The Outlaws

eighteen.

Picture: Diego Barrueco as my other option for Daniel Parker

A little more swearing in this chapter. Sorry if it offends you, but do remember that they are teenagers and most teenagers swear a lot.

ALEXIS

"So," a voice really close to me murmurs suddenly, making me jump.

I was walking by myself in the hallway to class, not expecting anyone to sneak up on me.

I turn my head to see who it is.

"Damn it, Ise," I mutter. "I nearly got a heart attack."

"Sorry, Lex," he laughs. More seriously, he continues. "I wanted to talk to you."

There's a moment of silence until I realise he's waiting for me to say something.

"Um... About?"

He puts his arm around my shoulders and speaks in a low voice.

"Well, I heard that you and the Jock are back together."

"Not exactly... We were never together. We were just simply seeing each other, I guess?" I inform him, uncomfortably.

I'm not one to openly speak about my love life.

He looks down at me. "Wait, he was never your boyfriend?"

I raise my eyebrows. "You sound surprised."

"A little. I mean, you were dating him for like, what, three months?"

"More or less," I nod. "But no, he was never my boyfriend."

"And why is that?"

My eyebrows furrow at his sudden interest in my relationship with Jeremy.

"Um, for me-and probably most people?-there are kind of different levels of trust," I tell him. "Like, if you're my friend or my best friend, and if you're someone I'm just dating or my boyfriend. You have to really gain my trust to become the latter, you know? And I'm trying not to trust people so easily."

He nods in understanding. "Yeah, I get you. So you never really trusted Jeremy?"

We arrive outside my class.

"I trusted him as a really great friend, and then as someone I was dating. But not enough for him to become my boyfriend. Besides, it never came up between us and he never asked me to be his girlfriend," I shrug. "Oh, and plus, there was that night which made my trust in him break."

"Right, of course..." he mumbles, distracted.

"Why are you asking all of this anyway?"

"I just wanted to know-where does your trust in all of us stand?"

"I trust Kay and Chris the most, as best friends. They've both shared many personal experiences with me, and I did the same," I say. "And now that I think about it, apart from those two, I hardly talk to you guys. But I'm not really great with new people."

He grins. "Guess we'll have to work on that."

***

CHRISTIAN

"Hey," Alexis greets me when she finds me at my car after school.

"Hey," I reply, forcing a smile but failing. "How was... School?"

I suppress the urge to roll my eyes at myself.

Nice try acting normal, dumbass.

She frowns, probably noticing my strange behaviour.