The Note ↠ Daniel Seavey

Chapter 8

August 15, 2017

"Where's Daniel? He wasn’t here yesterday or today."
"I don’t know, he's probably sick or something," I said, closing my locker.
"Okay, what happened? You were in a bad mood when you came home Sunday, almost made us late yesterday, and now you don’t know where Daniel is," Nadia said, counting the things off on her fingers.
"Nothing happened. He's probably sick or something. Besides, why are you asking me and not the people he lives with?" I asked. I know why Daniel really isn't here. He didn’t want anything to be awkward between us when we saw each other. I don’t know if he's told the boys, but I haven't told Christina or Nadia, there would be to many questions.
"Fine, I will," Nadia said, turning around and walking towards our next class.
I was about to follow her when I noticed the corner of a piece of paper sticking out of the vents on my locker. I opened the paper and saw the same messy blue handwriting that was on the last note. 'Your eyes, they're beautiful. When you're happy, they look like the sky was captured into two orbs. When you're sad or upset, like rain clouds are trapped in your eyes. When you're angry, they are the most beautiful navy blue I've ever seen.' I grabbed a piece of paper out of my backpack, along with a red pen. 'Who are you?' I folded the paper and stuck it in my locker, just enough for the corner to stick out. I drew a little heart on the corner so whoever was putting the notes there would know it wasn't theirs. I shoved the note they left into my pocket and went to my class.
-
As soon as I sat down in my seat Nadia started talking. I loved this girl, but boy she couldn’t shut up if she wanted to right now.
"Jonah said Daniel wasn't feeling good. He said that Daniel felt sick when he got home Sunday night and wasn't in a good mood either. I don’t know what happened, but you need to talk to him," Naida said, opening her textbook then looking at me. "Like, ASAP."
"Nothing happened. He's sick. I don’t need to talk to him," I said, even though I knew I really did need to talk to Daniel so we could work this out.
"Whatever you say, K."
"Okay class, open your textbooks to page forty-one..." I pulled out a piece of notebook paper from my binder and began to take notes on today's lesson.
-
"Hey guys."
"Hey Kourtney, what are you doing here?"
"Just dropping by on my way home. Hey, uh, is Daniel in his room?"
"Yeah, he's been up there all day. Why?"
"I need to ask him something."
"Good luck."
I gave a small smile before going upstairs. I knocked on Daniel's door a few times before I got any type of response.
"Go away."
Knock, knock.
"I said go away."
Another knock.
"Corbyn, I know it's you, you're the only one who hasn't come up here yet. Now, please leave me alone."
I opened the door and stepped inside.
"So, you're not sick. Why haven't you been at school?"
Daniel looked up. His eyes were red and puffy and he looked like he hadn't slept in a while. "I really messed up, didn’t I?"
"Kinda. Sorta. Not really."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You messed up my not talking to me for two days. You messed up by pretending to be sick just so you wouldn’t have to come to school and see me. You messed up in all those ways. But you didn’t mess up Sunday. You didn’t know I didn’t like you like that. You just did what you thought was right at the time. It's not your fault. It could have happened to anyone."
"I'm sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Sometime last year I caught feelings for you. I keep trying to shove them away, because I did know you didn't like me like that. I knew, and know, that we wouldn’t work out as a couple, that we're better off as friends. I knew that, but I lost control and couldn’t help it. I didn’t even realize what I was doing. I'm sorry, it's just kind of hard to hide feelings for someone when you see them every, single, day."
"Daniel, I love you. I really, really do. But I love you as a brother. You're my best friend. I've known you for eight years. I am not going to put eight years of friendship down the drain just because of one little thing. So, can we put this behind us, pretend like it never happened? Go back to the way we were? Nobody gotta know?" I said, slightly smiling.
"Nobody gotta know."