Dysphoria

Chapter Fourty Five

Nates presence around me now was pretty much constant.

As much as I wanted him to be discreet about it, it went against his nature.

He would walk me to and from class, he would even pick me up in the mornings before school to get smoothies or coffee or a breakfast sandwich- whatever I felt like that day. He genuinely seemed to enjoy spending time together and taking care of me, doing little things that only I noticed like making sure my water bottle was filled between classes, giving me his jacket if it got cold, he even put fresh flowers in my locker in the mornings.

The mornings were lovely, but the nights were my favorite. No matter how busy our days were, he always found a way to come over to my place at night. He had slept over every night in fact. I found myself wanting to see him when I wake up.

I found myself thinking about him more and more each day. But as bad as I had it, I knew he had it worse. It made me blush but, I regularly caught him staring at me when we shared the same classes. 

Despite all of this, we were trying to keep the PDA to a minimum. People were definitely gossiping about us, but they couldn't be sure of anything more than us sharing flirty looks or touches now and then when we couldn't stop ourselves.

Cassie was fucking livid. Not because of me, I don't think she had worked out Nate's full involvement with me thankfully but all she knew was that what little interest Nate had in her was completely gone now. He couldn't tolerate her. But that didn't stop her trying to get his attention.

And if Cassie was livid, that meant Maddy was thrilled.

Maddy and I had spoken about it again and she assured me that she was well and truly over Nate Jacobs. I didn't get into the specific details but she knew we were after getting closer to each other and I was scared of hurting her feelings. She told me any feelings she had for him had literally turned to dust, she was far enough removed from the whole thing that she was able to admit to herself that all the games they had played with each other's feelings were because neither of them were happy with each other. She still hated his guts but she was happy that being with me seemed to make him a happier less destructive person.

"Does he ever get like...angry with you or anything?" She asked watching news carefully.

"No, honestly he's doing a lot better." I admitted.

"Good, cuz he better not." She arched her brow.

I had warned him to be on his best behavior around her, and he was being respectfully distant with Maddy and as a result, her trademark confidence was coming back thankfully.

"Then what's got you down?" She asked.

"I knew everyone would start talking about us but, it's getting really fucking exhausting."

"Yeah well, nobody said being top bitch is easy." She said remembering all the gossip she had to endure after Nate was arrested.

Kat was quieter than usual. I hadn't confronted her about her sleeping with Daniel, I knew she clearly didn't want to talk about it for some reason and I didn't want to be nosy.

But our situation-ship wasn't the only big news in class. By Tuesday, it was common gossip around school that Cal Jacobs had been arrested. The charges still hadn't been disclosed yet but that didn't stop people speculating what crime he could have committed to get one of the most influential men in town locked up. It was all over the local news, and even though Nate was good at keeping his poker face- he had a life times worth of practice after all, I knew him well enough to know this was all talking a toll on him.