Love Songs

Chapter Twenty Four

A/N: This may be the second to last chapter, guys. Brace yourselves. (:

Allie - Wednesday, 1:45pm.

"Matthew," I said, breaking away from him. "We shouldn't do this."

He looked shocked.

"Well why the hell not?"

"Because," I whispered. "Jessica."

"What about her?"

"You guys hooked up," I reminded him. 

"No, we didn't."

"Excuse me?"

"We didn't hook up. It was a lie."

"What? Why?"

"I don't know," he said. "But it wasn't true. So..." he said, trying to kiss me again.

But I didn't let him. "Why did you lie?"

"Because," he said, sighing. "I thought that it would make you notice me. And, well, it kind of did."

"Why did you have to lie? You could have just talked to me."

He narrowed his eyes. "I was trying. You're not exactly the most observant."

I couldn't argue with that. I never got people's signs until it was too late. And it was possible that maybe I'd been to infatuated with Darius to ever catch Matthew's. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to just let myself kiss him again. I wasn't sure how I felt about him, exactly, but I knew I liked the way it felt being with him, so why fight it?

But then, I had a different thought. And it was not a good one at all.

"Wait," I said to Matthew, who seemed to be growing impatient.

"What?"

"If you didn't hook up with Jessica...then who did?"

___________

Jessica - Wednesday, 4:30pm.

"He took me out even though we're not supposed to on weeknights. He said he just couldn't wait until Saturday."

Shut up, shut up, shut up was coursing through my mind, but Allie was late for dance and I had no one to commiserate with over Bella McKinley's inane chatter. I was so sick of hearing her drawl on about the man of the day, but I wasn't into the idea of picking a fight, so I swallowed everything I was thinking.

 "So he bought me dinner, and then we went dancing. Did you know he's such a good dancer?" she continued saying to some girl who looked engrossed for reasons unimaginable to me.

"Yeah," she said. "Darius is so amazing."

I started choking on air, and there were no words to describe the shock. Darius?

Allie walked in then, and I wanted to tackle her and scream what I'd just heard but obviously I couldn't. There were other things taking precedence anyhow, like the fact that her hair was down, and an utter mess. Rihannon would have belted me for that sort of a stunt.

"Allie, what is wrong with you?" I immediately questioned as she walked in. She looked sort of dazed, like she was far off somewhere else.

"What do you mean?" she asked dreamily, completely aloof.

I sat her down on the floor and wordlessly began french braiding her hair.

"You're a mess," I told her. "Where were you?"

"Where were you?"

"Here," I said, telling the truth. "Practicing." Well, that was the lie.

Rihannon walked in then, five minutes late, and purposely shoved me a little as she walked past and commented, "Playing makeover?"

"Mhm," I said coolly. "You can be next."

I don't know exactly from where the sudden courage came, but I was sure it had something to do with the fact that she'd gotten with Shay purposely. Combined with the fact that now I had her back, and nothing Rihannon could do to me could take away the feelings I had for Shay.

Surprisingly, she said nothing in reply, just started wafting towards the corner to put her stuff down.

Allie rolled her eyes. "To answer your question, I was with Matthew."

From the corner of the room, Bella and her sad posse looked our way. "Matthew?" Bella scoffed.

I returned her look. "Darius?"

Allie tried to look back up at me, which was difficult because I was holding her hair. "Darius?" she asked, confused.

Bella looked at me with fury, probably because I was the only one who didn't act excited by her new boyfriend. Without missing a beat, she gave a nod to Allie before replying, "Shay?"

Taken by complete surprise, I let go of Allie's hair and approached her. "None of your business," I warned firmly, not even thinking about the fact that by not denying it, I was pretty much outing the whole thing to Allie.

 "Shay?" Rihannon asked, getting herself involved, ever the immature. "She wishes."

"Tell me again, who wishes?" I argued.

"Last time I checked," she said, getting the iconic show of evil in her eyes, "it was you."

I looked confidently at her. "Check again."

"Do you have something to say about this, Allie?" Rihannon challenged, looking at my best friend who I noticed for the first time, sitting shell-shocked on the floor.

"No," Allie said. "I have nothing to say."