Ditching Greek | editing

09| Hiding in Plain Sight

Inhaling slowly, I gaited down the hallway and stopped at the mouth of the room, looking at the scene before me.

"Get the fuck out of my house," Monica ordered with a toxic tone. "I didn't ask for you to bring along your sidekick, Clyde."

Clyde, who was sitting on the couch now, sighed deeply and ruffled a hand through his silky hair. "I already told you Monica, we need him."

"Fine, then I can't be here," she announced and grabbed her coat off the coat hanger, then headed for the door. "Hazel, call me when Clyde and Mister oompa loompa have left the building."

"I'm tall. Come up with better insults," Gideon hollered.

"I wasn't calling your height small. I was calling something else small." She brought out her middle finger, frowning. "Sit on it and spin."

Monica exited the apartment before anyone could protest her decision. And as she left, it felt as if everyone's eyes had moved onto me. They all glanced at each other, exchanging looks in the same way Monica and Hazel were earlier. Something was being said without it being spoken.

"Let's get started," Gideon huffed and dropped his bag down on the coffee table. The sound of clanking objects echoed throughout the room. Clyde leaned over and unzipped the back, but paused before taking out whatever was in his bag. He cleared his throat loudly.

"Uh," Hazel walked up to me and started leading me back into the hallway. "I think it would be better if we left this to them. By themselves."

"What are they doing though?" My question hung in the air as Hazel brought me back into my room. She headed for her own and shut herself in. Curious on why I couldn't watch, I started to step out again, but the second I did that, Clyde's tall frame filled up the entrance of the hallway.

"I think it would be better if you just stayed in for this one, 'bella," his thick as molasses voice hummed, "We'll tell you guys when we're done."

Speechless, I merely nodded in his direction and shut the door behind me. I mentally kicked myself for not even having said a word in response. Not even a sound.

Actually, that was incorrect. I was pretty sure I squeal a little at his authoritative tone. Once again, I gave myself another mental kick. God, I was such a mute around him. What was my deal? We hadn't properly even spoken, and I couldn't even get the right words out of my mouth. It was like my mind wanted me to look like an idiot in front of him.

More and more, I found myself reminding my silly pounding heart that I was in a relationship every time I saw Clyde. This wasn't normal. I had seen countless attractive guys at East Oregon University. My attention was never split, always returning to my one true love. I came onto this campus writing Mrs and Mr Brandon Myers on notebooks, just like I did when we first started dating four years back. I was a kid again when I was with Brandon. He wiped away my stress and replaced it with undeniable love, joy, and affection. True romance, was what I used to call it. 

But true romance wasn't ringing through my thoughts when I saw Clyde. I saw passion and heat. There was no cute thoughts or love tunes to go for this feeling. There was an edge to him Brandon didn't, an edge that made me want to look away and pretend I didn't see it.

To ease my hammering thoughts, I thought about other things--things that didn't involve Clyde. I had a lot more willpower than most people would like to thing. Yes, my thoughts did have other people scattered on them, but I had never broken the "No touching" rule Brandon and I had made. We both allowed each other to stare all we wanted, but to know that it couldn't go beyond that. "You can look, just don't touch," was what we had promised on and I had never broken that rule or even contemplate on breaking it. I was insanely in love with Brandon.