Pride

Chapter Thirteen

Ketara Greene

"If I was your best friend, would you let me take care of you and do all the things that only a best friend can do?"

-If I was Your Girlfriend; Prince

Davida's screams had reached all of us that were walking in front of DeMarcus earlier. I kind of rose a brow at the fact that their relationship seemed to have ended over Lichelle's snapback but stranger things have happened. I grinned outwardly, however remembering the look on her face described to me by my best friend after Ashley showed back up at the park those two months backward. It was little of me but her embarrassing breakup at the hands of the boy she stole from someone else was pretty sweet.

What else was sweet was watching Jay console Shakyra. It was pretty evident that her bringing up Shakyra the way she had was troubling. It bothered me that she was as pressed as she was to remind DeMarcus that she indeed wasn't Shakyra. However, it was a testament of how low her self-esteem was.

We'd all parted ways toward our lockers. I stopped at mine, to check my face and everything. The real reason was to wait for Broderick and Ashley to walk past me. For the past two months I had to deal with Broderick acting as if I were invisible and Ashley giving me the same haughty look she gave me the first go round. I didn't understand the need for these girls to force their so-called "supremacy" over someone's life. I was doing my best not to get into fights over worthless things but Ashley Gallo was pushing it on a daily.

While I fixed a tendril that fell out of place on my braid-out, Louis showed up behind me. I raised a brow at his grin and asked him what he wanted.

Ever since the day we kissed, I kept a considerable distance from him. Louis kept things light and that much left me unbalanced. I was used to us fighting and arguing at some point in the day. Now, all I had were my raging hormones swinging from left to right when I saw him. Sometimes he'd smile at me. Sometimes he'd wave. Every now and again I'd do both when he caught me looking in his direction. Our polite dance was wearing at me.

So, when he popped up behind me with a salacious grin, I was never so happy or confused. What was wrong with me?

"May I help you?"

"I just stopped by to tell you, hello."

"I thought we said hi already for the day."

"In passing. I wanted to get next to you and say hi."

He closed the space between us and I felt my heart tumble. I fought against my natural response to him as of late and held his gaze in my small locker mirror.

"Turn around, Ketara."

I giggled, "For what?"

"So I can say hi."

A playful grin was on his face but I shook my head no. I felt like his greeting was going to be more than it had to be. As it was, his hands placed themselves on my waist and he pulled closer.

"Louis, I'll still slap the shit out of you. Don't think just because you kissed me you can grab on me anyway you please."

His laughter rumbled low, "I think no such thing. I know you still can't stand me. You can't lie and tell me you ain't like kissing me, though."

"Yes, I could. I could tell you it was the worst kiss I ever had. I could tell you that you desperately need lessons because I couldn't get out of my mind how horrible it was."

I turned around and met his gaze as he pulled back. I missed his arms where they'd been but wasn't about to fold in the middle of the hallway.

"That bad, huh?" he said, raising a brow, "I couldn't stop thinking about how horrible it was, either."