Golden Boy's Game

│03│

A TENSION FILLED silence ensued as I gazed at Amanda and Emmett. A faint, pink tinge of color dotted Emmett's face, and Amanda's mouth was set in a defiant line, as if she was waiting to deflect my unplanned reaction. The conversation that I had with Emmett regarding Caleb was merely child's play, compared to the storm of a conversation that was rising.

"Dating," I repeated slowly, enunciating the word to see if I'd heard right. And a part of me did hope, that I'd heard wrong. "You guys are... dating."

Amanda pursed her lips, and impatiently let out a rush of air. "Yes, honey. When two people are going out, it's called dating. It's not rocket science."

There was something else, in her eyes, apart from coldness.I couldn't quite put a finger on it, but it seemed like triumph. Shaking my head, I rose an eyebrow. "How long?"

I willed myself to vaguely focus on anything, anything but this. An uneasy feeling had taken stock into me. The fact that I hadn't even noticed that they were together or that they shared an apparent mutual attraction was worrying. Was I really that unobservant?

"As of yesterday," Emmett replied quietly.

"Yesterday?" This didn't make any sense either. Apparently I was a blind rat, considering that all of this had happened right under my unsuspecting nose.

Amanda rolled her eyes, and took Emmett's hand. "This isn't some kind of freaking interrogation. We'll be going now, Emeraude. Excuse us."

Emmett threw me an apologetic look, and I could see the well defined guilt in his eyes as Amanda led him across the hallway. A feeling of uneasiness had settled within me. My two best friends were dating, and I hadn't even realized it. What kind of a friend was I? It dawned on me that I'd done the exact same thing to Amanda- by refraining from telling her that Caleb and I were apparently together. This was just Amanda getting back at me, wasn't it?

It stung even more now, considering that it felt like my two best friends had both turned on me, due to my apparent choices when it came to dating.

But something else had crept into me as I watched Emmet and Amanda walk down the hall, hand in hand, laughing about something that I'd probably never know about. A feeling of cold, poisonous envy. I thought about Caleb and me, and how everytime we walked down this exact same hallway, we were overwhelmed with stares, whispers, and pointed fingers. Amanda didn't have to live through that torture. But I did.

And it served me damn well right, for being a crappy friend. I'd agreed to the game, and this was a consequence that I had to live with.

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

My prayers for an uneventful day were, as usual, ignored. The moment I took my seat in English class, I realized that I had at least eight sets of eyes scanning my every moment. I winced inwardly, and tried to pretend that I hadn't noticed.

"Are you Emeraude?" the girl next to me whispered conspiringly. "Is it true you're dating Caleb?"

With a sigh, I sifted a hand threw my hair, which was starting to curl and fray at the ends, to my worry. "Well, what do the rumors say?"

"That you two are dating." She gave me a once over, and rose an eyebrow, as if she couldn't quite comprehend how someone with my looks could attain the Caleb Bates. "Um, is that, like an actual fact?"

No, it wasn't a fact. But I knew one fact I wanted to tell this girl. And it was a simple fact:

she needed to mind her own damn business. So did the rest of the school, apparently. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to look her straight in the eye. "I suppose it is a fact."