Relationship With My Boyfriends Best Friend

Chapter 27.

"I just don't get it," Braylee rambles. "I gave him the best night of his life and now he won't even look at me. What an asshole."

I've had to hear about her subsequent one night stand on New Year's Eve for the past forty minutes. Some details I could go my whole life without knowing. In all honesty, it's not her lovely story that has me feeling disgusted, it's that night in general. That night for me. Every time someone brings it up I get the sudden urge to throw up.

It won't last forever will it? I hope not.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Candice asks, looking totally emerged into the story. I'm glad. It gets me out of giving one-hundred percent of my attention.

This is not how I thought my first Monday back to school would be going. Starting with first hour, actually, because now I owe Jace. I don't know what that entitles, but I do not want to find out in the slightest. It's stupid really, I didn't ask him to help me out in the scenario, but he did. I shouldn't owe anything for that. Then again, I can't say I'm not glad that he did, I was tongue tied with the idea of what we were actually talking about to having to keep it a secret.

Forget it, all I can do right now is wait and see what exactly his words mean. Contemplating them over and over again won't do anything besides give me a raging headache which I'm starting to get.

"Do you have any Advil with you?" I ask Braylee, cutting off what she was about to say mistakingly.

"Yeah," she responds in hurry and searches through her bag. "What's wrong?"

"Just a headache." Caused by stress overload.

"Got it," she nods and hands me the bottle of medication. I take two tablets and hope to god they work soon or else surviving this day may just kill me.

•••

Well, Caleb won't even look at me on the ride home from school. Obviously he's still mad from this morning so I don't even try to get him to talk, not when I'm not ready to tell him why I've been acting the way I am. I need to soon, though, or else he'll act irrationally without knowing the full story and that's worse than him knowing and still doing something impulsively.

He races out of the car as soon as I park, heading into the blistering cold, and snowy day. I follow behind with a sluggish pace to myself. It's becoming harder and harder to keep this secret to myself.

"Hey guys-" my mom stops when she sees Caleb storm up the stairs, a confused look on her face. She turns that expression to me and I roll my eyes. Caleb is the daughter in the family; unpredictable. "I won't ask, how was school today?"

I shrug, keeping the secret from my mom has been the worst by far. We've always had a really close relationship to the point that we know everything and anything about one another. And as much as I'm telling myself that it's better she knows, I'm starting to wonder if that's really true. I'm only helping Eric by not telling anyone, and after what he's done, why should I be? He's made me look like a fool, why can't I do the same to him?

Because you're better than that.

"It was okay," I tell her and make a move towards the stairs in indication on what I'm about to do. "But I have some pre calc homework to do, so..."

"Oh I get it," she waves her hand, trying to hide the obvious offense she's taken to my words. "Go ahead. Leave me to do my motherly duties. Not like I've been doing them all day."

I inch up the steps in a way that seems to go unnoticed by my mom's ranting.

"Or for your whole lives. But sure, go do your homework-"