Broken Feathers

Crazy In Love

  

  

Chapter Eight: Crazy In Love (Sofia Karlberg) 

  

Today was the day. I was going to ask her out today. I was going to go up to her and ask her right now. Only, she was sitting with a group of girls who giggled too loudly and seemed rather threatening. 

Tomorrow. I'd asked her out tomorrow. 

"What the hell are you doing over there?" Kalem asked, shaking his head at me. I jumped, glancing at him briefly before returning my gaze to Star. She sat on the outskirts of the group, twiddling her hair idly, as though not quite engaged with what was being said. I guess that made me feel a little bit better; if I asked her out, and she shot me down, maybe she wouldn't return and gossip with her friends about me. 

"Shh!" I hissed, not really wanting to draw attention to the fact that I was staring at Star Jenkins once again. Because since she had left my flat in a flurry of unspent sexual attention, she'd been avoiding me. And I'd been shamelessly staring at her, waiting for the opportunity to ask her out. 

"Dammit, Jay, stop being some pervy stalker and talk to her!" Kalem exclaimed. "She's no different to any of the other girls you've gone through!" 

It was futile trying to talk to Kalem about anything like this. He just didn't understand. He didn't understand the pressures of trying to fit in and trying to curb these feelings I had for a girl I had grown up literally dreaming about. And every time I broached the subject, I was shot down with a, "could you just fucking behave for once" expression. 

"She is very different, and you know it," I muttered, glaring at my best friend. I was going to have to bite the bullet and just do it. Rubbing my neck forlornly, I made the short walk from the door of the canteen to her table, weaving between scores of students and trying not to tread on anyone's toes. 

One of her friends looked me up and down, and for a moment I wondered if this was what an antelope felt like before a lion decided to make a meal of it. Shitting hell, females were a scary breed. 

"Well," I overheard the girl saying, "I would not throw him out of bed."  Damn, if Star thought like that, I would have no trouble securing a date. 

"He's alright, I suppose," Star murmured back. 

Alright, I suppose. Well, wasn't that just the ego-lifting of the century? 

Not. 

"Star?" Why did my voice have to sound so strangled and tense? Why couldn't this be just as easy as getting with someone else? 

"Hi, Jay," she greeted rather stoically, looking up at me through impossibly long lashes. 

"I, um," I cleared my throat, pulling my lower lip between my teeth, "wondered if you...fancied getting dinner?" 

"Is this...a date?" she asked, expression decidedly quizzical. 

"Yeah, I just..." Think, Jay, think. "Wanted to say thanks for bringing my bag back. After the fight." Star considered me coolly, baby blue eyes casting a rather cynical gaze over my already nerve-wracked person. 

"You ask everyone who returns your belongings to you on dates?"  

Was she fucking kidding me right now? What happened to the cool Star who had turned up on my doorstep? The one that had been so fucking passionate about telling me who I was? That was the Star I wanted on a date. Not the sassy bitch who happened to be a fucking Princess. 

"You know what," I muttered, "just forget it." I turned to leave, heart sinking as I realised I now had to tell Kalem that I had been rejected. Again. 

"I'm not an easy date," Star called after me, making me pause. You'd get bored." I turned around, raising my eyebrow at her. Did she have amnesia? Whatever was going on in my life, none of it was easy. As if I'd chase after a woman who was easy. 

"I like a challenge." 

Star watched me through slightly narrowed eyes, lips naturally forming into a pout. 

"Okay then," she said finally, and I suddenly let my hopes rise a little bit. "I have one condition." 

"Yeah?" 

"I choose where we go." 

Well, as long as she wasn't asking the impossible, I was more than happy to let her choose where we go. Hell, we could have eaten dinner in a fast food joint and I would just have been glad that she had said yes.  

"Cool. Where?" 

Star paused to think for a moment, before rattling off some restaurant that was on campus. Alright. She wanted to be close to her home. Wonderful. I briefly wondered if that was so she could call for backup if she realised she didn't want to be on a date with yours truly. But then...a date was a date, and I had a whole night to prove to her that I was worth the effort. 

"Fine. I'll see you Friday at seven," I said. To my surprise, her lips pulled into a faint smile. 

"Okay then," she murmured. "Friday at seven." 

It wasn't exactly how I'd pictured the asking out of Star Jenkins to go – it hadn't ended, in my thoughts, with my wandering off and not being quite sure what happened. But what I did know was this; Star Jenkins was going on a date with me, and she wasn't totally repulsed by the idea.  

That had to count for something.