The Boy That Stole My Heart

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

     Two weeks after spring break ended I got some bad news. It was Friday after school, I was exhausted and ready for a weekend of relaxation, and I was doing my best to push a very invasive history lesson out of my brain and into the past WHERE IT BELONGED!
     "Do you want a snack?" I asked Logan over my shoulder faltering when I saw him sitting at the kitchen table, cheeks flushed and staring at a piece of paper. "Hey man, what's going on? What's wrong?"
     He looked up, a confused expression on his face before his eyes finally focused on me. "What?"
     "Are you okay?" I question, walking over slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, and sliding into the chair across from him.
     He slid the paper across the table dramatically like he was introducing evidence into a court case, his cheeks blushing even darker. "A girl asked me out today."
     It's hard to explain dread. It's one of those things that I could tell you about but never really capture the feeling of. If I had to explain it to you then I would say, when I heard those words it felt as if I had jumped out of a plane with no parachute.... No, it felt like I had been pushed out of a plane with no parachute.... By my best friend.
     I picked up the piece of paper between my thumb and forefinger as if I could catch something from it. Valerie... With a hearted I. Jealousy sat in the lowest pit of my belly, right above my groin, cold and hard like a stone. If I took a knife and cut myself open it would be black and viscous, splattering across the kitchen floor.
     I swallowed hard but the knot in my throat wouldn't go away. "Are you going to text her?"
     "Oh, I don't know. What do you think?" He asked me, wringing his fingers tightly.
     I know I shouldn't have been surprised. Logan had really come into himself lately, baseball opening a door to a group of guys that normally wouldn't give him the time of day but once they did and they saw who he was, had fallen in love with him. Now I wasn't the only person who would fight for him.
     "Do you like her?" I asked, praying that the answer was no.
     He shrugged. "I don't really know her. We've only talked a couple of times. She seems nice though."
     Nice.... Sure.... But would she fight eight older boys for you? Would she judge you if you pissed in her bed? Would she wash her hands a hundred times a day until they were raw and bleeding and spend her entire allowance on Lysol, spraying down the whole house before you came over until everything she owned had the permanent smell of lemons? Does she think about you every night before she goes to bed and every morning when she wakes up? Does she stuff rocks in her pocket that she thinks you might like or... Does she... Deserve you? Do I? Does anyone...?
     "I... I don't know," I admitted. Who was I to tell him who he should date?
     He took the paper back when I handed it out to him and said, "I... I've never had a girlfriend.  I wanted to tell you that... You spend all your time with me but.. if there was a girl that you liked... I know that you wouldn't be able to see me as much but if... I.. I would understand."
     "I don't have a girl I like," I told him quickly, forcefully, begging him to say the same thing but... How could I expect him to confess feelings of love for me that he probably didn't even have when I couldn't confess the ones that I absolutely did.
      His eyes widened at my tone. "I was just saying. I didn't know if maybe you liked that Rachel girl."
     "Why would you think that?"
     He offered a shrug. "You looked awfully smitten, leaned over close, whispering into her ear... And she had her hand on your crotch."
     I felt my cheeks flush, not with embarrassment but anger. "No she didn't."
     Another shrug. "She's pretty."
     "Not where it counts!" I snapped at him. "She's not like y-"
     "Like what?"
     "Look! Do you want a snack or not!?"
     He smiled. "Pizza bites!"