It's Quite Complicated

Chapter 11

"Thanks for meeting me here."

Alex chuckles and says, "Nothing I'd rather do on a boring Sunday afternoon than visit an animal shelter."

I laugh, "Well your wishes have been deemed."

He picks up a clipboard that is attached to a pen of a German Shepherd dog that jumps on the, seeming to be eager to meet some visitors. "Hi, Jake." He leans over and pets the dog. The dog happily licks his face in return. I turn to the pen in front of me and pick up the clipboard attached to it, I lean over it at the same time and come face to snout with a beautiful grey and black spotted border collie, named Jojo.

I put the clipboard back to its spot and pet the dog. She jumps onto the door and paws at me playfully. I scratch her back in return and she seems to enjoy it.

"So why are we here, exactly?" I jump at the voice of Alex behind me and turn around to him.

I smile and say, "I picked the topic of homeless animals at the town's animal shelter and came here to find the subjects for an essay I have to write," I motion to our surroundings.

He nods his head, "Oh."

I nod my head, "Um, how about you visit some of them, while I write about the info for this one?," I motion to the border collie in the pen beside me.

He looks to the dog and nods his head in response to me. He walks away and greets a Chihuahua that yips at him excitedly. I turn back around and take my notepad and pencil that I brought with me in my pocket of my jeans and write the information on the clipboard about her background and where she was found.

I breathe out a breathe I was holding in, for the fear that Alex wouldn't have agreed to do what I suggested him to do. I had planned this out by inviting him to meet me here and we could hang out. Yesterday, Damon and I had decided that I would get Alex to trust me and I could possibly squeeze out the information of what he has planned to do to Damon before he does it. I was going to play nice and act innocent of not knowing him. I had already done my other school work and had it set aside so that I could focused on this for the majority of the rest of my weekend.

****

I hand in my written essay to Mrs. Grahm, the English teacher and she smiles at me and takes it from me. I walk away from her and out the classroom. I begin to walk in the direction of my locker when I met with a pair of eyes that follow me as I walk down the hallway. The person leans away from the wall and walks over to me. I roll my eyes and say, "Leave me alone, Damon."

"Not ever possible," he says and smiles amusingly at me.

I roll my eyes, "Fine, what do you want?"

He grips the shoulder strap of his backpack and shifts it on his shoulder, "Just want to bug you, that's all."

I sigh out of boredom, "Cool."

"What are you doing after school today?"

I shrug my shoulders, "Nothing too important."

I glance at him and squint my eyes at him, "Why?"

"Want to grab a meal with me?"

"What's the catch?"

"There is none."

"Yeah, Damon Pulse, is offering to buy someone a meal with him and there isn't a catch?"

I knew Damon too well. When we were younger and I was convinced that I liked him, from the moment I met him through Mariah, since I wasn't much of a popular gal when I was in the third grade, I immediately grown to know him well, being that Mariah is my best friend. Damon wasn't a guy that you wanted to find yourself being on the bad side of. Mariah and him both shared that same trait from their lawyer parents. He was a troublemaker, though unlike Mariah, he felt as if he could do practically anything he wanted. Which he did, hence why he even got shipped off to boarding school. I knew him like the back of my hand, since when I had grown up with him (and Mariah). Plus, I admit, I had at one point overly been obsessed with him, on the borderline of stalkerish, since I had "feelings" for him.