One of the Guys (26 page)

I couldn’t find her.

It was getting closer to the start
of the school day, and she still hadn’t shown. It wasn’t like her
to be late. Especially on the first day back of the school
year.

I wasn’t listening as the guys
continued talking, as I was still searching, when I heard the bell
sound for homeroom.

“
It’s Chase.” I heard somebody say,
just before I turned into the room, and when I turned to look, my
heart stopped; my mouth dropping open. Immediately, my pants
strained and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Chase.

Chase walked towards me, wearing
black skinny jeans, and biker boots. Instead of her usual baggy
tops that I’d been looking for, she wore a tight red vest with a
loose black vest over the top. The kind that are meant to be worn
together.

Her toned arms were bare, her neck
and upper chest exposed, which was something she never did. I
wanted to reach out and stroke her skin.

Chase shook her head back, and her
hair, loose and straight, swished out behind her, and I noticed all
of the stares she was getting as she walked. I didn’t like it. I
wanted to tell everyone to stop staring at her, but I had no right
to. Not that anybody had a right to do that to somebody, but the
caveman in me wanted to hide her away from the other guys’ eyes.
Girls too. They were staring just as much.

I could tell Chase was oblivious,
looking down at her phone with her earbuds in, and my heart pounded
furiously as she got closer to me.

I opened my mouth, ready to say
‘hi’ but she didn’t even lift her head to make eye contact with
me.

Instead, all I got was a whiff of
her blackcurrant scent as she walked right past.

I watched her walk, and then turn
in the direction of her own homeroom.

I felt as if I’d been kicked in the
balls.

I could feel myself wanting to
cry.

You’re not going to cry! Stop
being such a pussy!
I shouted internally
to myself.
She’ll come around. When you
tell her, she’ll understand.

Taking a breath, feeling nauseated,
I walked into my room and sat at my table.

“
Have you seen
Chase?” Lex asked as he sat by me. I nodded. “Man, she
looks
smokin’
…” He paused when he saw my reaction. I wasn’t happy about
him leering at her. “Sorry. I’m just saying she looks different.”
Lex shrugged.

“
She
looks
totally
different.” Added Pike, which wasn’t helping.

“
Chase looks like that. Get over
it.” I snapped.

“
Well, we’ve never seen her like
that. Have you?” Lex asked.

I wasn’t going to tell him about me
accidentally seeing her body. I hadn’t intended for it to happen,
but it had been the focus of many of my dreams
afterwards.

“
No, but it’s obvious. She works
out a lot. What did you expect?” I growled.

“
Dude, you need to get your head
out of your ass.”

“
Excuse me?” I said, at Lex’s
comment.

“
Seriously, you’ve been out of it
for the whole of summer. If you want to explain it all to her… Just
do it. She can’t avoid you at school.”

Lex had a point. Because of her
help, I had advanced math with Chase. I’d be able to speak to her
then, and being next period, I had to act fast to get a seat near
her, because there wasn’t any doubt in my mind that the whole class
would want to get close to her now.

“
I will.”

The bell sounded for first
period.

Here goes.

Heading into the math class, I saw
that Chase was already in her seat.

My stomach rolled when I saw her
long, shiny hair flowing down her back. Chase never wore her hair
loose and I was tempted to run my fingers through it.

Slowly, I walked closer and I
noticed that Chase wasn’t in her usual hunched over style of
sitting.

No, she was sitting back, her arm
slung lazily over the back of her chair, her legs extended out into
the aisle with her ankles crossed.

My pants became painfully tight as
I watched her tongue move over her full pink lips, sucking the
lower into her mouth as she flicked through her phone.

My eyes ran down the length of her
body, glancing over the fabric that rested on her breasts, and
seeing the tight curves of her thighs.

Her hand lifted, and she ran her
hand over the center of her hair, pushing it back over head, out of
her face. Just that movement had me almost bent over to hide my
boner. I swallowed the saliva that had pooled in my mouth and
lowered my bag in front of my crotch.

With my bag now in front, I walked
to the seat at the table next to her. It seemed that the other guys
were now intimidated to sit by her. All I could hear were the
whispers from the back of the room. Safely out of her
earshot.

I sat down, resting my backpack
near my feet, and turned to watch her.

I could hear ‘Moving On’ by Asking
Alexandria playing, as she completely ignored me.

I realized that the song was
fitting for both of us. I’m ‘torn up,’ and she’s ‘Moving
on’.

I hated that. Hated that she was
ready to give up on me and have a life without me. I didn’t want
that to happen, and I wasn’t going to let it happen either. I was
about to say something when the teacher walked in.

Mr. Garrett. The advanced math
teacher for seniors. I’d heard he liked to make a point of
embarrassing kids if he knew they weren’t paying attention in his
class. I didn’t know the details, but I had a feeling I would be on
the receiving end of whatever he dished out because I would be
paying more attention to Chase than his class.

Mr. Garrett placed his things on
the table, and Chase removed her earbuds. Not
once
did she look at me, and the
tears in my heart were ripping open even further.

As the lesson went on, and Mr.
Garrett explained more about the structure of our math topics
during senior year than actually teaching us, I tried to get
Chase’s attention by looking to her. I didn’t want to attract
attention to us because Mr.Garrett would’ve freaked out. She didn’t
look at me. Instead, she looked bored with everything going on, and
just yawned.

At the end of class, I grabbed my
bag ready to talk to her, but she was too quick. Chase had managed
to weave through the bodies and out the door.

Hurrying to catch up, I saw Poppy
approaching her with a huge smile. She saw me watching them and
gave me a dirty look, before walking off with Chase.

What the hell?
I thought.

I knew Chase and Poppy got on well
in the class they had, but hanging out? That was new, and I knew it
would’ve happened during the summer vacation.

Maybe that’s why I hadn’t seen her
around.

Bren had been visiting the day
center, as Jo had told me when I called round, so I assumed Chase
had been meeting up with Poppy instead.

Even though it hurt that she wasn’t
talking to me, I liked that she had another friend to talk
to.

*****

I had no more
classes with Chase, and I hadn’t seen her in passing
either.

There was no other reason… She was
avoiding me.

It couldn’t go on. I was falling
apart not being able to talk to her, not to touch her, not to see
her smiling at me…

“
Logan, we need to practice on the
field after lunch.” Lex said, bringing me out of my
thoughts.

“
Oh, yeah.” I nodded. “Sure
thing.”

Without Chase there, I wouldn’t be
able to concentrate. I loved having her there when we played. It
made me happy knowing she was right there with me. Ok, on the
bleachers whilst I was in the field, but she was there.

I played better because her
presence made me happy. Happy that my girl was sitting there,
supporting me.

“
God
, Logan.” Carl whined. “Snap out
of it. She’s not hanging with us anymore. The timing was spot on,
you aced your finals, and there’s no more use for her to hang
out.”

I was about to throttle Carl when I
heard a shout coming from across the yard.

“
Chase! Oh my God!” Poppy yelled as
Chase thundered towards us.

She was looking directly at Carl;
her face menacing and her hands balled into fists.

Even angry, she looked like a sexy
goddess, with her hair flying behind her, and her clothes clinging
to her perfect body.

All I could do was watch in awe as
she stormed towards us, pulling her hand back, she punched Carl in
the face, knocking him on his ass.

“
Get over your
fucking self!” She shouted. “You think
I
was the tagalong? Look
around,
Carl
.
You’re only here because of Stu. If anybody’s a tagalong,
it’s
you!”

The guys, myself included, stared
at Chase in shock. She’d fought back with a few comments in the
past, but now… Wow.

“
Have
a
super
day.” Chase added, snarling at Carl before smiling
sarcastically, and walking away back to the table she shared with
Poppy.

The entire area was silent,
watching what was happening, and I couldn’t blame them. I wanted to
watch Chase for as long as I could.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off her
back, then her perfectly toned ass, as she walked away. As she got
to their table, I noticed that Sian, Gretchen and Charlotte were
joining them also.

This is weird.

Chase didn’t like those girls and,
the way she’d explained it, they didn’t like her either. To see her
sitting her with them, was a mystery. Chase still looked different.
She had on darker clothing, but even so, she was still the sexiest
one there -even before-, and even if the rest
did
wear tight, brightly colored
clothes she was still the most beautiful.

Chase looked like a hot biker
chick, and the throbbing in my pants increased the longer I
stared.

Chase sat down, and I saw her look
at me. Correction, she
glared
at me, as if I’d done something wrong. Ok,
I
had
but this
was something else. This was as if what I’d done was
new.

I had to find out what the hell was
going on.

I was hitting like garbage, and the
guys knew why. Chase wasn’t here. Not that I sucked any other time,
but now I did. Seeing that she could go on perfectly well without
me hurt like a bitch, and losing her had made me lose my game. I
wondered if Brent Loman thought I’d ‘have what it takes’ if he saw
me play like crap.

A new wave of sadness hit me as I
remembered the package I’d received on my birthday.

“
I guess senior year’s going to be
interesting.” Laughed Lex.

I turned to see what he was
laughing at when I saw Carl rubbing the lump and bruise that was
forming on his jaw.

Chase had hit him really
hard.

That’s my girl. My
girl…mine.

I had to come up with a plan to get
her back. I didn’t know what, because I didn’t want to be nursing a
sore face like Carl, but it had to be good enough for Chase to
listen to me.

“
Fuck you, Lex.” Carl said, working
his jaw. “Chase got lucky with that punch.”

“
Yeah, sure.” Pike laughed. “If you
hadn't had been talking shit about her, again, she wouldn’t have
hit you. What’s up with that, by the way? What the fuck do you have
against her?”

I admired Pike for speaking up. I
felt like I’d been the only one to ask him why he had a
problem.

“
She didn’t belong with us. We
always had to watch what we said, or what we did. We shouldn’t have
to do that, and now that she’s gone, we don’t have to.” He said,
repeating his excuses.

“
You’re a jerk, Carl. No wonder
girls won’t hang with us. It’s you, you’re a fucktard.”

“
I
am
?!”
Carl almost screeched like a girl. “What
about
you
guys?
None of you wanted her there either.”

“
At first, maybe.” Said Stu. “That
was before I knew how cool she was. I mean, she’s into all the
stuff we are. She kicked ass at video games, and she took Logan to
the dirt bike race. She was just quiet, and she never talked about
clothes and shopping like other girls. She just… hung
out.”

“
Whose side are you on?” Carl
snapped at Stu.