That Was Then

50-Now

Driving to school, I continue to mull over what Caleb said. I have given too much time and attention in my life to Kya. Whether it was being her friend or trying to avoid her torment. Even at Hotchkiss, I spent way too much time reminding myself not to think about her. And now? How is now any different? I'm still giving her too much of myself. 

By the time I arrive at school I'm feeling more than a little foolish for not realizing this myself. I send Petra a text No more Kya bullshit. Focusing on the positive... like school and Caleb. 

She responds almost immediately, I'm gonna need ALL the details ;)

Grinning, I step out of my car, nearly taking Caleb out with my door. "Shit! Sorry! I didn't see you there!"

"So then that smile wasn't for me?" He fake pouts. 

A teasing smile plays at my lips as I allow him to pull me into a hug, "jealous?" 

"Nah, you were probably just thinking about last night," he watches for the blush he knows will creep up my neck and color my cheeks and lets out a low, sexy chuckle when it does. I'm just about to correct him when he adds, "that or you got a text from Petra." I'm mildly irritated that he doesn't even have to glance in my direction to know that he's right. But there's a comfort there too. Caleb laces his fingers through mine and tugs me toward the school. 

As it turns out, it is much easier to ignore Kya than I had expected it to be. I have been entirely too focused on her but now that I've directed my attention elsewhere, I hardly even notice her gaze at lunch. With Caleb's hand resting high on my inner thigh it's hard to notice much of anything. He eats his pizza one handed with a lazy smirk on his face that tells me he knows exactly what he's doing to me. It crosses my mind that we've jumped entirely too quickly into the physical part of our relationship but I try to justify it with the idea that we are just making up for lost time. Except that we've got nothing but time, so what's the rush? And it does feel like there's a rush. I'd certainly like to rush Caleb out to the parking lot and show him how the seats fold down in the back of my Range Rover. 

"Earth to Blakely!" Allie leans across the table and snaps her fingers in front of my face. 

"Sorry, I was just spacing out... didn't get enough sleep last night." Caleb snorts next to me and I jab an elbow into his side. He lets out an 'oof' and Allie wriggles her eyebrows suggestively at me. 

"We were just talking about homecoming, do you have a dress yet?" 

"No, I wasn't even planning on going until yesterday," I tell her, which causes her and Tatum to gape at me as though I just told them I was dropping out of school to join the circus. I look to Eden to make sure that I'm not as crazy as they're making me out to be, she just shakes her head. 

"Why wouldn't you go?" Tatum demands. I suppose in their world, the world of a popular cheerleader, it is unheard of not to attend a school dance. 

Well, because at the last school dance I went to, your little friend over there made a very public grande finale of the hell that was my middle school years. Is what I want to say but instead I just shrug with barely a glimpse in Kya's direction. Caleb doesn't miss it though and squeezes my thigh.

"Well, you're going," Allie insists, shooting a look at Caleb who appears to only be focusing on his food. "With or without a hot date!" 

"Oh please," I roll my eyes. "He is not the reason I decided to go. I'm not that girl."

"You're definitely that girl!" Eden doesn't say it in a mean way and when they all laugh, it's not at me. I laugh with them. 

"Okay maybe," I side eye Caleb as he drops a pepperoni dripping stringy cheese into his open mouth, so sexy. "But can you blame me?!" Laughter erupts again and I try not to notice Kya's cold blue glare. I spend the next few days working hard not to notice Kya or Marley with their dirty looks and snarky comments. 

It occurs to me for at least the hundredth time how strange it is for kind and outgoing Allie to be such good friends with someone like Kya, surly and snotty. But they do seem close: walking arm in arm in the hallway, bent into each other sharing secrets and giggles, sharing clothing and shoes. They both have impossibly tiny feet. 

The dynamics of the entire group are so much more complex than just a bunch of people who have nothing more in common than being pretty, which is the perception I had when I was just a social media spectator. Eden and Allie have an unspeakable bond, communicating wordlessly courtesy their practically lifelong friendship. And while Tatum and Allie are basically attached at the hip, when you look a little closer Tatum is closer with Eden than anyone else. When they aren't out with everyone else on the weekends Tatum practically lives at Eden's house. 

While I find him totally annoying, Jackson is the kind of friend to the others that quickly surpasses friendship into being more like a brother, he'd do anything for his friends. Just last week he left class to jump Allie's car when her battery died. But I still don't like him. It's hard to look at him and not see red, specifically blood red like the blood that spewed from my nose like a faucet when he tied my laces together all those years ago and I bounced my face off of the ground. 

Aiden's older sister and Eden's older brother were high school sweethearts, they're practically in laws at this point and once upon a time their older siblings tried to set them up. It took about ten minutes into their "date" for them to realize that their relationship would never surpass the friendzone. Caleb confessed to me that Aiden actually used to have a crush on Kya a couple years back when she first started dating Seth. I try not to let this make me think less of him. Seth, Aiden and Caleb have played sports together since peewees and for guys I guess that's all it takes to forge a solid friendship. 

The only person I can't quite figure out is Marley. She never says anything to anyone except for Kya, and occasionally Seth. I think I saw her talk to Tatum all of one time. Allie says she's shy but that's not the word I would use for her. Shy people don't glare at you like they're plotting your death. 

To think that I ever had the chance to come in here and dismantle this tangled web of friendship, to turn them all against Kya and make her feel as alone as she made me feel, is almost laughable now. Especially since I have added myself to the fray and seen how tangible and deep their relationships go. I could not do that anymore than I could go back and change the past. Instead I'm focusing on the future: school, Caleb and my own place in this mismatched pack.