Tempting Trouble

Chapter 10

Claire

I had learnt, a long time ago, that when it came to Andrew Stephenson, I had to lower my expectations, in order to avoid being disappointed by him. What I wanted him to do and what he would do, were never going to be the same. I'd been here before with him, waiting around for him to offer up an explanation but as time dragged on I soon realised that his silence was the only explanation he felt I deserved. 

It took me a long time to move passed that pain. I was only 12 years old, I didn't understand why my best friend stopped talking to me but he could still be friends with my brother, why every time I tried to talk to him, he would answer me with a grunt of disinterest. I allowed him to occupy my thoughts, long after the hurt had faded, wondering if I'd ever get the answer I needed.

What made matters worse was that our families were close, our parents work at the same school together so there really was no escape from seeing him. Every birthday we celebrated, he was there, the dark, stormy cloud, ready to piss down and ruin the fun at any given moment. The only time he ever seemed to brighten up was when he started dating Pia.

Pia was a ray of sunshine, she was beautiful, with her short, spiky dark hair, tanned skin, brown eyes and a sweet smile. As much as I liked Pia, I was insanely jealous of her at the same time, not that I'd ever admit that to anyone though. She got to be in Andy's life, she got his warmth and comfort, his smiles and laughter, she got to have the side to Andy that I had long lost.

Pia was too good for Andy though and she must have realised this too because I hadn't seen her around since last year. Without Pia around, Andy returned to being bitter and moody, except now he channeled all his anger towards his dad for some reason. I watched the changes in Andy, throughout the years, secretly hoping that one day he'd just walk up to me and want to talk about why he cut me out of his life, why he had caused me so much pain but I'd long given up expecting him to acknowledge what happened between us, until yesterday. 

I'd spent a good chunk of today being absolutely livid at Andy and his cowardly way of handling his cruelty towards me but by the time I arrived home from school I had reset my way of thinking and realised that I was more angry at myself. I was the fool who had placed expectation on Andy to do the moral and decent thing and apologise so the disappointment I was feeling was all on me for wanting Andrew to act like a decent human being.

I had let my guard down, allowed him back into my life and he had once again crushed me. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Andy wasn't capable of the responsibility of caring about anyone else's feelings but his own, this I had previously learnt the hard way yet I'd given him a second chance and he'd thrown it back in my face. I had only myself to blame but, unlike last time, I wasn't going to sit around, waiting for him to apologise for what he'd done, I was just going to move on from it and not give it any more of my precious thought space. 

I opened my maths text book, to the page that had been assigned for homework and began working out the problems on the page with ease. Why couldn't all of life problems be as straight forward as maths problems are? In maths, there's always a solution, a right outcome. Sure, equations could be made more complicated, by adding in extra components but you work through the problem and find the solution, easy, simple, straight forward. 

I was halfway through the second page when I heard a knock at the front door. Mum and Dad were still at work and Heath was downstairs, playing some video game that he got for Christmas so I was kind of hoping he'd pause the game and answer the door but when I heard the second knock, I knew it was going to be left up to me. 

I stomped down the stairs as loud as I could, just to demonstrate to my brother how annoyed I was but when I saw him, sitting on the lounge, headphones on, yelling to the other players, I realised my dramatic display went unnoticed. He didn't hear the door because he hears nothing once he's playing that stupid, mindless game.