Everything Has Changed

Speak Now

Chapter Five

Speak Now

Summer's POV –

Darius was acting strange. And I hated it. I didn't hate that he was acting strange though – no – it was the fact that I was paying enough attention to him to notice that he was acting strange that irritated me. I didn't want to pick up on his little quirks around my house, and oddly enough, I found myself to be walking near my kitchen to see him.

He was just... nervously scared. Like he didn't want to step on my toes and ensured at all times that I wasn't annoyed. But of course I was annoyed, after all he was in my damn kitchen. And he spent the most time in my kitchen because he prepped for the workers, and cleaned up after them too, which meant he spent long hours in my house.

It had been a week since Kelly had spoiled me with pampering and my conversation with Oliver kept repeating itself in my head. He had said that I was 'Darius' birthday present', which was incredibly weird since Darius saw me on my birthday, not his. I guessed that he was just trying to wingman his way through our conversation to earn points with his cousin.

Regardless, whether I wanted to or not, I was thinking of Darius a whole lot more than I was proud to admit. I tried to ease away the guilt by telling myself that he really was my childhood friend, and just because he did a major thing to me, it didn't mean I would completely forget him.

I wished so much that I could forget him, though. But he was like a stupid tattoo that I had ingrained in my body while I was drunk, and now that I was sober, nothing could change the fact that he's still there.

I wondered if it would just be easier if he was in New York. If it would just be better if I never saw him again. I guess I would always want to know why he left, although even now that he's back, I haven't heard an explanation. I haven't given him an opportunity to explain himself, but there was no way I wanted to show him that I cared enough to hear one.

I felt like the more dismissive I acted towards him, the more hurt he would become. And that was my goal, really. To hurt him like he hurt me. But the tricky thing about this situation was that I was unsure if he was actually hurt by my dismissiveness. Did he actually care at all that I didn't want to hear an explanation? Sometimes it looked that way, and sometimes it felt like he didn't care either.

Jenson and I were hanging out today, so I headed downstairs for my morning coffee. Once I hit the kitchen, I was welcome with Jenson standing in my path, glaring at Darius.

"You missed a spot." Jenson commented snidely.

Darius lifted his eyes to scowl at Jenson.

"I haven't finished yet." He said.

"You're the maid, I get to tell you whatever the damn what in my house."

"I'm not a maid, I'm a labourer."

"As far as I could tell you do shit, may as well stick an apron on you."

"Dude, you're the one working in a café. Pretty sure the apron belongs to you."

Before I could blink, Jenson had darted towards Darius violently. Now that Jenson had moved from my path, Darius noticed me and backed away immediately.

"Morning, Summer."

Jenson barely acknowledged me and grabbed Darius by the collar.

"Jenson, stop." I walked over toward the boys. I hated that Jenson wanted to attack him. I wasn't fragile or sensitive that I needed Darius to be physically assaulted. I obviously made jokes about it all the time, but I never wanted Jenson to actually attack him.