Pride, Ego, Audacity

7. Confidence

Kalen

The next few days passed by uneventfully. Although, a noticeable difference was that I hadn't been seeing much of Brooklyn since I dropped her off at home after the game. It was almost like she was avoiding me. Her responses to my texts were short and I could never find her at school. When I asked her friends, they would all say they didn't know, but I could tell they were lying. I was good at reading people like that.

"Have you seen Brooklyn around lately?" I asked Devin during our extended investigation class, the final period of the day.

"You're asking me if I've seen your girlfriend around?" Devin asked incredulously, stressing the words 'me' and 'your'.

"I haven't seen her since our double date so I thought you might have seen her with Charlotte." I explained.

"How do you not see your girlfriend for four days when you go to the same school?" Devin questioned. "Just text her." He said like it was obvious.

"Just text her he says." I said sarcastically, holding up my phone to show him our recent text messages where Brooklyn had just replied with mostly one word answers. Right on cue, my phone vibrated with a message from Brooklyn.

Brook <3: hey can we talk?

"Damn. Good luck man." Devin grimaced, having read the text while I had been showing him my phone. I just frowned in response before responding to Brooklyn, telling her I would meet her at her locker after school. We spent the rest of the period working on our assignment in silence.

"Hey, feels like I haven't seen you in forever." I opened my arms for a hug as I approached Brooklyn at her locker. She hesitated before pulling me in for a quick hug. Everyone usually rushed out once school finished so there was only us in the corridor. "What did you want to talk about?"

Brooklyn sighed. "I think we should break up." She said quietly, looking everywhere but at me.

"Where is this coming from?" I asked sadly. It would be a lie to say I hadn't seen this coming after the last few days, but I guess I had been holding onto the hope that maybe she had just been busy with something else.

"I think I've fallen for someone else." Brooklyn admitted. "I'm so sorry Kalen."

"It's the guy you tutored, isn't it?"

"Yes, but I swear I never cheated on you. It's just that after he kissed me, I couldn't stop thinking about it. These last few days I've found myself missing his presence and missing talking to him and I guess that made me realise..." She trailed off.

"That you like him." I finished for her. She nodded, her expression still apologetic.

"Please don't hate me, Kalen. We could still be friends." She suggested.

"I love you, Brooklyn. I can't be just friends." Brooklyn didn't respond. I sighed before walking past her to exit the school.

"You okay?" A familiar voice asked once I exited the school.

"Devin? What are you still doing here?" I asked in surprised, feeling my mood rise a little with his presence.

"Charlotte told me what Brooklyn was going to do. I figured I should stay back in case you need someone with you." I felt my stomach flutter at his concern. "So, are you okay?"

"As okay as  you can be when your girlfriend breaks up with you because she fell in love with another guy." I shrugged.

"She doesn't know how lucky she is that you love her." Devin said softly. I froze, staring at him with wide eyes, realisation hitting me like a truck. There was no way this was happening right now. Not after I had just endured a break up. I didn't know if I could deal with another bombshell.

"What's wrong?" Devin asked in confusion, seeing my shock.

"You..." I paused and contemplated not saying it, but decided I had to confirm this or my thoughts would torture me, "like me."

Devin's confused expression morphed into one of horror. He backed away from me, turned and ran. Fuck, why did I have to be so good at reading people?

***

Author's Note:

This is a very short chapter, like half the length of my normal chapters and the perfectionist in me cannot deal, but for the sake of creating a good flow to the story, I am pushing through.