[A/N: The song above doesn't have anything to do with the chapter except the part when it's mentioned lol, but enjoy!! Grease is a classic. :)]
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As James entered Mila’s house and closed the front door behind him, he was still remembering the night when Selah came over to his house when he couldn’t sleep and had a sore throat. No one else ever did that for him while risking to get sick, except his mom when he was younger. He had just started talking to Selah, and she acted like they were longtime friends.
Although, that was basically what they were, right?
When he entered the living room with a grin, Carter saw him and stood up from the couch. “The fuck, James? You’re on Paige’s side?”
James felt his heart thumping in his ears. Looking at all the confused and disapproving faces around him, he wanted so badly to change his mind and agree with Carter, like everyone else did. But he’d made a deal with Paige. He was already in this mess of drama, so he might as well be at the very least on her side. He didn’t need to do anything else, except declare to all his friends--including Christy and Carter--that he was for Paige.
So he nodded.
Carter turned to Gary sitting on the armrest of the couch. “You too?”
Gary stood up with his hands raised. “Hey, I was just kidding. I don’t wanna be a part of this, okay?”
Carter turned back to James. “Just you, huh? Why?”
James wanted to do anything other than answer, but with everyone in the room now staring at him, he gulped and forced a shrug. Going with the truth didn’t sound like the worst idea. “I don’t think Paige did anything wrong. I mean, it was Christy that took those pics on Twitter, not Natalie.”
Some people sounded surprised as they looked at each other, and Christy just glared at him. But this time, James didn’t really feel guilty. He didn’t feel anything, in fact. Sure, Paige was practically forcing him to be on her side, but all the proof pointed to Christy.
“That’s kind of fucked up, Christy,” Kylie said, who was sitting on the floor with a red Solo cup of water in her hand.
Christy stormed toward her. “And who gave you food poisoning?”
“Fuck,” Carter muttered as he felt his stomach. “I don’t feel anything yet.”
“Me neither,” Dave said, looking at Gary next to him on the couch.
Mila stood up from a chair. “You know what? Party’s over.”
Several people stood up too and responded in protest.
“Look, I just wanted it to be a chill party, and now I got three people with food poisoning! And Carter brought alcohol when I told him not to, and what’s up with this whole fight anyway? To be totally honest, you start drama all the time,” she said to Carter.
“What are you talking about?” he exclaimed. “I wasn’t even part of this shit till today! And everyone liked the booze, right?”
The majority agreed, but Mila shook her head. “I have to clean up the whole house before my parents come back. If they see anything from the party, they won’t let me do parties anymore.”
“I’m gonna go,” Dave said as he slowly stood up. “My stomach feels weird.” With Gary Super-Glued to Dave’s side, the pair headed toward the front door. Some people followed them while murmuring about the fight and wishing the party was longer.
James was thinking of heading home too, until Christy blocked his way with her arms folded. “I didn’t think someone without a spine could have the guts to talk like that in front of everyone.”
He just glared at her. “I feel sorry for everyone related to you.”
She glared back. “Why don’t you just admit you’re fucking Selah now? It’s so obvious.”
He sighed. “I didn’t dump you for her, okay? Kinda sad to see you still whining about the breakup.”
“I’m not!”
He already had his back to her and headed down the hallway. But instead of mentally cheering for owning that bitch, he wondered if he really was that obvious around Selah. What if she noticed too? And if she had, would she ever see him the same way again? He had a queasy feeling in his stomach from just the possibility of her knowing the whole time though saying nothing about it. It was so like her to be quiet about that kind of stuff.
Besides, she might’ve been aromantic. For all he knew, she wasn’t into the whole dating scene, which was a huge surprise. With her looks, she would’ve had at least a few guys hit on her.
And being the selfish prick he was, he hated the idea of her being with anyone else when she could’ve very well been happier that way.
He sat in his car a couple of houses down from Mila’s, and he laid his forehead on the steering wheel. There was no doubt he had zero chances with her, especially after getting her sick, and he was a dumbass at Calculus sometimes. And he just wasn’t the kid she used to know anymore.
But at least they were talking again, like the friends they always had been. Just talking to her, even for a little bit, felt like a revisit to the good times.
Without thinking twice about it, he took out his phone and searched through the contact list for her number so he could call her. It was probably more normal to text her, but more than anything right now, after everything that happened at the party, he wanted to hear Selah’s voice again. He wanted to listen to the pauses no matter how awkward they got. He wanted to hear the smile in her voice when he said something incredibly stupid, and her small laughs when he teased her about stuff they used to do like adding to her gigantic bug collection.
Those things were all he could get with her, and though it stung a little, he was okay with that.
But before he could dial the number, there was a sharp knock on his window. He panicked for a second before turning off his phone. He looked up to see Sasha Kiely outside with pouty lips and wide blue eyes. She was that one blonde girl that dated Andrew a few months ago, when she really just used him to flirt with James and Gary. But what bothered James more anything was the annoying gossip flowing nonstop out of her mouth. Stifling a sigh, he lowered his window.
“Hey, sorry,” Sasha said, “but my ride ditched me. Can you drive me home?”
An entire car ride with her sounded like pure torture. But then he figured he didn’t need Sasha spreading some bullshit about how he left her stranded, and on top of that all the shit-talk Carter and Christy had in store for him. He had enough attention for one day.
“Fine,” he mumbled.
“Yay!” She ran with her white tote bag to the passenger side as he steeled himself for an endless, one-sided conversation ahead of him.
And of course all she talked about was the fight and the reasoning behind why she was on Christy’s side. The food poisoning was her main reason since that was what everyone saw Paige do. But, no one--not even James--knew the exact reason why Christy started it all. Paige said it was something that happened in middle school that got Christy expelled and sent to juvie, but what specifically happened, he didn’t know.
He didn’t tell Sasha this since it would’ve made her drone on even longer, and he didn’t want her to spread information that Paige probably wanted only him to know. He couldn’t afford to get on her nerves even more. It was like he was forever bound to her with all things drama-related.
He pulled up in Sasha’s driveway and turned off the engine. He stared at the garage door in front of him and just waited for her to leave, but her car door didn’t open. He looked sideways, only to have his heart skip a beat when she was leaning way too close to him.
“Uh,” he said as he scooted away from her, “you should go.”
“Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem,” he said, ignoring the innuendo.
“Just wondering, but are you over Christy? Like, completely over her?”
“Uh, yeah.” It was old news by now.
She slowly grinned. “Good. She seems happy with Carter.”
“I guess.”
Her gaze travelled from his eyes, to his chest, to his crotch. And right when her hand creeped toward the crotch area, he grabbed her hand. “Your nails are, uh, pretty.” He turned her hand over to pretend to check them out.
“Thanks. I got my toenails did too. Wanna see?”
“No,” he said automatically. He reached around her to open the door. “Bye.”
Pouting, she picked up her tote bag from the floor and got out of the car. She slammed the door and stomped toward her house.
James let out a long sigh. Any other time, he probably would’ve done some foreplay with her, and maybe even have a relationship until he got sick of her, which usually took a few weeks.
But he just didn’t feel like doing any of those things.
Remembering that he was going to call Selah earlier, he pulled out his phone and dialed her number. Two rings later, she picked up. “Hello?”
She only said one word, yet his heart made a weird jolt in his chest and his face grew hot.
“Uh, hey,” he managed to say. “What’s up?” He made a face at himself for saying that, of all things.
“I just got out of the shower. You?”
The images popped up in his mind before he could stop them. He bit his inner cheek hard and then said, “The party ended, so I’m going home.”
“Gosh, I really hate fights. But I’m glad you called Paige about what Christy and Carter did. It was sweet of you,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.
He couldn’t help but smile too. “Oh. Uh, yeah.” He waited for her to say something, but the following silence told him he was supposed to talk. But talk about what? Her shower?
“So…” she said.
Shit. “Uh, do you wanna come over to my house?” he asked, the words spilling out before he could keep them in.
“And do what?”
“Well...my mom’s dying to see you. And...I haven’t done the Calc homework due on Monday.”
There was another awkward pause. If she was going to reject him, he wanted to crawl into a hole and never come back out.
“Umm. Yeah, I can come over.”
“Great!” he said almost too loudly. “I can’t wait.”
Before he could think more about what just happened, she said, “Me too. I’ll be over in twenty.”
Right when she hung up, he realized he was still at Sasha’s house. He turned the engine back on and shifted into reverse, but when he backed out he had turned the wheel too far, his car now shaking violently as it rolled off the edge of the sidewalk. Swearing, he sped down the street.
On the way home, he figured he could make a move tonight. And if she wasn’t interested, he’d know to never do it again. He just needed to at least know how she felt.
He got to his house in just less than twenty minutes. Tripping over his feet as he walked into the house, he couldn’t help but imagine Selah’s shower smell. It might’ve been a fresher version of the floral scent that her hair gave off, or really her whole body. Maybe she just put on lotion, too. And maybe her long dark hair would still be wet.
“How was the party?” Mom said as she sat in the dining room, reading a magazine and eating a muffin.
“Uh, it was okay. Also, Selah’s coming over.”
She put down her magazine and widened her eyes at James. “Really?”
“Yeah, she’s gonna be here any second. Can you answer the door? I need to...change.” He glanced down at his shoes still partly covered in Christy’s puke.
Mom closed her magazine, took off her glasses, and stood up. “Of course. I’d love to see my favorite student again.” She smiled, but James was already running upstairs to his bedroom.
As he closed the door behind him and tossed his shoes to a corner of the room, he thought for a moment how dumb he was acting over a girl. Girls didn’t make him speed to his house or make him scramble through his closet for a decent shirt that didn’t smell.
But this was Selah, who was different from all the other girls he’d dated.
The shorts he had just discarded on the floor let out a buzzing sound. Realizing he’d left his phone in one of the pockets, he kneeled down and checked the screen.
There’s another party at Jake Tunell’s house, Gary texted. Wanna come?
The idea of going to another party was too much after what happened today, and James would’ve much rather spent tonight with Selah. But there was no way his friends could know he was spending a Saturday night doing Calc homework.
Fuck, I can’t. My mom’s dragging me to a fam reunion.
Uggghh really??
Aren’t you with Dave rn?
He’s sleeping, so I’m bored af.
Sorry, too busy.
Gary sent a sad-face emoji and nothing else, which James was grateful for. Dealing with Gary without Dave was a pain.
The doorbell rang, and James’s heart dropped to the floor. He was still half-naked, so he looked for a decent pair of jeans and while putting them on, he slipped and fell on the bed.
“James!” Mom called from downstairs. “Selah’s here!”
“Okay!” he yelled as he buttoned his jeans while still on his back.
He checked his hair in the mirror and adjusted his clothes, then stepped out of his room and looked for Mom and Selah, but they weren’t at the front door. He went down the hardwood stairs and entered the kitchen, where Mom sat at the dining table across from Selah.
And Selah’s hair was in fact wet at the tips, with the water dripping on her giant black hoodie and jeans. She was sitting on the heels of her feet and propped her elbows on the tabletop. Her light skin looked smoother than normal as her brown eyes widened at something Mom said. Then Selah smiled, which did something weird to his chest. Though her features didn’t scream supermodel-beauty, he could imagine never getting sick of looking at her.
The instant her brown eyes found him, he by default gave her a smile.
“Hey,” he breathed. “So you guys got to meet again.”
She nodded and looked around the room. “Honestly, being here brings back a lot of memories.” She turned to Mom. “The house actually hasn’t changed a lot.”
Mom nodded too. “You know, it’s a bummer I didn’t get to see you the last time you were here.” She gave James the side-eye, as if it was his fault Selah suddenly wanted to come over for his sickness when she didn’t need to. “By the way, do you want your things back?”
“Sure, but only when James is done.” She looked at him, and he nodded.
“You need it this time,” he said. “Sorry again for making you sick.” He felt like he apologized to her for the thousandth time, but he also really did mean it.
Mom’s jaw dropped. “He got you sick? Tsk tsk.” She stood up and walked to the medicine cabinet. “Here’s the cough syrup and honey.” She handed them to Selah.
James rolled his eyes. “Anyway, wanna check out my room?” But then he remembered he forgot to clean up. Selah was going to judge him for sure, not that she would say anything anyway.
She was way too nice for a guy like him.
After picking up her backpack from the floor, she followed him up the stairs to his room. She dropped her backpack on the carpet and said, “Wow, pretty much the same here too. Except you took down the dog posters.” She stared at him in disbelief, but he just shrugged with a smile.
Instead of feeling embarrassed about the mess, he actually felt glad she was there, reminding him of what used to be, in the good way of course. Maybe just being around her made him relax a little better.
He took out his Calc stuff while Selah took hers out of her backpack. They laid textbooks and notebooks and papers all over his bed and started working.
“Can I ask you something?” Selah said suddenly.
James’s heart hammered in his chest. He always felt nervous when people asked that question. “Yeah.”
“It’s not that I don’t wanna be here, but why today? You’re usually busy on Saturdays.”
Maybe she really could tell how bad his crush was by now, and right before he could try showing her in a romantic way too. He could still lie miserably.
He cleared his throat though he didn’t need to and half-shrugged. “I’m free today, and I just wanted to be productive. You’re okay with that, right?”
She nodded. “Of course.” A small wave of relief hit him, but then he wondered if she did mean it.
“Were you gonna do something else?”
“I was gonna take a nap, but I’m fine with this too.”
She did look kind of tired, and not to mention she was sick. “You sure? ‘Cause we don’t have to do work. We could just, I dunno, chill.” He wanted to kick himself for sounding awkward.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s fine. I’m not that tired anyway.”
“Oh, alright.” He glanced at the cough syrup next to her. “Have you taken medicine yet?”
She paused. “Actually, no.” So she did.
In silence, they were quite productive in the first ten minutes. But it was way too boring.
As she read her textbook, he put down his pencil and looked around his room with some memories of her coming back to him. He said, “Do you remember when we sang Grease songs in here?”
Selah looked up and and smiled. “Of course. Like ‘Summer Nights.’ You sang John Travolta’s parts and the backup singer parts.”
He laughed. “Did you know the school’s doing Grease?”
“Really?”
“We should audition together.”
She shook her head. “Trust me, my singing is still bad.”
“But I can’t do it without you.”
“Then I guess we both won’t do it.” She folded her arms.
“Come on, you were really good.”
“I’m pretty sure both of us were really, really bad,” she said as she smiled.
He sat up. “You know what? We should sing along to the movie. It’s on Netflix.”
She seemed to think about it. “Fine. But don’t record me, okay?”
He grinned. “Thanks for the idea.”
“Come on.” But she giggled anyway.
After they cleared the bed, James turned on his laptop. He tried to not think too much about how cute and innocent Selah looked hugging her knees with her back against the wall. After putting the movie full-screen, he sat next to Selah and positioned the laptop a couple of feet away from them. They weren’t as close together as he wanted, but he figured it was better to go slow.
The movie started with a snippet of Sandy and Danny’s summer fling. It reminded James of the kind of love he didn’t think existed. Of course some of his exes dreamed about that fairytale bullshit, but he couldn’t see himself with them in that way.
He glanced at Selah whose eyes were on the computer screen. He could see himself with her in that way.
Then the scene changed to the cartoon credit scene. Several seconds later, Selah said, “It feels hot in here.” She scooted forward and pulled her hoodie up over her head. But once again, he spotted the two scar lines on her right flank. As she threw the hoodie aside, he turned back to the movie, but he couldn’t stop thinking about those scars.
He didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, but he just had to ask. If someone was hurting her--or worse, she was hurting herself--he definitely would’ve wanted to know. Leaning forward, he paused the movie and then turned to her.
Her eyebrows wrinkling, she turned to him too. “Why’d you stop it?”
“I wanna be serious for a sec.”
“Okay?”
“The scars on your stomach. How did you get them?”
She blinked once, before looking away. He made such a horrible mistake, didn’t he?
“Sorry, I don’t mean to be nosy--”
“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “You’re not being nosy. I’ve had other people ask about them too.”
He waited, until she finally looked back up at him with sad eyes.
“You know how my real dad beat me up a lot?” As he nodded, she lifted her sweater to show the scars. “He stabbed me with a knife a few minutes before the police came.”
He stared at the scars, but he felt like he shouldn’t. “Sorry,” he said as he looked away.
She pulled the sweater back down. “It’s okay. Not really a big deal.” She shrugged.
He felt like it was a big deal, but she was probably used to it by now. “Well, to me, having scars sounds pretty badass. Next to tattoos.”
She seemed to think for a moment, then looked back at him. “I don’t have tattoos, but I have some scars from cutting too.” Raising her wrist, she pulled back the sleeve to show a few scar lines.
He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, and he didn’t know what to say. She seemed to be used to the silence he gave too when she said, “Yeah, I know. I’m good at hiding them, right?” And she smiled.
He returned her smile, though that was the last thing he felt like doing. Swallowing, he said, “Yeah.”
“I have a lot more of these, but...I don’t want people to see.” She looked away. “I don’t want it to be like last time,” she whispered.
He didn’t dare ask what she meant about last time. He’d been awkward enough.
After she rolled her sleeve back down, he straightened his back. “Thanks for, um, telling me all of that. I bet you don’t tell just anyone.”
She shook her head as her lips formed a thin line. “And that didn’t make me feel awkward, by the way. I feel like we’re close enough.”
All he could do was nod, still processing everything she just told him. At least it explained why she always wore long sleeves and pants, even back in middle school.
“So, can we get back to the movie?” she asked
He nodded, but then he said, “Wait.” He couldn’t just end the conversation like that. He tried to think of a good segue.
“You know, I think you’re kinda like Sandy,” he said.
Selah chuckled a little. “Yeah, kinda. I don’t drink or party. But sometimes Paige drags me to parties.”
Grinning, he said, “Really?”
“Yeah. She tries to set me up with guys, but I guess dating just isn’t my thing.”
He swallowed. “Really? Don’t you have crushes?”
“Well, there are some guys that I think are cute. But I’ve never met anyone that I would want to date.”
He struggled to keep his facial expression the same. He probably always knew it but lied to himself just to keep the hurt away. “Yeah. I noticed you don’t date.”
She sat up straighter. “But I do hope I’ll find someone. Probably not now, but in the future.”
They faced the laptop screen, with James resuming the movie. But for the most part he didn’t pay attention.
How could he when he had intense feelings for a girl that could neither understand nor return them?
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