCONTINUED]

Secrets

**LONG chapter, but it's necessary to bring all the previous chapters together. This is also probably the most important chapter so far, so make sure to read it!

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I blinked at him, speechless. He laughed softly and crossed his arms, doing one of his famous hair flips.

"Wh-what? How?" I asked. He grinned wide and crossed his arms, drawing his t-shirt up even higher, making his V-line shown. Lord help me focus on the conversation at hand.

"We were together for years, " he began. "so of course she wanted to trade passwords to every social media account we had. She claimed it was to build trust, but I know it was the exact opposite. Anyway, after a while I had all of hers memorized, and I know her enough to figure that after what went down at the mall she'd find a way to talk to you when I wasn't around. So I checked her IM history Tuesday morning, and you were in her recents. And, none of what she said was true, Lyn. I was... I was actually kind of hoping you'd ask me about it before today so I could explain myself, you know, just so you wouldn't have the wrong idea all week."

At these last words, he blushed and looked down.

I felt a mixture of pity and relief all at once. Now I that I knew Colton knew, I wouldn't have a problem discussing it with him. It was just the thought of having to be the one to bring it to his attention that had bothered me all week. I had felt like it would make me seem insecure and distrusting towards him. In reality that was exactly how I felt, but what could I say? We hadn't even gone on a date yet. I felt entitled to my insecurities.

"I'm just not a confrontational person," I began.

"I know," he said quickly. "I knew that was why you wouldn't have brought it up. But, I need you to know that I had noticed you before she broke up with me. Or, before the day she made it public..." he scoffed.

Huh? I thought. What did that mean, 'before she made it public?' Before I could ask, he continued.

"I'd always noticed the way you smile when you're in the air at cheer practice and our games, and the way your eyes light up when you answer all those hard allegorial and allusion questions in Advanced Language Arts..."

So he has noticed. I always tried to answer the difficult ones to get his attention.

"She goes to any length to manipulate people to get her way...she is just, so stupid." he finished sharply. Whoa I wasn't expecting that. He leaned towards me in his chair again with obvious anger and annoyance on his face. and I stayed silent, sensing that he was preparing for another confession.

"There is no such thing as a 'rebound' with me Lyn, and I am very, very interested in being with you. You think I'm moving on too fast, but I'm not." He sighed, the intensity in his eyes softening slightly as he looked at me. I reached over and took his hand, squeezing it lightly.

"You're pretty interesting yourself," I told him softly. He smiled a small crooked smile and used his other hand to run it through his hair.

"Here's the thing," he began again, this time a little calmer. "About 3 weeks ago, she was IM-ing Kenny, the same guy she told everyone she was leaving me for on Monday. Apparently, she'd been spending the night at his house for a while, and she was planning on keeping things going with him and me at the same time. The only reason I found out is because one day I was logging onto the website to use my IM account when I noticed my laptop was still logged onto hers, and the conversation was taking place right in front of me." he laughed bitterly at the memory. "So, yeah. After I saw that I confronted her about it and of course I was crazy mad. But all she was concerned about was how stupid she'd look if I was the one to break up with her,"

"She wasn't even sorry?" I couldn't help but ask. This was shocking. Courtney was clearly not the cute little teacher's pet she made herself out to be. He shook his head slowly and looked out of the window we were sitting in front of and continued his story.

"Nope. So she made me a deal. If I would pretend to still be with her for the next couple of weeks until Kenny threw his birthday party, she would break up with me that Monday and tell everyone that she hit it off with Kenny at the party and realized how much better of a guy he was compared to me." He chuckled at my look of pure bewilderment. "Yeah, I know. But in my defense, if I agreed to be the bad guy, she said that she'd talk to her uncle about this football scholarship I'll be eligible for next year as a junior. He works up at the University, and he's real close with their head football coach. I said yes, because without a scholarship I won't be able to..." He looked like he was about to say one thing, but changed the sentence at the last minute. "to play football." he finished awkwardly.

So that's the deal Colton had mentioned at the mall. No wonder it had made Courtney so nervous when he said something about it in front of me. It was the fatal flaw in her perfect image.

"So you've actually been broken up for weeks?" I asked.

He nodded his head again, still gazing out of the window. "I'm so glad it's all over, to be honest. It always felt like I was more a trophy to her than a person." I sighed, let go of his hand, and sat back in my own chair, mimicking his position.

"Well I hope she talked to her uncle," That's all I could think to say. I had no idea how to make him feel any better about the situation. For some reason, this made him laugh. He looked back at me and laughed even harder.

"He's coming to watch the game with weekend," he said.

I laughed too, and as the bell rang, he jumped up, still smiling, grabbed my arm, and ran out of the library with me in tow, leaving our books and everything else behind.