Chapter 18: Confusion, Part 2

It took me long seconds to answer. "No, um, Valerie and Owen are about to come." I said, looking down.

Concentrate on the floor, just look at the floor.

"You had me worried the other day," he said in a low voice.

I looked at him wide-eyed. His face was surprisingly honest. "Why?" I wondered, confused. The idea of him being concerned over me was unreal.

"Hey, precious." A pretty brunette slid to Tristan's side out of the blue.

Precious? Who does she think she is? Gollum?

"Eat with me?" She stepped closer to him, almost snuggling.

"My friends are waiting." He gave her a small smile and stepped away from her.

"I could go with you." She closed the distance again.

"That wouldn't be a good idea," he said as politely as he could and stepped away once more.

I stared at the scene, motionless.

She dropped her hands to her hips with a sad pout. "Even if you keep on turning me down, I won't give up on you. You know that, right?"

He gave her another polite smile.

"That's what I thought." She blew him a kiss and left, giving me an ugly onceover on the way.

I looked down feeling uncomfortable and...angry.

"Sorry about that," Tristan said.

"What, um, why were you worried?" I asked, picturing that brunette, Gollum wannabe slipping on a banana peel. Actually, on a lot of banana peels, with a full crowd of monkeys watching her.

"Hmm?"

"You said you were worried the other day." I looked at him. "What, are you so distracted you forgot?"

He frowned, contorting his face in confusion.

"You know what? It's okay. I don't care. I'm starving, and you're stepping out of your boundaries, so let's leave it at that."He opened his mouth to speak but I cut in first. "And you should know that I don't like liars. Good bye." I walked away.

Several girls were gawking, waves of surprise and bewilderment sweeping over them-jealousy clearly thickening those feelings. And it seemed one particular person was sucking those feelings in. Dean.

"Kal, come sit over here!" he called out.

The table was full of Warriors and babbling girls, leaving just three seats at the end. I sat next to Dean and without blinking once, grabbed his pizza and sank my teeth into it. He was a little surprised by my fierce action, but let it go with a smile. And I was grateful for that. I wasn't in the mood to wait in the line.

One of the girls aimed her eyes on me. A Barbie type blonde. She looked like the typical cruel, popular girl that liked to scoff at everyone. "Hey, are you friends with Tristan?" she asked. Two other girls stared, waiting for my answer.

"No."

"It seemed like it. He never chats with anyone unless someone talks with him first," she said scornfully. "Except for you, apparently-and our girl Chloe, of course. But that's understandable."

Something told me I'd gained more female enemies. "Well, I'm not part of those exceptions, believe me," I told her.

"That's what I thought." She raised one thin eyebrow and turned to the other girls.

"They're just jealous," Dean whispered next to my ear.

"That's really stupid."

"Not so much," he said, glaring crosswise.

I followed his gaze and saw Tristan looking at me from his table. He was ignoring the same girls that'd been flirting with Elan and Mingan-who were now directing all their female glamour on him-and the twins seemed amused by the switch of attention. Me? Not so much. I felt...I don't know how I felt.

"What's up guys?" Owen suddenly said, settling down in front of me. He bit a slice of pizza. "You-ook-seous." He chewed his words along with his food.

"We're fine," I said before Dean would start giving out his judgments. "What were you up to?" I looked at Valerie.

"Planning Dean's farewell party with Heidi, remember?" She accused me with her eyes.

Farewell? "Yeah, of course I remember," I lied, taking a sip of pink lemonade.

"This Friday at Heidi's house. Her parents will be gone for the weekend," she said, laying a red flyer on the table.

"I can't believe I'm leaving," Dean said with a shake of his head. "I'll miss this place. And all of you." He turned to look at me. That odd spark in his eyes glistening wistfully.

I lowered my eyes. I felt awful. How could I have forgotten Dean's leaving? What kind of person was I? He'd told us first thing in the morning about his dad's transfer to Houston. Mr. Connor's bosses needed him in Texas as soon as possible. They were leaving in one week. It'd been a shock to everybody-including me. I hadn't forgotten about it because I didn't care. I did care for Dean. A lot. But my head had been so full of buzzing thoughts that I'd gotten lost in them.

It made me sad to watch him go that fast. Half of the fire between Chloe and me was going to be plunged in water, but it wasn't worth the price. I was going to miss Dean.

"Hey, there's always a bright side to everything, right?" Owen said to all of us when the mood plummeted. "It's been a long time since we had a party-and my forecasting abilities tell me this one is a party nobody would want to miss. It's going to be freaking awesome, man."

Dean looked at him with a smile. "Yeah, at least something good came out of this."

"Oh, yeah. We were in great need of a party," Valerie said, clasping her hands together.

I understood their excitement. I didn't share it, but I understood it. I wasn't a party girl. All the drinking and blasting music and flirting wasn't for me. Reading books and watching movies were. There was nothing that excited me more than that. I'd never understood why some people liked to throw parties whenever their parents left the house. Doing that wouldn't even cross my mind for the slightest second. But then again, I had the mind of an eighty year old.

I was only going because of Dean. Though the day they'd chosen didn't quite suit me-it was actually my birthday, but there was no need to tell them that-I was going to drag my feet to that house and try to enjoy the torture.

Yeah. Sometimes having friends was a royal pain in the neck.

"Oh, by the way, didn't you hear about Laura?" Valerie lowered her voice. She always did that whenever some gossip was on its way. "Apparently, she ran away from home."

"Well, that's certainly not a shocker," Owen snorted. "Everyone knows how bad the situation in her house was."

"Bad situation?" I asked.

"She didn't get along with her parents," Dean explained. "It was only a matter of time."

"Yeah, but the weird thing is she didn't pack her bags or anything. No money, no credit card, nothing. She left...just like that." Valerie said, snapping her fingers.

"Whoa, she must've been pretty desperate." Owen arched his eyebrows.

Leaving with no money and clothes? How weird. "Maybe someone helped her to get away," I said.

"Who knows?" Valerie shrugged.

All my muscles ached from running at gym class. Every motion made me groan, especially when I sat down. Besides acting and thinking sometimes like an old person, now I was actually feeling like one. I opened my laptop to start working on some college applications that night, but checked my email first. A new message from Steve popped out.

"Whazzup Kal?" He wrote...

Finally some smoke signals. I was getting a bit worried. I thought you've forgotten me or something.

So you liked tubing, huh? That's new. Maybe you're starting to like speed, and if that's the case, then hell, I can't wait for the day you'll drive me around. I wouldn't mind to drive you around like in the old times, though.

And who's this miracle guy that convinced you? A new fan?

I hope someday I can pay you a visit. It would be great...more than great.

Gotta go.

Steve.

It looked like everything was back to normal with him. Reading his words was like grasping a big gulp of fresh air. I realized how much I needed him. I loved to spend time with Valerie and Owen, and even Dean, but Steve had been my best friend for ages. What I had with him was unrivaled.

I wrote him back.

Of course I haven't forgotten you. It just took me sometime to open my email, that's all.

About the driving-you-around thing, I think you need to let go of your hopes. I'm not planning to drive soon, so we'll stick to the old times, if you don't mind.

And the miracle guy (not a fan...okay maybe a fan) is Dean. He's a really nice guy. But don't give him all the credit, apparently being in a small town pushes you to do things you wouldn't expect.

It would be really great if you were here. I miss our movie nights.

See ya.

Kalista.

I closed my eyes, stretched my neck muscles and began to work on my future.

"So you're planning on going to one of those three colleges?" Valerie asked me while waiting for Mr. Wilson to come.

"Yeah, good thing my dad's creativity is well paid. They're really expensive." I looked at Owen who was completely hooked in chatter with some other guy. "Are you both going to the University of Albuquerque?"

She nodded with a smile. "We can't stay away from each other, even if he's a pain in the ass most of the time." She watched him make bouncy expressions with his hands.

I smiled. "You're really lucky."

"What about you, Mrs. Tristan Winfield?" She turned to look at me.

"Ugh. It's not like that, Valerie."

"How do you know that?"

"It's obvious."

"Well, it's not that obvious to me-and other people," she added.

"What people?"

"Owen...Dean...me..." she counted with her fingers, "a lot of girls..." tripling the counting, "and that's it. But that's way more than enough."

People really liked to gossip around here. "First, Owen follows everything you say, and secondly, Dean is an idiot."

"Can you blame him? He's jealous. Who wouldn't be with such competition?"

"Competition?" I hissed. "There's no competition at all. I already told you, I don't want anything more than a friendship with Dean, so he shouldn't care about anything else beyond that. Besides, I repeat, there's no competition. You need a rival to compete and Tristan is definitely not that."

"Whatever," Valerie whispered under her breath as Mr. Wilson strode in the room.

I turned back into my seat, clenched my pencil and started doodling on a piece of paper, pressing the pencil so hard that it shredded the page at the end. I dropped it and tried not to think about all that nonsense. But my mind was running happily with my thoughts, causing a familiar turmoil inside of me.