If Only

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

It was after school when I finally spotted that traitor in the hallway. I quickly walked up to her."Hey, we need to talk." I pulled Kristie to the side of the hall and glared at her.

"What do you want?" She snapped at me.

"Why are you wasting your time with Nate and I? All of your stupid posters aren't changing anything and this," I held up the poster that targeted Nate, "this is going way too far. Who do you think you are?"

Kristie scoffed at me. Her eyes were growing wide with anger and she began using hand gestures to accompany her words. "Who do I think I am? I think I'm not a stupid selfish petty girl who just steals other people's loves! I mean, who do you think you are? Acting like you're all important or something. Where were you back in seventh grade when I first met Nate? You didn't exist. It was just supposed to be me and him. You were never supposed to come into the circle. I loved him." She paused, taking a deep breath. "And you ruined everything."

She began walking away when I caught up to her again. "Hey! Wait." All her raw emotions was making me feel a pang of guilt, but she had to understand that it wasn't really my fault. And it wasn't Nate's either. Sometimes things just don't go your way.

Instead of stopping to talk to me like she did last time, Kristie was focused on avoiding me. She navigated her way through the congested hall as I struggled to follow her. Once I followed her out to the parking lot I realized that I had lost her.

"Katie!" A voice called out. I turned to the voice and saw that it was Nate, jogging towards me. "Hey." He scanned my face, "You look like you're panicking. What's wrong?"

"I- I..." I looked around once more to find her but finally shook my head. "I was talking to Kristie but she kind of ran away."

He sighed and pulled me into a hug. "It's okay. Just give her some time to cool down before you try to talk to her."

Biting my lip, I pulled back and looked at him curiously. "Have you?"

"Have I what?"

"Have you tried talking to her?"

Nate shook his head. "No, I'm pretty sure she hates me right now. Did you see those posters?"

"Maybe..." I grabbed his hands and looked him directly in the eye. "Maybe you should try to talk to her. She loves you. And well, she can't hate you anymore than she hates me."

His beautiful eyes studied me closely. "Are you sure?" He finally asked.

Nodding slowly, I answered. "I'm sure."

~-----------------------------~

I lay on my bed nervously as I waited for a text from Nate telling me how their conversation went. Taking a deep breath, I searched up Kristie and Nate's friendship on Facebook, seeing that she hasn't unfriended either of us yet. I tried to convince myself that I wasn't being creepy as I scrolled through pictures and posts that they put on each other's walls over the years.

One that caught my eye was a "Before the year ends I want to tell you..." that Kristie posted on Nate's wall. What was surprising was that the space next to"tbh:" said "I love you xD" I looked down at the comments to see that he had responded with "Love you too."

My heart stopped. Of course he meant it totally platonic, right? I mean, there was no way that he loved her before. According to what he told me, he knew of me before he met her. But of course that doesn't mean that he couldn't have fallen for her after that.

I bit my lip nervously and took a deep breath. I shouldn't jump to conclusions. After all, it must have just been a friend thing.

All of a sudden my phone chimed and I raced to see what it said.