Twelve Days of Christmas

4 Calling Birds

A/N. There's a lot more angst creeping its way into this story than I intended!!  I hope you don't mind, but they're just such a dramatic bunch!

Luca

I really wished this was all over.   A very beautiful girl was sat next to me, flirting wildly, and I couldn't even bring myself to smile at her.

Ben arrived about half an hour ago and had deliberately gone to the opposite side of the canteen from me, and now he was sat talking to James.  He was smiling and laughing with James like he didn't have a care in the world.

If I had the energy, I would do the same.   Maybe make him jealous.   But I just couldn't be bothered.  What was the point in playing games with someone I could never have.  I had decided that I would be civil to him but nothing more.  It would have been nice to stay friends, but I think I'd taken away that option yesterday.

I hated myself for what I did.  I knew I couldn't be in a relationship, and I also knew that Ben would be the kind of guy who would want the whole package.  But whenever I was around him, for some reason I couldn't think straight, and I just wanted, no needed, to be closer to him.

I would never have guessed that he already had a boyfriend though.   At first I was angry because he flirted with me and lead me on.  But when I thought back over it last night, I realised that it was me who did all the flirting.   Sure, he never pushed me away or told me to back off, but the bottom line was it was me coming on to him.

The girl who had been talking to me had clearly lost interest due to my lack of response, and was now talking to another girl sat next to her.   So I took the opportunity to put my head down on the table in front of me and close my eyes.  Maybe if I kept my eyes shut, no one else would talk to me.

I felt like it was only seconds later, but maybe I had dozed off, because when I felt a movement opposite me and opened my eyes, the girls had gone and Marvin was sat in their place.

"What do you want?" I grumbled.

I was still angry for him for lying about Ben being straight.   I'm still not sure why he did that. When I confronted him, I guess I did let my anger get in the way a bit and instead of hearing him out, I just called him every bad name under the sun.  Then when I'd calmed down and asked him why he did it, he said he wouldn't talk about it again until I'd apologised for what I said.

Me being me, I refused to apologise, and I'd not really spoken to him since.

"What happened with you and Ben?" he asked. Straight to the point as always.

"Nothing," I replied, putting my head back down and closing my eyes in the hope that he'd go away.

He sat in silence for a while, and I thought it had worked before he said,

"Fine, if you won't tell me, I'll go and ask Ben."

He then stood up to go, so I quickly sat up and grabbed hold of his arm.

"Please don't?" I said pleadingly.

"Ok," he said, sitting back down, "as long as you tell me what happened."

I sighed, knowing that there was no way I was going to get out of this one.

"Fine.   I tried to kiss him.  He stopped me and told me he had a boyfriend.  I told him that it didn't matter because it wasn't like I was looking for a relationship. Then he got mad and drove off.  That's it.  End of."

I stared down at my hands.  It was the same feeling I had as a child when I told my parents I'd broken something.

Marvin groaned in frustration. "How did I know you'd mess this up."