I don't wanna be your friend

Chapter 9

Firstly, Happy Valentine's Day! I really love you all for reading my book, giving me feedback and encouraging me to write. 💜💜

I hope you guys will like this chapter.
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It was almost two weeks since that night at the party, and to Cedric, every next day seemed worse than the previous one. He felt like he was caught and trapped in a mood where all he could feel was inexplainable anger and frustration feeding off him—leaving him to feel lower and lower as each day passed. It wasn't the first time Cedric had felt himself sink into a period where he was engulfed by despair— he was well acquainted with it— it always happened when he disturbed the emotional balance he had created for himself.

Sometimes Cedric wanted to snap at everything that moved, sometimes he felt so exhausted that he wanted to leave everything and run away to nowhere where nothing mattered and just wanted to sleep till eternity or other times he wanted to lock himself in his room and breakdown trying to understand all the unwanted feelings that were contained in him.

His was more aggressive than ever in his tennis practices— putting all his other teammates to shame and making them afraid to practice alongside him, with his coach excusing him from his practices when he was not even halfway into it, getting banned from entering the court more than three times a week and spending more time in the café than he was paid for.

Things that were usually cool in the café didn't seem so to Cedric in the past two weeks. He was spending more time in the café than he had done in any of his previous working weeks. The previously calm atmosphere felt a little jittery to Cedric; all the voices that he once considered soft were crisp and sharp to his ears. While he once enjoyed the exhausting work of serving people, now he felt like the weightage on the side of pleasure reduce and increase on the side of exhaustion. His coworker's fast movements that he had always appreciated made him feel a little dizzy now.

The dizziness and exhaustion lived its way until the end of the first week. By the start of the second week, they morphed into slight irritation— who's presence was unnecessary— and Cedric tried not to acknowledge it as much as he could. And then followed anger— directed towards whom and what, he had no idea. This itchy feeling of irritation and anger made him want to snap at everything and not concentrate on anything.

Cedric had felt frustration, anger and lack of interest a lot of times before, but he could feel that something about what he was feeling right now was off— and that thought really scared Cedric— which in turn make him more frustrated and intensified all the things that he was feeling.

School stuff was bland. All things that were being taught were something Cedric was aware of— he had always studied ahead of what was being discussed in the class. It added more to his frustration when he lowkey realised that he was doing nothing but wasting his time attending school, and when that thought crossed his mind, he wanted to do nothing but find himself back in his bed and sleep.

His role in coaching Clara and Caiden was progressing good, though. Well, according to Cedric, there were two sides to it:
the A-side, that only constituted of him teaching both Clara and Caiden the basics of tennis, and he had to admit that both of them were good students and far easier to handle than he had thought.

Then there was the B side to it where he had to deal with the Frost family's hospitality. He was grateful for all the delicious food Sofia served him with such an open heart, and he conveyed his gratitude whenever he could. Damien's bandmates were no trouble too and he somehow, tiny bit, started to feel comfortable in their presence— they never tried to rile him up. But Damien on the other side was like the cherry on top of the whirlpool of emotions swirling within in— it was almost like Damien had the reins of Cedric's emotions in his hands.