Losing Grip

Chapter 17➷ Does He Know You're Dating Him?

"Hey, Celery!"

I turned around and Jacob was jogging to catch up to me, as I was on my way to class. Once he did, he wiped the sweat on his forehead from the minimal exercise he had just done.

Students hurried past us and bumped into each other, trying not to be late for class. The halls were properly conditioned but I still felt like I would choke at any moment.

After looking around to make sure no one had heard the nickname, I scowled at him. "You will have to stop this, eventually."

"What?" he asked, a mischievous glint dancing in his light brown eyes. "Why?"

"Maybe because this isn't middle school anymore."

"Oh please! The classes have changed but we haven't. We're the same children we were about seven years ago."

I scoffed. "Speak for yourself."

He held his hands over his heart at my response. "What? You mean to say that there's no part of you quietly crushing on Daniel from fifth grade?"

I felt blood rush to my cheeks in mortification. Why did the 10-year-old version of myself think it was a good idea to tell Jacob Lake, out of all people, about my crushes?

"Didn't you two end up dating for two weeks in eighth grade?" he went on and I pictured a mocking smile on his lips without turning to look.

"Jake, you should shut it while you're still on my good side." Without thinking better of it, I mumbled under my breath, "And it was one week."

He threw his head back and laughed, forgetting he was walking for a moment. "Oh, I'm sorry if I can't take you seriously, especially with that nickname of yours. What exactly would your bad side look like?"

"You don't want to know." I picked up my pace, that I had slowed down for him, to make it to class.

I stopped in front of my math class and he continued to walk past after waving.

Arson was sitting next to Matthew toward the back of the class. Matthew was slouched on his chair and appeared to be sleeping. With his hand under his head and his hood over his head, he looked comfortably tucked in.

He wasn't the only one as math wasn't the most popular subject with high school teenagers. But there was only so much a teacher could care about and keeping track of those who dozed off wasn't Mrs. Bennett's priority.

"So, how did it go?" I asked Arson, as I took the seat on the other side of him.

I was nearly bursting with curiosity to know how it went with him and Brooklyn but I remained impassive on the outside, leaning ever so slightly against the chair's backrest.

"How did what go?" he repeated.

"You know, did Brooklyn say something to you?" I asked, restraining myself from smiling too big or raising my eyebrows suggestively.

He sighed and I thought he would shrug my sentence off but, to my surprise, he asked, "Did you know she was dating Bradley?"

My eyes widened and I stared at him in confusion, as I played over the conversation bits I remembered from last night.

"What do you mean?" I couldn't recall any mention of Bradley from yesterday night.

"Well, earlier this morning, we were talking about Emily from the fair and she just blurted out that she was going out with Bradley."

I sighed. How did I always find myself in the middle of misunderstandings between two people who clearly liked each other?

"Does that bother you?" I asked him as he scribbled equations on his notebook.