Our Chemistry

Chapter 16

I woke up the next morning to my blaring alarm.
Ugh. School.
My eyes burnt from the tears and barely sleeping the night before. Again.
At least it was finally Friday.

I put on one of Kate's old hoodies, black jeans, and my converse.
I walked into school looking down.
My classes dragged on, but it was finally lunch.

Dylan and I made eye contact for a brief second when I walked into the cafeteria, but I quickly looked away.

I could tell that Tyler and Claire were confused with how quiet I'd been. I'd gone from joking around to being silent. I saw them shooting each other concerned looks out of the corner of my eye.

So once lunch was about to end, I got up to throw away my trash. Tyler ran up behind me.

"Oliver," he said, "What're you up to later?"

I dumped the core of the apple into the trash.

"I was just gonna go home," I replied. We walked out of the cafeteria.

"Do you want to hang out?" He asked. No one had mentioned anything about hanging out.

"Um...sure," I said, "Did you talk to Claire or Kate?"

"No," he said, "I was thinking we could hang out, just the two of us,"

This was weird.

"Okay yeah," I responded.

"I'll text you," he said, walking away to his class.

That was weird.

I turned the hallway to walk into Chemistry.

Time for hell.

I saw Dylan slumped in his seat, a hoodie over his head. It bugged me that even now, I still thought he was beautiful.

"Okay so today, you guys will be working on presentation with your lab partner," Mrs. Thorpe said.

Ughhhhhhh.
She just had to assign one now.

So once she let us free to do work, I turned to Dylan.

"We can split it up," I said, "And then we can put it on one PowerPoint,"

"Can I choose the theme?" He asked.

I couldn't help but let a very small smile out, "Fine," I hated him.

So we started to work on the project in silence. He turned his head away from his laptop and asked, "Wouldn't it just be easier to work on it together?"

"Probably not the best idea," I said bluntly.

Did he really expect me to willingly hang out with him right now? I couldn't even look at his face for more than 5 seconds.

"Right," he said, looking back at his laptop.

—

After school, I picked Tyler up to get dinner.
I drove to his house.

"Hey," he said, opening the car door.

"Hi," I said, taking my car out of park.
We talked about our classes on our drive to the restaurant.

Once we got the restaurant, Tyler's eyes beamed with joy at the menu. I had admit that it all sounded so good.

"I don't know what to get," I said, scanning the menu.

"Their sandwiches are amazing," he replied.

And so we both ordered sandwiches.

Once our food arrived, I laughed at how much Tyler was enjoying his food.

"I gotta give it to you," I said, biting my chicken sandwich. He chose the restaurant. "This is bomb,"

"Told you," he said, laughing.

After our first initial bites, Tyler cleared his throat.

"How have you been?" He asked, "I just wanted to check up on you,"

This definitely threw me off, but I did appreciate it. A lot.

"Eh," I said, "It's been a rough week,"

"Yeah?" He asked, furrowing his eyebrows, "What's going on?"

I took a deep breath. It oddly felt nice to talk to someone about it. I was grateful for Kate, but talking to Tyler about it seemed like it would get rid of the weight on my chest.

"I liked someone. We kissed, but they kinda went back on it and said it was a mistake," I said.

"Oh shit," he said, "You and Dylan kissed?"

No fucking way.

"Um yeah. We did," I said, with shock, "How'd you know it was him?"

He laughed, "I could tell after the football game. And then you guys would always look at each other in the cafeteria at lunch,"

I couldn't help but laugh. I would've never expected to Tyler to notice.

"Well, yeah. We kissed, but then the next day it got messy," I said, "I saw him and Lauren kissing in the hallway, and then he told me it was a mistake and that it shouldn't have happened,"

I watched as Tyler listened. And then he lifted his eyebrows and said, "Wow,"

I shrugged.

"I wonder what happened though. He definitely liked you," he said, "So something must've happened,"

Tyler thought that something had happened?

"Well, even if something did, I'm not going to try to figure it out or go running back to him," I said. I looked down, "I can't be hurt anymore than I already am,"

Tyler came over to my side and hugged me.

I laughed, "This is a new side of Tyler that I've never seen before,"

"I can be the funny friend and a good one too, you know?" He said.

I smiled at him.