Eighteen.

7-Mission Impossible

Thursday

THREE WEEKS.

It had already been three weeks since Dillan offered me his text book and I hadn't made any progress with the whole trying to insert myself back into his life thing. It was difficult between doing my best not to step on Rachel's toes as well as juggling the millions of questions coming from Loren. Every single time I walked up to Dillan Rachel would be right there glowering at me and if Loren was around to see that go down she'd confront me afterwards about it. The whole thing was a mess.
The first week I spent doing my best to ease into everything by trying to befriend Rachel since she was being so protective. However that was a lot harder to do when she would purposely avoid me. Weighing my options I had switched to occasionally asking Dillan to borrow things such as a paint brush or a pencil in art class or his English book a couple of times too. No matter how nice I was, or how much I did my best to interact with him, Dillan never gave me the time of day...just like he used to.
Just like that, he continued to reject me. To say it didn't hurt would be a lie. Dillan and I used to live right next door to one another ever since I can remember being alive. Our mothers were the best of friends since their school days and ended up pregnant at the same time together and swore that one day their children would be close just like they were. And for awhile they weren't wrong. Dillan, Mason and I did EVERYTHING together from swimming, adventuring in the backyards of our homes, playing games or watching movies we were the three amigos. However Mason had more friends than Dillan and I so he would ditch us often leaving us to hang out together by ourselves but it didn't matter, we still had our fun.
It wasn't until Dillan's mom passed away in the hospital room from some sort of blood infection when he stopped talking to me. The last thing I can remember him saying to me was to leave him alone, he hated me. Which didn't make sense to little me back then because just the day before he had been crying on my shoulder in the waiting room at the hospital while I cried with him so I continued our one ended friendship a little while longer. I'd bring him his favorite snacks to his house after school or I would draw him goofy pictures to hopefully get him to smile but everything was a failed attempt. When we were maybe nine was the last time I tried to be his friend because after finding out that him and his father were moving out of their house I ran over to him sobbing about going to miss him and went to hug him but Dillan quite literally shoved me away, gave me the dirtiest look and then stormed away from me. From then on I've kept away from him, clearly seeing the line he had drawn between us.

     The second week I planned to to purposely bump into Dillan to create some sort of reaction but he legitimately looked me dead in the face, scowled and then stormed off leaving me fumbling in all of my attempts. For the rest of the week it felt like he was avoiding me after that.
     The third week I was growing impatient as it was beginning to feel like he thought he finally got rid of me when in reality I had just been plotting the entire weekend. I was going to root myself into his world again whether or not he liked it, and by the looks of everything, he was hating the attention from me. I did my best to ask him for more unnecessary things I didn't need to borrow and continued my hardest to befriend Rachel even as far as going as complimenting her hair or outfit every time I saw her. However that turned into them nearly running away every time she saw me.

One part of me disliked that I had to be the first person to make amends between Dillan and I since he had really hurt me and I just wanted to be his friend all along, but the logical side knew that this was my only way to save the both of them and as much as it pained me to be around Dillan I would do everything in my power to keep my brother and him alive. Every single stinging glare Dillan shot at me was just a reminder that he was still here and still capable of acknowledging me.

"Hey." I breathed as I caught up to Dillan outside the school during lunch. For whatever reason, Rachel wasn't around at the moment so I took advantage of the opportunity of him being alone.

Dillan turned around to peer down at me. His face morphed into a frown and his eyes rolled at the site of me.

Embarrassed by his reaction I laughed feeling out of place. "Sorry, I know I keep bugging you and you're probably fed up by now-"

He quirked a brow up seeming curious as to what I was about to tell him but still obviously irritated.

"It's just I wanted to say thank you for helping me with all the nonsense I've been asking for these last few weeks and-" Before I could finish Rachel appeared out of nowhere and taking her place next to Dillan's side.

"Sorry am I interrupting something?" She asked sarcastically but I see how worried she was by the look in her eyes. She didn't remember but I could recall her admitting her love for him at the diner that day.

My eyes drifted to Dillan's statue like stance then watched him shake his head at Rachel before placing a hand around her elbow and pulling her away from me.

"Bye!" Rachel deviously called after me while they disappeared into the building.

Grumbling I found myself still failing miserably and stalking off towards my friends in the cafeteria. It was beginning to bug me how hard this ridiculous quest was becoming. There was no way Rachel was going to let me snake myself into whatever she has going on with Dillan and Dillan didn't even remotely look interested in what I had to say to him.

"Where the hell have you been Mell?" Loren asked once I reached our usual table.

"Yeah? Loren won't stop talking our ears off about how much eye contact her and Jesse shared during third period." Ricky groaned.

I chuckled at his grossed out face. "Ricky, as if you've never had a crush you weren't head over heels for?"

Nina giggled. "What was her name? Wasn't it Hanna?"

"Shut up." Ricky scowled at us girls. "That's the past, we're talking present."

"Well I think it's kind of cute that they're both crushing on each other but too shy make things happen." Angela smiled at Loren.

"I'm not too shy." Loren attempted to lie. "He's just dumb and can't take the hint."

"Most football players are." Ricky commented about them being a little slow.

"You would know." Loren retaliated. "You used to be one in middle school."

We all laughed at that.

"I'm having a movie night at my house this weekend if you guys wanna come over and join?" Angela offered our table of friends.

"Ooo I would love to join." Nina grinned cheerfully. She was always so kind.

"If you have popcorn and snacks count me in." Ricky smirked at Ang.

"Of course I will." She playfully poked his side.

Loren nodded. "Then count me in too, I can turn down a good movie night with friends and some fire snacks. Mell? What about you?"

"Eh, probably not. My mom is making me do a bunch of house work this weekend so I more than likely won't be able to make it." It was sad how often I was starting to lie.

"No worries, there will always been another movie night." Ricky patted my shoulder jokingly.

"Yeah yeah yeah." I waved him off.

Before anyone could go into detail about the movies, the bell rang signaling it was end of lunch causing us all to go our separate ways.