My Brother's Best Friend -VS- My Abusive Ex.

Chapter Six

Those days slowly turned into weeks and then months. The first few days without Aiden, I stayed in my bed, unable to eat or sleep. Aiden was the person I leaned on, and now I had to learn to make it without him. After a week of not leaving my room Eric made me go to school, but I was never really there. I zoned out, proving without trying that Eric’s theory about school making me feel better. I went anyway, because I knew the real reason was because Eric was worried about me.

The first day I truly went back to school, mind and all, was the absolute worst. All anyone did all day was stare at me with sympathy written all over their face. Every time Aiden passed me in the hall he would try to talk to me. I didn’t let him. I tried to convince myself to just hear him out, but the heart broken side of me didn’t want to listen to reason, it just wanted to keep itself from getting hurt again.

During those three months I had avoided Aiden, I became close friends with Traeh. We, Traeh and I, had a mutual understanding on our feelings for one another. He liked me as more than a friend, and I loved him as just a friend. I’d gotten so close with Traeh that I’d told him about being in love with Aiden.

As I walked into the school with Traeh by my side, I realized that today with make exactly three months since I had last talked to Aiden. Even though I was laughing and smiling, on the inside I just felt like crying. Traeh and I walked right past Aiden, Eric and some girl. Aiden and Eric had just started talking again recently according to Traeh. Apparently they had stopped when Eric blamed him for my emotional break down and told him off. As we walked by I couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy at Aiden’s arm draped over the mystery girl’s shoulder. Aiden’s gaze did meet mine as I continued walking through the hall. He automatically removed his arm from mystery girl and started walking towards Traeh and I.

“Bunny,” he said reaching us, “can we talk now?”

“Sure,” I said feeling like it was time, “but not here, at my house after school.”

“I’ll be there,” he said relieved I was even acknowledging him. He smiled that charming smile that I’d missed and jogged back over to his friends.

“You’re getting there,” Traeh said giving me a side hug.

“I guess.” We finally made it to class and sat in our usual seats in the back.

“I hate English class,” I heard Traeh mutter beside me.

I laughed and said, “You hate every class at school that doesn’t involve tackling someone or eating.”

“With good reason,” he scoffed. “Tackling and eating are the two best things to do.”

“Are you Cassandra,” the mystery girl from earlier asked standing in front of my desk.

“Um… yes. Who are you,” I asked curiously.

“Ariel. I’m new here and Aiden told me that you might be willing to help me find my way around today.”

“Sure,” I said. “As long as my partner in crime doesn’t mind.” I glanced at Traeh to find him rubbing his stomach and muttering something to it, not even paying attention to what was going on. “Traeh,” I said scaring him. “What in the world are you doing?”

“Having my morning tummy time,” he said smiling sheepishly. “Never mind, what’s going on?”

“Well, Ariel here,” I said motioning towards her, “would like to know if we’d show her around today.”

“Hmmm,” he said pretending to be seriously thinking. “Of course we can, if you want to.”

“Okay, it’s settled then, we’ll show her around.” Ariel smiled at us and walked away to find a seat. The teacher finally came in and class started.

All class period I sat there zoning out on our teacher’s boring lecture on something called satire. I could hear Traeh softly breathing next to me and assumed he’d fallen asleep like always. I was pulled out of my trance by a paper ball hitting me in the face. I spread it out and read it. It said, in some fancy, girly looking handwriting, “Stay away from Aiden, he’s mine, and while you’re at it stay away from my cousin, Joe. We don’t need someone like you in our family, so keep or hands off, or else.”

The note wasn’t signed, but when I looked up and saw Ariel looking at me with an evil smirk on her face, I knew who wrote it. She turned back towards the front of the room with that smirk still pasted on her face. I felt so stupid for thinking she was some new girl, but I guess it was okay since I had an excuse for spacing out over the last few months. I didn’t even know who this girl was, or what she meant by Aiden being hers. The bell rang and Ariel got up and skipped over to the door where she loudly said, “Hey baby.” So when I saw Aiden, the guy I still loved, leaning down to kiss her, my heart broke… yet again.

“Case,” Traeh said waking up. Aiden heard my name and looked up. “Oh crap,” Traeh said seeing Aiden and Ariel so close. He was immediately at my side making sure I was okay as Ariel dragged Aiden out the door. “Remember the plan I devised the first time he broke that lovely heart of yours?” I nodded, remembering his plan of fake-dating to make Aiden jealous. “I think it’s time we carried it out.”

“Traeh, you know how I feel about that, I explained it last time you brought it up. You feel more for me than I do for you and I don’t want you to be disappointed when our plan ends and we go back to being just friends.”

“And I explained to you, I’m not a little boy anymore. I’m not some fragile little doll.”

“I know that, but still…”

“You have no reason not to now, so don’t pretend you do.” We started walking to our next class and I started seriously considering Traeh’s plan. The only reason I could think of now was the promise I made to Joe, but seeing as he’d had three different girlfriends in the last month and hadn’t spoken to me since I made that promise, I couldn’t really support that reason.

When we got to the door of our art class and I saw Aiden and Ariel leaned up against the wall caught up in an intense make-out session, I finally made up my mind. “I’ll do it,” I whispered into Traeh’s ear. He winked at me and grabbed my hand.

“Hurry up baby,” Traeh said pulling at my hand. “You walk like a turtle.”

“I can’t help it that my legs are short,” I said laughing.

“You know I’m just teasing you,” he said and kissed me on the cheek. “It’s working,” he whispered while he was still close to my ear and dragged me into the classroom.

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*A/N Sorry it took me so long to upload this chapter. I've been really busy but I'm focused again and already have about two more chapters written so hopefully I'll get them up soon.

Tori*