Chapter 4: In Which They're Finally Honest

1:23 PM

Jordan and I sat in silence, as we had done for the last half hour. His words echoed in my mind.
"But she broke mine first." What did he mean by that? The way Lizzy had described things, Jordan had been the one to break things off, leaving her behind in the dust, and me to gather the pieces. She had never said said anything about hurting him.
"You don't believe me, do you." Jordan blurted out, the first words he had spoken since our arguement. I turn to him, quirking a tiny smile.
"I-I'm not quite sure what to believe." I admit, and he nods.
"I wouldn't either," he mumbled, "You two are best friends right?" I nod. "That explains it then."
"Its just...I mean, she told me that you were the one who broke up with her." I say, watching his face carefully. His expression remained impassive.
"I did break up with her," he says, "I'm not denying that. But she's the reason why I did it. It's not like I met someone and that's why I broke up with her, ok?" He gives me a look. "And I know you won't believe me Gels, but I'm not a total asshole." I give a small laugh and Jordan cracks a tiny smile.
"Well, you act like one," I state, tilting my head to the side.
"Because that's what I want people to see."
"Yeah, but mentioning Ajax?" I say, shaking my head. "That's low...I mean, you don't even know me too well Jordan." He sighs.
"Yeah I'm sorry about that," he begins, and I look at him surprised. From my understanding, Jordan was not one to apologize. "It's just, well I knew it was a sensitive spot for you, and you really hurt my ego," he explains. "My acne...it's a sensitive topic...it's all some people ever seem to notice about me." Immediately I feel guilty for bringing it up earlier. I place a hand on his shoulder, and he turns to look at me, evidently surprised by the contact.
"I'm sorry about bringing it up..."I mutter, patting his shoulder. "I didn't realize it was a sensitive topic."
"It's ok."he mumbles.
"Well, if it helps, I actually think you're a 7.6" I admit, and he smiles.
"7.6?" he chuckles. "You're just saying that to make me feel better." I roll my eyes. Of course when I try to compliment him, he doesn't believe me.
"Yeah, honest!" I confessed, and he shakes his head.
"Nah." he scoffs.
"No you're pretty cute, especially when you smile, you know." I say, and Jordan starts to smile at me.
"Really?" he teased, raising an eyebrow. "I'm cute when I smile?" He points his thumb and places it under his chin. "Huh, just like this?" He asks. I laugh, and smack his arm.
"Don't you dare use that against me ok!" I laugh. I was glad that things seemed to be pretty light again. And that Jordan seemed to be acting better than normal for once. But we were getting away from the topic I originally wanted to talk about.
"No promises," he teases. We laugh for a while before we finally regain our composure.
"But...Jordan...what did happen between you and Lizzy?" I question. Jordan sighs.
"You're never going to drop it if I don't tell you, will you." he mutters. I shake my head. "It's less complicated than you think it is."
"Well then, it won't take too long to tell me." I say.
"Someone...some girl told me that she was just using me." he confesses, and I suck in a breath. "That she just wanted a boyfriend."
"That isn't true!" I exclaimed. "She really liked you, I mean the summer you first got together, she wouldn't stop raving about you!" I argued, and he looked at me with a sad expression.
"I knew that Gels. I was her best friend before we were ever in a relationship, so I already knew that." I stay silent, watching him fiddle with his fingers. "But it made me start thinking, you know. It made me really think about our relationship. And, I mean, you never went to our school, so you wouldn't know, but I was always the one who initated the conversations. I was always the first one to say something, always the first one to show affection. She told you, right, I was the one who said I liked her first? Who asked her out on the last day of school with a whole damn bouquet and everything?" Jordan's voice cracks as he explains this, and what he says makes me think. Lizzy did tell me that Jordan had been the first to ever say anything about his feelings.
"But was that the only reason you broke up with her? You didn't give her a chance to explain, or a chance for you two to make it right?" I ask and he shakes his head.
"No, I tried Angelica! Believe me, I tried!" he yells. " I told her how I felt...but she...she never did anything. I put up the happy front. But on the inside, I was dying, always dying. I gave her a chance, I wanted us to talk about it, for her to say something! But...she never tried with me. And when I ignored her because I was upset, I felt like the biggest jackass in the world. I thought if I stayed quiet, maybe she'd approach me and talk about it..."
"But she didn't" I concluded, and Jordan nodded.
"She didn't do a single thing. Lizzy completed ignored everything I said, and she continued on like nothing had ever happened, like I had never said anything. And...it broke me." he confessed. I bit my lip as I watched him explain, brutally honest about what had happened. And he was hurting, that was obvious. He looked up at me, eyes filled with an emotion I had never seen before . Or maybe, it was an emotion I chose not to see. "That's why I did it. That's why I ended it. As much as it hurt...I knew it was for the best."
"Oh God, Jordan, I...I'm sorry, I didn't know...she never told me-" I began, and Jordan shakes his head.
"It's...ok Angelica."he reassures me. "I'm the only one here who should be feeling sorry." He joked.
"Yeah, its just I can't believe that Lizzy never told me." I mutter.
"She saw it from her own perspective, I guess." he remarked, and I shake my head.
"You're defending her."
"She's still my friend Gels."
"And she's mine, but she never told me about this."
"So what, does it totally ruin the friendship?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at me. I falter, running a hand thorugh my hair.
"I...I mean no...she's one of my best friends. But...it does put some things into question."
"You barely know me Angelica. For all you know, I could be lying." I give him a look, and raise an eyebrow.
"Well, I don't think you are." I stare at him for a few moments in silence. He gives me a tiny smile as he runs a hand through his hair.
"Don't feel sorry for me," he says, and I scoff at him. "Don't deny it, I can see it in your face." I roll my eyes. Was I really that easy to read?
"Well at least you have a love life." I confess, and Jordan's expression immediately lightens up a little. "I haven't had a mutual crush in forever."
"What about Ajax though?" he asks. I turn and glare daggers at Jordan. "Sorry..." he mutters, and I roll my eyes.
"No...i-it's fine." I finally make out. He raises an eyebrow.
"Are you sure? I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." he stammers, looking at me reassuringly. I let out a shaky breath.
"You...told me about Lizzy...I think it's ok if I tell you about Ajax then." He nods slowly. " But you better not tell anyone!" I warn, and he let's out a small smile.
"As long as you don't say anything about Lizzy."
"Ok, deal."
"Ok." I bite my lip and stare at him for a moment. I had no idea why I was about to tell him about me and Ajax. It was just...for some reason I felt I could trust him. Jordan quirks a smile, and then...I don't know what happened, but butterflies erupted in my stomach. "Well," he says expectantly, "Are you gonna tell me or what?" I shake my head, clearing my thoughts. What on earth was I thinking? I pushed down the strange fluttery feeling in my stomach and cleared my throat.
"Um...yeah, well you could say it started in sixth grade..." I begin.
Jordan nods his head, smiling at me reassuringly. I clear my those, pushing up my glasses, still not entirely sure why I was telling him everything. But when he looked at me like that? Everything in the elevator came in to focus.

And my heart began to race.

"I first came to 6th grade, shy and unsure about myself...then I met Ajax. Confident and smart-"
"And cute?" Jordan cuts in, and I glare at him. "You must have found him cute, right?"
"Well...let's just say I didn't think he was a 6.7 when I met him..." I admit.
Jordan cackles, and I roll my eyes at him before I continue.
"But yeah...we immediately became friends. He was the first guy I had actually been pretty close friends with. And Ajax...he was different. We challenged each other in different ways. He was just as smart as I was, and incredibly fast when he solved math problems...he was even faster than me, which infuriated me. Ajax was sweet too, and talked to me outside of class, about different things. We ate lunches together, we played card games, we listened to music..."
I pause for a moment, thinking about Ajax. I realized my eyes had clouded over, and I turned to Jordan. He was looking at me differently, a soft expression on his face. As I continued with my story, I looked him directly in the eye.
"I...I really liked him, you know. I felt different about him, he was the first guy who I liked who I had felt that intensely about. And then, when he told me he liked me too? I...I became absolutely smitten with him."
I let out a shaky breath, and cast my eyes downward. I didn't really like thinking about him. It had taken me months for me to stop moping about him, to stop hating him.
"Wait, but how'd you guys start dating?And-" Jordan stops midway when I look back at him. "Sorry." he mumbles.
"He...um...he asked me out near the end of sixth grade. Of course, I said yes, and yeah...he was my first boyfriend. We went out for about...um, a year and nine months. I was happy, you know? And I thought we were happy. The only thing that was really sort of a problem was that...I got into Trinity-"
"And he didn't." Jordan finishes for me. I nod my head and he sucks in a breath. "Oh."
"I was going to go to Trinity no matter what, it had been my dream since I'm not even sure how long. And Ajax...well, we argued about it. A few times. At one point we even stopped talking, and everyone thought we had broken up. And we had been dating since sixth grade, so everyone was talking about it, and the rumors about us splitting up scared me. Because while we hadn't really said it, maybe, that's what we were right then, and I didn't want that. I still cared about him. So I went to try and find him, talk to him about it, say that we could work long distance and he could reapply, but the day I tried finding him, talking to him...that was the day I saw him with another girl...and I saw him kiss her."
"No..." Jordan, breathes and his eyes spark with a different light to them. "I'm so sorry Angelica..."
"Yeah....no it's ok...that was months ago..." I whispered. It really was. I had learned to get over it, though it had taken me a long time.
"But you're obviously still hurting!" Jordan interrupted, and I shake my head.
"I'm fine." He shakes his head.
"No you're not." He stated, and suddenly his arms were wrapped around me in a giant hug. I blinked, surprised by the contact, and my arms hung limply at my sides for a moment, before slowly, I wrapped them around Jordan. And there were those damn butterflies again...
"I'm ok..." I whisper softly, but his arms never loosen.
"No one deserves to be hurt like that." I smile a little, and I wiggle away from his grip. Reluctantly, he lets me out of the hug, but he still keeps me close to him.
"It's not the worst thing to happen to a person." I point out, "I'm pretty sure people have gone through worse heartbreaks than mine." Jordan shakes his head and moves his hands to my shoulders.
"That still doesn't make what he did any better" I smile at him.
"Careful, Jordan," I tease, and he quirks his head to the side. "Keep acting like that, and no one will think you're an immature ass anymore." He laughs.
"Only the people who don't matter to me think that." Then, we are quiet, as we stare at each other in silence for a while. We're still really close to each other, my arms around his, and his hands on my shoulders. I stare into his eyes, always covered by those damn glasses of his, but yet they still have a sparkle to them. I let my eyes travel around his face, admiring his eyes, and then inadvertently settling on his lips. Despite how much he bit them, they weren't chapped like I had initially thought but soft and pink and inviting. I let out a shaky breath, my eyes darting back to his only to catch his gaze flicker at my own lips a moment too long. On instinct, I licked them, and Jordan sucks in a breath. The butterflies in my stomach were stronger than ever, and I felt my pulse race. I looked at Jordan, and his deep brown eyes, and I thought for a moment. ​

Did I like him? Was this me, wanting to kiss him?

And that's when I come to my senses. He was Jordan Balthazar, the boy I wouldn't have known if my best friend Lizzy hadn't dated him for a couple months. And I was Angelica Skylar, the girl who always rolled my eyes at him as he fooled around with all his guy friends. If we hadn't gotten into this elevator, we wouldn't have even known each other, and we both would have been happy. We were from completely different circles, different worlds.

And so, I pulled away from him.



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Hey guys! It took me so long to write this chapter, but I still have the feeling I'm rushing the characters into their emotions. So I might just make this a short story, between ten to fifteen parts, I'm not too sure yet.

Anyways, hope you guys like it! The picture above is meant to be of Angelica and Jordan. I know, Angelica doesn't have glasses here, but this was the closest I could find. Make sure to vote, and comment!

-winter millennium💙

Dedicated to redballoon7
Thanks for taking the time to read my story

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