The Game of Hearts

29 // Count On Me

Chapter 29 - Count On Me

"If you ever find yourself lost in the dark and you can't see

I'll be the light to guide you

(...)

If you're tossing and you're turning

And you just can't fall asleep

I'll sing a song beside you

And if you ever forget how much you really mean to me

Everyday I will remind you

Oh

Find out what we're made of

When we are called to help our friends in need"

Christmas Holidays had come, and I couldn't wait to have a break from all the exams, the exhausting rowing practices and unfortunately, all the boys drama.

After Matthew confessed he was beginning to fall for me, in the weekend we had gone camping, I didn't know what to say so I just awkwardly smiled and he didn't seem to notice my discomfort. We managed to find our way back to the tents before the others returned, and because Dylan saw me and Matthew talking when he got back from practicing radical sports, he now thought Matthew was the guy I liked.

However, holding my hot chocolate mug in my hands, feeling its warmness in a local café, watching two love birds in the table next to me, it made me realize I didn't like neither of the guys. Not that they weren't attractive, because of course they were, though that didn't matter in love. And they had even showed to me a different side of them, a side that apparently I had brought up, because as they had said, I had changed them.

The problem was that I could never forget the circumstances in which it all began. Even if they were changed now and even if they were not the same players that they used to be, their initial intention was stupid and immature, and it was meant to hurt me. In my perspective, I could have never fallen for boys who wanted to hurt me in the first place, no matter how changed they could be now.

Maybe I just wasn't the forgiving type of person. But could they blame me for that?

I was sitting alone in the café because I needed to get out of my house and clear my thoughts. I couldn't stand any longer the yells from my younger cousins or the conversations between my aunts and uncles that had come to stay for Christmas, like they always did. My house was full of my younger and older relatives, but there was no one of my age so I always ended up getting bored and feeling kind of lonely.

However, Dylan's sister, Tracy, had returned from college for the Holidays too, and she was a good friend of mine, and now I was waiting for her. We had talked since she had come but she had noticed something was going on with me so she wanted to talk to me in a calmer place.

Dylan and Rayla had gone to some kind of date, he was too nervous to explain it to me. It was rather cute to seem him so nervous. Ellie was still fancying Aiden, and I felt guilty whenever he was brought to the conversation because she didn't know anything about the bet or about Aiden kissing me. It was better that way, I kept telling myself, but it was getting harder and harder to convince me of that.

"Hello, girl." Tracy entered the café, wearing a simple and pink dress and sat on the chair across from mine. Tracy was a beautiful young woman with the same dirty blonde hair as Dylan, but instead of bluish-grey eyes she had green ones. She was dressed with a simple and pink dress.