Fated to Hate You

Chapter 23: You're scaring her

"I think Stephen is seeing someone."

To say I was shocked by this would be an understatement. I was absolutely floored by this. He never keeps any secrets from us, so why is he suddenly hiding something like this? All his past girlfriends he's told us about in great detail, sometimes too much detail.

I shuddered at the memory.

I was upset that he hasn't told us. We're his best friends and we're supposed to tell each other everything. I wonder why he's choosing to keep this a secret.

"How did you figure this out?" I asked. I hadn't picked up on any clues and he's been acting like he always does, well, except for today of course.

Or maybe I hadn't picked up on any clues because I was an unobservant friend who didn't truly care about her best friends.

Kidding! I would do anything for them, including murder. But don't tell my parents I said that, my mother scares me when she gets angry.

"Well, when I walked up behind him, I saw him texting someone that had a heart emoji next to the name, and when he saw me, he turned his phone off so I couldn't see who it is. Also, when I was buying a shirt at the Halloween Festival Saturday, I saw him buying a couple's set of drinks from a smoothie booth."

"And you know damn well he wouldn't be able to drink 2 smoothies by himself. That guy has the smallest stomach ever."

Huh, weird. Sophia was right. Anytime we'd gone out to eat, it was always us two that ate the most food. Stephen was like one of those weird professional ballerinas who only ate a granola bar a day and drank like 5 gallons of water a day.

That dude could barely finish an entire meal, but maybe that was because our portion sizes were too big, but that's besides the point. Back to the situation at hand.

"But why wouldn't he tell us? He knows we would support him in whatever he does, and that includes whoever he dates."

Sophia looked conflicted. I don't blame her, I was too. "That's what I'm confused about to. But at the same time, if he hasn't told us there has to be a reason for it. Maybe he's not ready to tell us because everything is too new and he doesn't want to ruin it. Maybe he's actually very serious about this girl and doesn't want to risk ruining anything by telling us too soon. We can be a little intimidating at first."

I nodded my head.

"Maybe," I mumbled. This was all very weird. Even if he was afraid of ruining the relationship, we would always be here to back him up, he knows that. "For now, I saw we wait and see if he comes clean by himself. If he doesn't within the next 2 days, I say we corner him and ask about it."

"Sounds like a plan. Alright, I got to get to class now or else I'm going to be late, I'll see you later!" I waved goodbye and rushed off to my next class.

I tried to keep my mind off of it for the rest of the day, but it was hard. Stephen was my best friend and I trust him to tell me what's going on when he's ready, but at the same time we're best friends, and he should know that he can tell me anything.

During all my classes, I kept spacing out thinking about it. I'm pretty sure I failed a quiz in one of my classes because I was so distracted. I don't even remember what class the quiz was in. Parker also tried to talk to me in history, but I didn't notice.

He must've realized something was off with me, because he didn't bother me again, something I was grateful for.

Once school ended, I shoved all my papers in my bag haphazardly and raced out of the room so I could catch up with Sophia before I went over to Parker's house to work on the project.