My Bad Boy's Diary

~Thirty-Nine~ crossroads

I was so upset, I didn't even eat my dinner.

My parents assumed that I was just upset about my punishment and so I didn't get asked what was wrong.

I just felt so stupid.

How could I have really thought that anything was going to change between Dalton and I? How naïve could I possibly be? Just because he had gone down on me and had made me orgasm didn't mean that I was special to him.

And just because I was falling in love with him didn't mean that he was going to respect me.

That night I refused to sleep in my room. I slept on the couch and turned off my phone so Dalton Patricelli couldn't torture me, at least until dawn.

###

I was determined to avoid Dalton as much as possible, which was difficult to do when you lived next door to the person and went to the same school together.

I kept my phone off and pretty much avoided everyone for the rest of the week.

My mom would drop me off and pick me up right outside the detention hall doors. I spent the rest of my time indoors and no, not even Samoane and Kensi were allowed to come over, not even to study.

I was so quiet and withdrawn that my mom finally took pity on me and took me out on Saturday afternoon to do one of our favorite weekend activities; book store and coffee shop hopping.

Not even that could cheer me up, though, and I kept fiddling with my dead phone, wondering how many missed texts I had from Dalton by now, if he had tried calling me. He hadn't contacted me on Facebook again and he hadn't come barging over, either. Maybe he was just done with me, maybe I wasn't actually avoiding him so much as he was avoiding me. Maybe if I turned my phone back on, I'd have no messages from him.

I was contemplating this horrifying thought, staring off into thin air as I held my dead phone, when someone came up to me on my left side.

"Well, well, we meet again."

I started and jerked my head to the side to see none other than the infamous Cole standing next to me.

He grinned down at my surprised reaction. "Brooklyn, right?"

"Yeah." I moved some of my hair off my temple with my pinky finger. It was a gesture I had learned from the movies. "What's up?"

He shrugged. "Just browsing for some guitar books. What about you?"

"Oh, I'm with my mom." I said, because I'm just so suave like that.

He smiled at me and in the sunlight streaming through the shop window, it was like I was seeing him for the first time.

Damn, he really was cute.

He was a bit shorter than Dalton and stockier, but there was something about them that reminded me of the other and it wasn't just their similar style of clothes; boots, jeans, band T-shirts, and leather jacket.

I realized I was staring at him creepily as I tended to do and lowered my eyes to my black high heeled shoes. I wore them when I was feeling low, heh, get it?

"Hey, I'm sorry about the other day with Dalton; I feel like I kinda caused you guys to have a tiff."

I glanced up at him again. "It's not your fault." I said sharply.