Judged

Chapter 13

"Secrets I have held in my heart are harder to hide than I thought, maybe I just wanna be yours." -I Wanna Be Yours, Arctic Monkeys

Chapter Thirteen

Over the next week or so Declan was constantly at our house. Anything from watching sports with my dad in the living room, kicking around a soccer ball with the twins in the backyard, helping my mom cook dinner, or watching movies with me in my room, he was there.

He breathed a new sort of life into the house, making things that were normal to us seem interesting again. There wasn’t a single person in the house who didn’t enjoy having Declan around. Even Lally followed him all around the house, licking his face at every possible opportunity.

My parents never asked Declan why he wasn’t at home much, even though I’m certain they wondered about his home life. They probably figured that it wasn’t any of their business, and if he wanted to talk about it, he would. I’m more nosey though. Eventually I’d ask him about it.

Lately I was swamped with homework from the online classes I’d joined. I had a bit of catching up to do since I joined the classes so late. It didn’t bug me though, anything was better than going back to that hell hole and having to face Kayley, Gabby, Zach, and all of the others. I just finished today’s homework load, and started going through my cd and vinyl collection when Declan walked in.

“Hey,” Declan smiles.

“Eating all of our food again?” I tease.

“Very funny,” he narrows his eyes and I laugh, “Actually I had a great realization.”

“Which was?” He holds up my copy of The Wind Blows Backward that I found at Barnes and Noble when Declan and I first met. I gasp in surprise because I had forgotten entirely about our book deal. Of course I read the book he gave me, but I finished it a couple weeks ago.

“Oh my god! I completely forgot!” I exclaim, getting up from my spot on the floor and going over to the nightstand by my bed to grab I Am Number Four out of the drawer. I grab the book, and the slip cover which I had taken off, and hand them both to Declan. He hands me back my book and I toss it on my bed before going back to my original spot on the floor with all of my cd’s and records.

“Why’d you take the slip cover off?” He asks.

“I hate how it slides all over the place when I’m holding the book, and I like the feel of the hardcover underneath better.”

“And it makes a good bookmark,” he points out, coming to sit on the floor a few feet away from me.

“Exactly,” I agree.

“So what’d you think of it?”

“I liked it a lot. I think all the powers and stuff are super badass. I can’t wait to read the next one.” I accidentally knock over a stack of cd’s with my knee and quietly curse under my breath as I restack them.

“I have it, you can borrow it whenever. Who was your favorite character?” Declan asks while flicking through my bin of records.

“Definitely Sam. He’s the perfect best friend to John, ya know? And he’s dorky, which I like. I liked Henry too, I cried when he died.”

“Yeah, that was sad. Henry was a good dad to John.” I look up briefly and notice sadness on Declan’s face, but it’s fleeting.

“What’d you think of mine?” I ask.

“Horrible!” Declan shouts, causing me to jump and knock over the same stack of cd’s from earlier. He starts laughing and I throw a random disc at him.

“Nah, I’m just joking,” he explains. “Honestly, it was one of the best love stories I’ve ever read. I was surprised because I thought it would be this cheesy cliché, but it wasn’t. Spencer and Lauren were perfect together. And the way she stayed there for him after the motorcycle accident… It’s just a great book, overall.”

At this point my jaw was probably touching the floor, and my eyes might as well have fallen out of my head. Never had I expected Declan to like it so well, I thought he would’ve called it “predictable” or something. But he actually liked it.

“So it wasn’t lame?” I say with a smirk, remembering what he had said at Barnes and Noble.

“Definitely not lame.”

“Hey, do you want this?” I ask, holding up Infinity on High by Fall Out Boy. Declan wrinkles his nose up and takes it out of my hand, his fingers brush mine in the process, lighting my skin on fire.

“Is it that bad that you’re giving it away?” I practically gasp at the question.

“No! It’s an amazing album! I just have two copies of it. You’re telling me that you’ve never listened to it?”

“I’ve heard a couple of these songs,” He defends.

“It’s one of my most favorite albums, ever. You should listen to it when you have the time. Tracks 10-13 are my favorites.”

“Okay,” He agrees. “Your taste in books is good, we’ll see how your taste in music is.”

“In that case, take these too.” I push an albums by Arctic Monkeys and Modest Mouse into his hands.

“Arctic Monkeys? Never heard of them,” He murmurs.

“Yeah, I’m just going to pretend you didn’t say that,” I smile at him so he knows I’m kidding. “They have a new album out called AM, and I want it on vinyl so bad, but I can’t find it anywhere,” I pout.

“Christmas is what? A week away? You could put it on your Christmas list,” He suggests.

“I guess.” He starts to laugh, shaking his head as he looks through more of my music collection.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing,” He chuckles. “You’re something else, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you someday,” He answers simply. That statement alone sends my anxiety through the roof because I have no idea what he could possibly mean by ‘something else’ and the fact that he said he’d tell me ‘someday’ makes me wonder what will happen in the future between us. If we’ll become best friends, or eventually something more, or if he’ll leave me like everybody else, despite what he says now. 

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Short chapter, I'm sorry :(. I haven't updated in almost a month due to an overload of Spanish homework, so I wanted to put something up. Please tell me what you think in the comments, and vote if you liked it :) The next chapter will be longer, I promise. 

Also, if you haven't already, check out my other book Flowers & Bruises! ....If you want, that is. 

-ladyginger97