Falling in Love with my Best Friend

Chapter 12: Conflicts and Hidden Feelings

I ended up wandering around for a while. I told Lance I was going on a hike alone and that I had my cell just in case then I took a short trail away from camp, finding a tree log to rest on. I needed to collect the thoughts whirling around in my head. There were two things that were bugging me the most:

First. I needed to find a graceful way to make it clear to Matt that Catherine had feelings for him without unfairly exposing her. I wasn't sure how to bring up the topic without making him suspicious. There was no way to hint gracefully at the topic and still get through his block head about anything to do with romance.

Second... I had to figure out these new feelings I was having for Jake. Which I was less keen on analyzing. 

I spent a good while sitting on the tree stump, twirling a little buttercup flower between my index finger and thumb and studying the way the light hit the tiny bud. By the time I started thinking about heading back to camp the sun was glowing the color of honey, breaking through the tree branches and turning the leaves soft green. I hopped off the tree trunk and headed back down the trail to camp.

When I got in view of the fire pit I found that everyone was sitting around with chicken and beans on paper plates. Jake caught my eye as I was walking up and scooted over on his bench, motioning me to sit next to him. I couldn't help but notice Tracy on his other side.

I dished myself some dinner and then made my way over to Jake's bench.

"Hey," I mumbled as I sat down, picking up my chicken thigh and taking a bite.

"Hey, where have you been?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Went on a trail."

"By yourself?" he asked incredulously.

I felt irritation bubble inside of me. "Yes, by myself. I'm not a child." Anyways like you actually noticed I was gone since you were talking to blondie the whole time, I added in my mind.

"Still Stace, you should be more careful," he replied, sounding an awful lot like my father. "It would be more responsible to have someone come with you."

I ground my teeth together, glaring at the ground in front of the fire. "Excuse me, last time I checked you were not in charge of what I choose to do." I wanted to point out that it wasn't even dark out and that I told Lance where I was but I didn't because it wasn't his business regardless.

"Geez, Stace, I'm just trying to take care of you," he mumbled. 

I rolled my eyes. Yeah right, he'd always had control issues and there's a big difference between worrying about someone and feeling the need to treat them like a toddler. "Whatever," I mumbled, getting up and going to sit next to Matt. It was a childish move but I didn't really care at the moment. Jake rolled his eyes and turned to Tracy who had set her hand on his knee and leaned in to whisper something to him. I felt my nails dig into the palms of my hands and I angrily ripped my gaze from them.

"You doin' good Stace?" Matt asked me tentatively. 

"Sure," I grumbled, ripping into my chicken and glaring at the fire. 

"Do you want to talk?" he asked gently.

I shook my head. "Thanks Matt, it's nothing."

"Doesn't look like nothing..." he trailed off. "Lemme know if you need to talk."

I sighed. "Alright." I knew he was being reasonable and trying to help me out but I was too mad at Jake currently to try and find a solution. It was his fault anyway for treating me like I was so irresponsible, he should be the one trying to figure out what he did wrong.