hate is a strong word (bxb)

47

Knowing that Ben was on board with the confrontation made things one-hundred times easier for Braxton. In general, he didn't have a hard time being brash but it sure made things a lot easier to know that he had a more rational person backing up his decision. After all, there were a few things on the line.

Braxton didn't care much for his own friendship with Olivia, as he felt that they had never personally gotten that close, but he felt bad about the fact that he was causing issues with Scar, Benjamin, and Olivia. Even though he knew it wasn't entirely his fault, he wished that he didn't make things complicated between all of them. He wanted to fix things between the three, especially since the three had been friends long before Braxton had moved there.

He decided that he was going to confront her at the first opportunity he could catch her alone. This would turn out to be directly after school right before he got on the bus.

"Olivia!" Braxton called out, "Olivia!" He shouted once more before she turned back to look at him, proceeding to stop dead in her tracks as Braxton caught up with her.

"Braxton," She bit down on her lip, almost as if to conceal some emotion, "I really don't want to talk right now."

"I want to explain myself," he said.

"I told you I really—"

Braxton interrupted her, "Just let me explain. Please?"

"Fine," she agreed.

They walked together as they made their way to where all of the buses were located. Braxton spoke up to say, "I never meant to hurt you like that. It's just," he took a pause dramatically, "I'm in a relationship."

She narrowed her eyes, almost as if trying to analyze the situation, "You're dating someone?"

Braxton figured that she was going to have something to say about the situation. After all, Braxton and Olivia talked almost every day at lunch and he had never mentioned being in a relationship at any given time. If Braxton were in her shoes, he knew that he would be just as confused.

When he was thinking about how he was going to tell her this, he thought that there were two possible roads that he could go down. No matter what, it wasn't going to make sense that he just got in a relationship. So, he could either tell her that the relationship was a secret relationship or he could tell her that it was just a completely new relationship that he had just gotten into. If he went with the second option, he thought he could just dig himself into a deep web of lies and make up an entire person. He thought that he could give the person a fake name and say that they just went to a different school.

The issue with this was that no matter what, it wouldn't make sense. Even if the relationship had only started in the last week, it clearly would have started before Olivia asked him to go to prom with her. If it had started before Olivia asked him out, then he would have talked about it at the lunch table before she left it. Then, she would've known.

It became clear that no matter what, this was going to have to be a secret relationship. There was no way that he would be able to pass it off as anything else.

Braxton began to explain the situation to her, "I've been going out with someone for a little while now," he says, "I've been talking to them ever since I moved here but we just recently got in a relationship," This, of course, was a little bit of a stretch as Braxton and Benjamin had been dating for a decent amount of time and had gotten fairly serious, but Braxton thought that it was just easier to explain it like this, "And I would have told you guys about it but we've just been keeping it on the down low, you know? So I never really mentioned anything about it. It's just one of those situations where it's better if we keep it more of a secret."

Olivia takes a few moments to soak in this information as they continue walking, "So, what? You've just been in some sort of secret relationship."

"Yeah," he answers, and for some reason, he feels guilty for answering like this. Despite it being the truth, he still feels as though he's lying.

In a way, he is lying. He's purposely attempting to mislead her from the truth, and inherently, that is lying. Though, he had never felt so guilty for telling a small fib. The discomfort began to surface on his face as they continued the conversation.

"Why didn't you tell me this?"

With this question, there were various different answers.

For one thing, Olivia hadn't really given Braxton the time to explain this. After Braxton said that he wasn't interested in her like that, she just stormed off. After that, there was no way for him to explain as she was avoiding him.

Another big issue with that was that if Braxton were to tell her this information right off the bat, he wouldn't have Ben's approval. In this situation, Benjamin was the one who was most at risk at being exposed. Braxton had nothing to hide as it came to his own personal situation. Benjamin was the one who was still in the closet. So, Braxton didn't feel as though he could put that information out without getting Ben's approval first.

"You didn't really give me the chance to say it," Braxton laughed softly, though he still felt a little bit awkward.

She pursed her lips, "So, who is it then?"

He figured that she might just ask something like that, but he was really hoping that she wouldn't, "Don't you think that if I told you that would ruin the entire point of it being a secret relationship?"

"You know that I won't tell anyone," she swears, "I mean, why would I ever tell anyone? Do Benjamin and Scar know?"

Braxton hated free-fall lying. He hated having to make up lies on the spot, so he just wanted to avoid saying anything that he would regret.

"Listen, I just can't tell you anything about the relationship," he says, finding this to be the perfect solution.

He decided that for the rest of the conversation, the only thing that he could do was avoid saying anything that he would regret telling her.

Her eyes filled with amusement and Braxton was almost sure that she was going to question the relationship more so he was filled with delight when she let it go, saying, "Fine, you don't have to tell me. I'm glad that you told me this though."

"So, we're good then?"

"Yeah," She gave an uncomfortable smile, "I still don't want to come back to the lunch table if I'm being completely honest. It's just... it's too awkward for me. But we're cool."

"Alright, yeah," Braxton smiled.

He got on the bus and sat beside Ben, telling him everything that just happened.

"She said that she wont come back to our table but at least we're on speaking terms again, that's a start," Braxton said.

"Definitely could have gone a lot worse."

"Yeah, I think that everything's good now. She seemed pretty mature about the whole thing. You know, I think that she took everything pretty well."