Cara and Connor

Chapter 9

    In case I haven’t already told you, no one at our school except for our friends know we have a thing. They all just think we secretly like each other. Connor tries not to make it obvious, but his smiles and cuteness make it a bit noticeable.

    After class, I see Blake talking to Annie at her locker. I have still been hanging out with Annie, but she looks at me differently since I’ve started hanging out with the popular group, too. I immediately get a streak of anger when I realize that he’s trying to manipulate her. She won’t believe me if I tell her what happened. Maybe he’s just asking for an answer to a homework question. No, he’s not. That’s not Blake’s type of thing.

I cross the hallway over to Luke and pointing to Annie said, “Luke!”

“No!” he said. “Not my Annie, too”

    Luke had really liked Annie for quite awhile, and knowing Blake was messing around with her made him mad. We walked together to the lunch room.

I guess this is a day of firsts because for the first time, Sky Holloway sat with us at lunch. I heard the seniors had ousted her? Her appearance was still the same, and her black cape of hair was still raising riots. Her black eyeliner gave her the appearance of some evil witch cat, and she stormed around the cafeteria with a fierceness that belittled someone just from her glance. Connor sat beside me, and he also noticed.

“Weird, huh?” he said to Luke and I.

    Blake got Annie to sit at the other end of the popular table with him today, and at the other end they were laughing and talking. Luke steamed and looked offended. Even though Connor was the most popular boy, the girls still died over Blake. He was a complete womanizer, now that I’ve learned his true colors. I also noticed Blake started giving me weird looks through lunch. I couldn’t read him.

 

But I had Connor, and that was the main thing.

 

    After school, I decided to investigate the Annie and Blake thing. I went over to Annie’s house to find Blake’s Lexus sitting in her driveway.

“No,” I sighed.

“No. No. No,” I said.

Connor was at football practice, but why wasn’t Blake? He played football. This was weird. I knew there was a practice because I saw the team outside, but why was Blake not there? Knowing Coach McGee, he would have a heart attack if anyone missed practice. He would freak out.

 

Something seemed weird here.  Something was very wrong.

 

— --------------------------------------

 

    Connor rested beside me playing on my iPhone as I finished my English homework.

“Finished,” I said.

“Oh, great!” he said.

“Let’s go take a walk outside,” I said.

    He jumped up and followed me down the stairs. My parents were both gone, but they told me it was okay if Connor was around. Connor pulled me closer to him. He smiled and lightly kissed me.

     Anytime he touched me I had chill bumps race down my spine. He loved being close, and I had realized that as I was around him more. He handed me my phone, and we walked outside. Connor always loved to act very playfully, so a lot of the time he was being his cute self. He walked beside me as we walked down the path covered by trees.

“Connor, does Blake still play football?” I asked.

Connor looked curious as to why I was asking.

“No, he got kicked off the team last week because his grades were poor. Why do you ask?” he said.

I explained everything that had happened about Annie.

“I heard they were dating,” he said.

“I’m so sorry about that. He’s such a low-lying jerk,” I said.

Connor nodded his head in agreement.

“I don’t want her to be manipulated by his games,” I said.

“Yeah, seriously. Luke likes Annie, too,” Connor replied.

“Poor Luke. He is so nice, and I would hate to see him get hurt,” I said.

“Yeah, I couldn’t agree more,” Connor said.

 

——-

 

    It was only the next day when I finally discovered what was going on. I overheard Annie and Claire talking.

“Blake is my boyfriend, but he’s always looking at other girls. He loves me though, so I’ll have to put up with that I guess. It’s annoying that he’s not as popular as Connor though. Hopefully, I can hang out with Cara more because I’m sitting at the popular table now. Blake makes me feel special, but it’s not like the way Connor looks at Cara though. That smitten look that he has in his eyes as he talks to her is not what Blake does for me. I shouldn’t be comparing our relationships. I love Blake, and I can’t believe Cara doesn’t like him,” Annie said.

     I realized that she had changed into a mean girl after she started dating him. Why does she have the right to assume things about me? She has changed, and not for the better. Claire nodded and they walked down the hallway.

    I ran up to Connor and filled him in. Guys don’t follow girl drama, but he tried to understand. I guess Annie was right about one thing though, Connor did carry a smitten look in those brown eyes of his.

    After school, Bridget and I went over to the frozen yogurt shop. She also informed me that Blake had already made out with Annie. My face turned to a shade of green when I heard of these recent happenings. Sick green not a jealous green.  Luckily with Connor, I never had to worry about him wanting things I didn’t want to do, and quite frankly, Connor didn’t want those things either. Blake was completely opposite. He wanted to have sex with girls and use them for popularity purposes. He had no respect towards anyone, and he was more of a jerk than I thought. Bridget explained he had a bad history with a lot of the girls in our grade.

“That’s so foul,” I said.

“I agree,” she said.

“Well, we have to do something,” I said.

“We may just have to wait it out and see what happens,” she said.

“You’re right,” I said.