Love Me Badly

challenge accepted | seven

Kelliana picks at her salad with her fork, playing around with her food as everyone's loud chatter surrounded her.

"Hey, so I was thinking I should text Royce if he should come over to my house tonight. I've been teasing him for far too long now."

Kelliana rolled her eyes at Teighan's proud exposure of her slutty ways. She's never been the type to slut-shame, but she will if they were trying to take someone who was already taken. She loathed home-wreckers.

The girls at her table kept talking about boys and throwing parties, of course they invited Kelliana to all of them, but she couldn't engage much with the conversation as she let's her thoughts take over her mood.

Scanning the room for Gina who was once again asking for help from Mr Adara, she takes another peek at Dean who was sitting at his usual table with his friends. He seemed off today, she noticed.

She could tell that something was disturbing him as he wasn't eating his food that was right in front of him, and he had his fake smile on his face while his friends chat to him.

"So uh, Kells."

Kelliana turned her head towards Teighan who called out her name, raising a perfect eyebrow at her.

She saw Teighan visibly gulp but she tries to quickly mask her nervousness with a fake smile.

"Are you and Uriah a thing now?"

Everyone at the table was staring at her, eagerly waiting for her answer as if this has been digging at their minds for the past 10 minutes. She can tell they've been meaning to ask her this ever since they were seen together a few days ago in the courtyard. Word spreads around quick, especially when you're popular and the centre of a new, stirring "drama".

"No, we're not dating."

Kelliana responded vaguely, not giving them any more information since it was clearly none of their business. She resumed to picking at her salad while she could feel how disappointed the girls were at not getting any juicy details for them to go gossip to everyone about. She could lie to them and they will still believe her just because they didn't want to cause a fight with her.

Kelliana may be popular because she was rich, beautiful, smart and was the girl that everyone wanted to be, but she wasn't the good kind. She had to make a reputation of herself, which was hard to build but she did it. So she took being feared being better than being loved, because love puts you in a vulnerable situation. The only people who truly knew her was Gina and Dean, and now she's lost one of them.

She resumes to picking at her salad, her eyes glancing now and then to Dean who was still in a dazed mood. She could see the gear turning in his head.

What is he thinking about? Could he be thinking about-

"Hey, missy."

The familiar deep voice invades her thoughts as she suddenly felt soft lips, peck her on her right cheek.

She was dumbfounded at the sight of Uriah's amber eyes looking back at her, his lips tugged up in a slight grin.

"Wh-what", she sputters out, not fully comprehending the situation until Uriah's eyes subtly darted towards Dean's table. She almost jumped in her seat as she felt Uriah's hand go on her back, his finger tips slightly nudging her as a sign that she should go along with the flow.

She tore her eyes away from his face and saw Teighan and the girls gaping at the interaction between her and Uriah. She bit her tongue when she sees one of them subtly, yet not-so-subtly, trying to take a photo of them until she shot her a death glare that made her cower and put down her phone.