My Best Friend's Brother // Young Love Book 1 ✔️

My Best Friend's Brother Ch. 43 (Pt. 1)

Chapter 43 (Part 1)

My feet felt heavy today. My stomach was churning with nerves and jitters. It wasn't helping that Mr Corby decided to shine the light on me. He was wishing me luck for the pageant tonight, which people had been teasing me about. Personally, I thought it was more ideal if he just told me in private, but that was just Mr Corby. He liked giving people credit, 'cause he was nice like that. Thanks, but I didn't want the attention. I couldn't really blame him, though; that was just the way he was. I said it before and I'll say it again: I would always be the sort of girl who preferred the backstage--or being a humble wallflower, that too.

"Don't you just wanna shrink right now?" Charlie mumbled mockingly from the seat next to me. He was talking to me as if I were a child. Idiot.

"Charlie, don't make me say your middle name," I warned, forcing my eyes to not look at his, because despite of what I think of him, I was still on that emotional seesaw. I wasn't about to let him tip me off to any end.

"Noted."

A couple minutes later, he slid a piece of paper in front of me. The paper looked like he ripped it from the bottom corner of his notebook. The edges, except for two, were fuzzy and jagged. It was a horrible way to rip paper. Didn't he know there was this contraption called scissors?

Tentatively, I casted a quick glance his way. He was listening intently to Mr Corby, head resting on his arms that were folded above the lab table. His dark hair fell slightly over his gold eyes, but he was too lazy to move it out of the way. His lips were set in a cute pout--

No. No, don't say cute.

Like snapping out from a bad dream, I pushed away my previous thoughts and turned the scratch paper. Scrolled at the top was the word 'sorry'. My gaze trailed down to the ugly, but somewhat endearing doodle. It seemed like a stick figure of me, my dark hair in noodle-like swirls in black ink and two, blue ink dots for my eyes. I had a broad smile and my twiggy arms were raised almost victoriously, hands in circles--which I guess you could say were fisted. I had a badly proportioned tiara on my head, and red flowers scattered around my feet.

My skin fizzled, cheeks slowly going warm. It was probably one of the sweetest nonsense gestures I had ever received from anybody. Even more so, that it came from Charlie.

"When did you do this?" I asked, eyes wide, body rigid.

Charlie furrowed his brows, my posture not going unnoticed. But, instead of questioning me, he just shook his head. "I create a masterpiece and that's all you get from that?" he joked, feigning disbelief. "But, just so you know, I did it while you were internally dying of embarrassment."

"You saw that, huh?"

"Well, I only saw the bit where you were sinking in your seat and your face was tainted red. I mean, honestly, I missed the whole shindig!" Charlie replied, sarcasm lacing his voice.

"Who even says shindig these days?" I commented, looking at him weirdly.

"Obviously, people with charming, good looks." Then, he abruptly paused as he glanced at the doodle he made. "Not to mention thoughtful, and funny, and have kind hearts, and--"

"Stop it, Charlie." You're making me like you.

"As you wish, Eli-cat."

At lunch, there was a buzz in the air. It wasn't anything technical, just an ever-present vibe. People were excited, giddy, and I wasn't entirely sure why.

Okay, so maybe I had a suspicion.

Cindy and I sat with the whole gang today. Everyone was there, even Andrew. On one side, Charlie, Zeke, and the twins sat, chatting. On the other side, me, Cindy, Drew, and Benjie were making conversation. Diana was still in line, waiting to pay for her food. She got out of class pretty late, so that was understandable. There was nothing exciting about lunch. Except for maybe the last half of it. Drew was making Cindy and I laugh until our stomachs hurt and we developed temporary abs. His dad jokes were so lame that it was borderline hilarious. Of course, I noticed Charlie glancing at us a few times, but I was too giggly to acknowledge the conflict in my head. I didn't know why, but since the whole "I may or may not like him" incident, I kind of became hyper-aware of Charlie; what he was doing, who he was with--you know, the I'm-sort-of-obsessing-over-this-guy-but-not-really phase.