The Anatomy of a Broken Heart //Completed//

50. Caleb

"She's hiding something," I told Ansel. The wind was spinning around us, kicking up dried leaves and debris, but we still stood outside while we waited for the bell to ring. It was my free period and I couldn't stand to be inside the halls, with the stuffy heaters on full blast now that the cold had arrived in full vigor. Ansel had decided Economics was less interesting than I was at the moment, but I could tell he was starting to regret it.

"You're being paranoid." A small ball bounced by his feet and he picked it up. With his best pitcher's swing, he threw it back to the few guys braving the wind playing wall ball on the side of the building. We were near an area I never came to but knew well. The graveyard, they called it. It was where idiots like Ansel gathered to smoke or do stupid shit the teachers liked to turn a blind eye at. I was pretty sure some of them came back here for a smoke break once in a while too.

"You didn't see her face. She didn't want to tell me. Selfish," I spat.

The animosity was still there between us. It was in the way she moved around me this morning. Yesterday had meant nothing in the way of Santana forgiving me, even just a little, for my dad's sins. Her own father and his pain were still her main priority and she wouldn't tell me anything until I helped her.

"Can you blame her? It's your fault Farrah went after her, isn't it?" Ansel shrugged his backpack off and threw it onto a small patch of still green grass, throwing himself down next to it. I followed suit, shaking my head.

"Farrah didn't do it."
"You totally believed she could've done it, though. You didn't see yourself when you rounded on her like you were gonna strangle her, man. You looked pissed. Honestly, dude, if I didn't know how crazy you are about Farrah, I'd say you showed a little more than friendly concern for Santana."

"What the hell does that mean?" I said barked.

He scoffed and shook his head, but didn't say anything more. He didn't have to. I knew what he was saying, but that only meant Santana and I were playing our parts perfectly. Yesterday really hadn't been a show; of course I was concerned for her, but I'd have freaked out if Ansel had been hurt, or any of my friends, like the twins.

"Santana's my friend." We were in this together and I'd grown to genuinely like her. Strictly as a friend. If Ansel read anything else into it, that was his problem.

Well, Santana was my friend. I didn't know how much our fetal friendship could withstand the fall she took. Maybe she did blame me for it, just like she blamed my name for her dad's suffering.

Ansel rested his arm on his knee, chin in hand, and looked at me sideways. "Friends who sleep in each other's beds aren't really friends anymore, are they?"

I narrowed my eyes at him and wrapped my arm around his shoulder. "By that logic, you and I should be married."

"Slow down, Edgar Allan." He shrugged me off. "I ain't about that life."

"See. We know what we got ourselves into."

"I'm just sayin'." He lifted his arms up noncommittally. "You didn't plan on becoming her friend did you?"

I hadn't. I hadn't thought this would last as long as it has, either, but here we are.

"Besides, you're not acting like a friend to her. You're acting like a boyfriend. If you really only see her as a friend, make sure she knows that."

"She knows that," I said.

"Okay." He said that like it was settled, like I'd won, but his face said something else. Like a petulant kid who only agrees to see how far he can push his parents.