All Along

chapter 20

Aiden stopped the car outside my house.
“Want to come inside? It is only seven thirty.”
“Sure.”
We went inside and were greeted by the sight of Amy and Kris kissing. They quickly moved apart and blushed deep red. I raised my eyebrows and looked sternly at them.
“I… I’ve to go,” Amy said trying to get up.
"No Amy. You aren’t going anywhere. Just be seated." I pretended to be angry and tried very hard not to laugh.
"Kayla, we… we can explain." Kris said raising his hands in defense.
I narrowed my eyes at them and Aiden was the first to start laughing and soon I was laughing too. They looked at us with confused expression.
"You… you two… should… have seen your… faces." I tried to say in between the laughs.
“So when were you two going to tell us what we already knew?” I said after I had done laughing. Their eyes
widened in shock ad surprise.
“You knew?” Kris asked. I nodded with a smirk.
"Yes duffer. I had suspected it for a while but I got the proof when I saw Amy getting in car with you the day she told Suzy that she was going to meet a ‘friend’." I said ‘Friend’ with air quotes.
Amy chuckled nervously. “And you are not angry?” She asked nervously.
"Angry? Are you stupid Am? I’m so happy. I already love you. I’m happy for you two." I squealed and hugged her and punched Kris’s arm. He tackled me and then hugged me.
“I love her a lot.” He whispered in my ear.
"I know." I whispered back with a smile.
Aiden congratulated them and Amy asked me to keep this a secret from Aaron and others because she wanted to be the one to tell them. I agreed.
Aiden and I entered my room and Aiden looked around.
"You’ve a nice room." I thanked him. He looked out of the window and saw Aaron in his room.
“Is that Aaron’s room?” He asked pointed towards his room.
"Yes."
"Hmm. Lucky guy."
"How? Care to explain?"
"First, he lives so close to you that he can come here anytime whenever he wishes."
“Okay. And?”
“Second, his room is across from yours so he can see you in the morning, before sleeping or in other words, he gets to see your beautiful face almost all the time.” I blushed at
that and smiled a little.
“Well. First, I’m not in my room all the time and second, he is not a pervert,” I said sticking my tongue out at him and he chuckled.
We played video game for a while and he won.
"I’ll get us something to eat and drink." I said getting up from the bed.
"Okay. Can I use your laptop?"
"Sure. FOUR is the password."
"FOUR? Why FOUR?"
"I’m Theo James fan and also divergent fan."
"Got it."
I took out four cold drink cans from the fridge and grabbed two packets of chips and one packet of peanuts. I walked back to my room and saw Aiden looking at my childhood
pictures.
“Aiden,” I shouted and he grinned wickedly at me.
“What are you doing?” He has some serious issues when it comes to one’s privacy.
“You look so cute as a pumpkin with fangs. Oh wait, is this a broken fang?” he teased me and laughed.
I blushed a little. It was embarrassing photograph and was taken on my seventh Halloween party. I had wanted to go as a vampire but my mom had bought me a pumpkin costume. I had cried a lot that day and she had decided to add fangs. When this photograph was taken my one fang was half broken and I looked hilarious. I quickly grabbed the laptop and closed it.
He was still smirking evilly.
“What did you do?”
“Who said I don’t have it in my phone?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Delete it,” I demanded.
“No.”
“Please Aiden,” I said with puppy dog eyes. He laughed and shook his head.
I tried to take away the phone from his hand but he was quick and lifted it above his head. I huffed and tried to
reach it but failed. I grabbed his arms and tried to pry it out of his hands when my bedroom door opened. I turned and saw Aaron standing there. He looked at me, at Aiden, at my hands and then back at us. I looked at Aiden and realized how close we were standing to each other. Aiden was standing near the wall with my hands around his arms and our bodies almost touching. I quickly stepped away and looked at Aaron who looked hurt. He left without saying anything. I looked at Aiden and he looked back at me.
"I… I’ll go talk to him." He nodded.
I turned to leave when he called me again. "Kayla wait."
I stopped at my bedroom door and turned to look at him.
"There is something you should know that I wanted to tell you for quite some time now." He took few steps towards me and continued, “I liked you since the moment I saw you. You were the only one I could think of and the day I saw Jen I couldn’t wait to ask her about you and I’m grateful to her for letting you know about me,” He stopped to look at me. “But now that I have known you and spent the time with you, I don’t like you anymore,” I looked at him and he looked directly in my eyes. "I love you." My eyes widened in shock and I was speechless. I got hurt when he said he
didn’t like me anymore because I had thought we were friends but love , I hadn’t seen that coming.
"Aiden-"
"You don’t have to answer anything yet. Think about it and then answer," Saying that he left.
I sat on my bed and thought what just happened. Aiden was a nice guy and I liked him but for some reason I didn’t
want to say yes. I looked out the window and saw Aaron’s empty room. I got up and decided to clear the misunderstanding. I couldn’t understand why he left like that. Was he angry? Or hurt? But why?
I ran downstairs and saw Amy sitting on the couch. Kris was in the kitchen I guess, from the noise of the utensils.
Only he could make that much of noise in there.
“Hey. What happened?” Amy asked.
“Nothing. Why?”
"First Aaron came and left abruptly, then Aiden left and now you are also running."
“Nothing serious happened, I think. Did you see where Aaron went?”
"Home, I guess." I nodded and ran towards Aaron’s house.
"Hey Kayla." Suzy was locking the main door.
“Hey. Where is Aaron?”
“I don’t know. I thought he went to see you. Is everything
alright?” She sounded worried.
"Yes. Everything is good. He came and left. See you later."
I looked around, Aaron’s car and bike were in garage. Where was he? I tried calling his phone but he didn’t answer. It was getting dark and I was worried.
‘Damn Aaron. Where are you?’ I cursed him in my mind. I decided to look around. I decided to first check in the park where we had first met Adelaide. I walked there and saw him sitting on the bench. I walked towards him and stood in front of him with my arms crossed over my chest. He looked up. I looked angrily at him.
“Who do you think you are?” I shouted at him.  He raised his eyebrows.
"Don’t give me that look. Do you know how many times I called you? If you can’t answer your phone then you have no right to own it in the first place. I was worried Aaron."
"I’m not a child Kayla. I can take care of myself." He said rolling his eyes. I was so mad that I wanted to punch him in the face.
"Oh sorry. I shouldn’t have come here looking for you."
Tears started to form in the corner of my eyes and I turned to leave but Aaron grabbed my wrist.
"I’m sorry." He said holding my wrist. I didn’t look back.
"Kayla, please look at me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I don’t know what got into me. Please forgive me."
I wiped the tears that had spilled from my eyes and turned to look at him. He looked at me with pleading eyes.
I smiled a little. He took a step towards me and snaked his other arm around my waist and pulled me towards him and hugged me. I smiled in the nape of his neck and hugged him back. My heart was at peace now that he was not angry with me and we were not fighting anymore. He hugged me tightly.
He loosened the grip and said, "You
look cute and dangerous when you are angry."
"Cute and dangerous at the same time? Huh." He nodded and smiled. He let go of me and sat on the bench again and I joined him.
“So what happened?” He looked confusedly at me.
“Aaron I mean why did you leave like that?”
"I don’t know." He answered simply.
"You do know."
"I think… I think I didn’t want to disturb you two but I think I ruined it already." I couldn’t understand what he was actually trying to say.
“What do you mean?”
“Well I didn’t want to witness the kiss between you two.”
My mouth dropped open.
"What? Are you mad? Kiss… Aaron… Kiss? We were not kissing stupid." I said a bit loudly. He looked confusedly at me.
“That’s what it looked like to me.”
“I was trying to take away his phone from his hands you moron.”
“Oh.” He blushed and smiled a little. He looked at me with a smile and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“Umm… there is something else.” I said with a blush.
“What?”
"Aiden proposed."
"What?" He said loudly. "I mean I knew that was going to happen but not this soon." He said the last part more to himself.
“You knew?”
"Yes. It was obvious the way he looked at you and wanted to spend time with you."
"At first I thought so too but then I thought he wasn’t interested and I was happy being only friends with him."
“When did he propose?”
"After you left." I told him the whole story. He nodded with clenched teeth.
"What did you say?" He asked.
"Nothing. He asked me to think and then answer." I said in a low voice.
“What do you? Umm… what are you going to say?” He asked as he looked at me. My heart started to beat faster
and heat rose to my cheeks as his eyes scanned my face.
"I… I don’t… don’t know." I stuttered under his gaze. "I mean I like him," his expression changed a little and he
gulped, "but I don’t think I love him." He seemed to relax and nodded.
“When are you going to answer him?”
"May be tomorrow."
"Okay and Jamie is coming tomorrow."
"Cool. I think we should go back now. It is getting late."
"Yeah." He held my hand and we walked to our homes, together.