Paintings Of Him

Chapter 5 - Ambiguous

Three weeks had passed since Corbin had kissed me and I had been ignoring him ever since. I would hide out whenever he came around, which was a rare occasion. I often heard my brother calling him up to ask where he was, only to be struck with an excuse that had him moping around the house bored. I think Corbin understood that I didn't want to see him.

Lois had been keeping me company like a good best friend with as many gory horror movie that she could grab from the rental store, thinking that I would want to stray from my typical romantic fairytale movies. She was right.

But one day she turned up in a full face of professionally-done makeup with a bag of clothes in her hand, I immediately knew what she was going to be force me into.

"Not today, thanks" I smiled sweetly before going to slam the door in her face. She put her white converse clad shoe in the way making me groan. "Lois, I'm serious. Not in the mood."

"You're never in the mood to party" she stated before dragging me upstairs into my bedroom where she proceeded to rustle through some clothes in the bag that looked like they still had the tags on. "However, I spent last month's payslip at my shitty job to buy you some potential outfits...that fit me too obviously just in case."

"Lo...you really don't have to-"

"Nonsense" she grinned. "I should be thanking you for moping around to give me an excuse to go shopping! I even got the sales assistant's number, his name is Craig and he is twenty one!"

"What about the hot new teacher that had caught your attention?" I teased with a smirk watching her face fall slightly before she easily ignored my question.

"Anyways, I found myself the perfect outfit for the party we are going to tonight, and it was on sale! Isn't it cute?" she wriggled her eyebrows and did a twirl in the new denim skirt and long-sleeved black mesh top that was covered in pink flowers.

"Really cute" I smiled before backtracking. "Wait, what party?"

She smirked and chucked me the bag of clothes. "The party that we are going to find you an outfit for! Now, how about the dark green dress? That's conservative enough for you!"

"I'm not that much of a prude" I muttered before holding it up, nodding absentmindedly. "Okay, fine. Did you at least get me a jacket?"

"You read my mind" she sighed happily before giving me a floral denim jacket to go over the dress. "Now hurry up, I heard that lots of cute boys will be there!"

...

After turning up at the party it took specifically ten seconds for Lois to lie about needing to use the bathroom after pushing me into a pile of boys. One of the boys caught my elbow, a lanky character with dyed blue hair and a bottle of beer in his hand.

"You alright there?" he asked with a laugh as he steadied me. "Had too much to drink already?"

"Not enough" I mumbled under my breath making him grin and outstretch a pale hand covered in striking blue veins.

"That's the spirit! I'm Marcus, just in case you were wondering. You're Clara Page."

"Yeah" I smiled back weakly. "Jordan's twin sister."

"Jordan?" he searched my eyes and looked genuinely confused. "Jordan who?"

"Jordan Page. Deputy football captain?" I frowned.

He smiled. "Oh yeah. I think he was in my gym class one time, helped me up after I fell on my ass. Sport isn't exactly my forte."

"Not mine either" I giggled and then furrowed my eyebrows. "Sorry...I guess I'm just so used to everyone knowing who Jordan is instead of knowing who I am."

"I've seen you around. Don't you usually win the science competitions or something? Something about a robot that could play classical music?" he asked.

"Disney songs. It could play Disney songs" a gruff voice came from behind me and I didn't have to turn around to know who it belonged to. The heat from his body behind mine was enough to set my nerves on edge and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

"Oh..right" Marcus nodded awkwardly and then glanced at me. "You're Corbin, right?"

"Yeah."

"Cool."

"Yeah."

"Well this is a little awkward.." Marcus muttered under his breath making me laugh slightly to avoid turning around. "Anyways, it was great to meet you again, Clara Page. You up for a game of spin the bottle that everyone is planning?"

"She's actually-"

"Yeah that sounds cool" I interrupted with a soft smile. "Lead the way."

A while later I was sat next to Lois who had miraculously returned with lipstick smeared around her face which she was fixing, in a circle ready to start the most dreaded game of my existence. I had a habit of agreeing to things before thinking of the consequences. Thankfully Corbin had disappeared, leaving Lois and I to finally have some fun without him unnecessarily interrupting.

"Right" Marcus ruffled his colourful hair after introducing strangers to everyone, despite knowing that most people would not even remember how they got home. "Who is going to start?"

The game began with random people making out for way longer than was appropriate, Lois squealing and cheering everyone on. I was surprised that she had opted to watch rather than to join in for once.

Marcus seemed to be loving all of the attention after nearly every spin had landed on him, probably on purpose. Covered in different lipstick colours, he was beaming like a typical hormonal teenage boy and winked at me every two seconds. I had a feeling that we would be good friends.

"Right...Clara! You're up!"

Lois screamed in delight beside me making me slap her arm quickly. Starting to feel sick, I watched the bottle twist in what seemed like slow motion, everyone making sounds of suspense and wolf-whistling. Was it that obvious how little experience I had?

The bottle finally stopped on someone that had been briefly introduced earlier on, a tall blonde with caramel eyes called Adam. Freckles dusted his cheeks and his eyelashes were unfairly long as he blinked at me slowly, eventually shrugging as if to leave the decision up to me.

Deciding to take a deep breath and stop being a wimp, I nodded twice and proceeded to walk over to him quickly before leaning down. He placed a hand on my neck, pulling me in slowly and I could still hear everyone drum rolling in the distance whilst I was just ready for the kiss to be over with. Closing my eyes tightly and hesitating, I prepared myself for what was about to happen.

Just as our lips were about to touch, I was tugged backwards and pushed into the chest of the last person I wanted to see.

Corbin looked at everyone but me before breathing out a sigh of relief and dragging me away from the circle. I shoved him off me and tilted my head in confusion.

"What? Am I not allowed to have fun anymore?"

"Just wanted to save your ass. Jordan was watching and looked about two seconds away from punching that blonde guy" Corbin rolled his eyes whilst keeping a hand on my shoulder.

"Oh."

His expression softened slightly. "Clara-"

"We should get going then, I'll go and find Jordan and calm him down."

He sighed but reluctantly let go of my arm and let me go.

I wasn't ready to have another conversation where he explained to me why nothing would ever happen between us. For a second in my life, I wanted to think about something other than wanting someone who would never want me in return.