Foster waited patiently, ignoring my comment. “You still haven’t given me a good reason to move, Anika.”
“Look, I have a date with Brady later, and I really do not want to bring you with me.” I sighed. “Brady and I have been together for three months, and you’re seriously beginning to make me feel like you’re trying to split us up, something I don’t want to happen. If you would kindly leave me alone, that would be wonderful.” Why was I even bothering to ask? It’s not like he was going to actually listen to me. He never did. There was no telling what was going on in that weirdo’s head.
“Kiss me.”
My mouth fell open. “What?” That was basically the last thing I thought he would ever say to me right then, especially after I’d just threatened him with bear mace.
“Kiss me, and I’ll leave you alone if you want me to.”
“I’m not kissing you, you creep.”
He smirked. “Then I’m not leaving you alone. I offered you a way to get me to leave you alone, and whether you take it or not is your choice. I have nothing to do with your choice, technically.”
“You’re insane.”
He smiled. “No matter what you do, I’m not going to stop, Anika.”
“You sound like a serial killer.”
“Maybe I am. You’re not trying to find out if I am or not.” His voice suddenly flattened and his ever-black eyes seemed to glitter faintly with something resembling… hurt.
I felt a slight pang of guilt. Was he offended? “Maybe if you stopped trying to force yourself on me against my will, I’d be willing to try to know you,” I conceded eventually.
Foster stared at me. “What?”
“If you stopped freaking me out all the time, I would probably consider befriending you.”
“Really?”
“I don’t see why not. When you’re not acting like a crazy person, I actually like you. You seem smart and relatively kind, despite how creepy it is that you’re obsessed with me and trying to make me love you.” I shrugged as if it was the most normal thing in the world, trying to use reverse psychology on him; most of the time, guys wanted what they couldn’t have, so when they had it, they stopped. Two of us could play that game, if that’s what he wanted to waste our time on. “If you try to be normal, I’ll try to like you.”
He grinned. “Then I guess I’d better get out of your car.”
“Good idea.”
Foster looked at me one more time, flashed another grin, and got out of my car so I could leave.
Great. Now I was going crazy too. I’d asked Brady on a date and offered to be friends with Foster. Even though I was just doing it to get rid of him, it still felt weird.
What was wrong with the world?
***
Brady texted me at five.
I’ll be over in an hour, I have the perfect date idea.
I smiled despite myself. He was actually going to try this. It was just for fun, but it was nice to know he actually wanted to make it enjoyable for me. Pulling on a shirt over my tank top, I sighed quietly. I’d liked his hoodie. It was huge on me and comfortable enough that I’d “unintentionally” stolen it after he had me hold it for him.
Brady knocked on my door exactly an hour after his text and I was surprised to see him with a stack of movies in his hands when I opened it. He looked from me to the movies. “Er… I wasn’t sure what kind of movies you like. So I brought… all of them.”
I laughed. “Come on, get in here.”
He walked in and looked around a little. “Nice house.”
“Thanks. My living room is over here. We can watch the movies in there if you want.” He nodded, so I led him into the living room, gesturing for him to sit down and taking the movies from him. I looked through them for a moment and stopped, smirking. “You own the movie Mamma Mia?” I asked him curiously, surprised that he owned a romantic musical.
Brady scowled. “I thought chicks liked that stuff.”
I laughed. “That wasn’t the question.”
He sighed. “Yes, I own it. Go ahead, make fun of me.”
This confused me. “Why would I make fun of you? It’s a movie.” His expression changed and I looked down, continuing to search through the discs. “Hmm… you choose. None of them are bad. I’m cool with any of them.”
He picked out the one I’d silently hoped he would pick: The Conjuring.
I loved horror. I placed the movie in the PlayStation and grabbed the controller, going back to the couch he was on. We sat relatively close, leaving a few inches between us, and I was surprisingly comfortable with it. Maybe it was because I’d already been this close to him before. Either way, the “date” was off to a good start.
The first jump scare, though I’d been expecting it, still got me. I didn’t realize I’d flinched toward Brady until I felt his arm come down around my shoulders, rubbing my arm lightly. It was weird for him to act like this; Foster wasn’t anywhere near here. Well, hopefully. He held me close to him long enough that when my neck began to cramp, I gave in and just laid my head against him. His head rested on mine as we watched the movie, and it felt… almost natural.
We stayed like that until the end of the movie, and I realized it was getting quite late. I yawned a little and snuggled against Brady for warmth. It was nice to be this close to someone, but as the night dragged on, I was getting tired.
“Are you tired?” Brady murmured.
“No,” I lied.
He chuckled. “You’re basically asleep.”
“No, I’m not.”
I’d done this countless times with Mitchell; fallen asleep with him, that is. Because I’d done it before, it wasn’t too awkward to be with Brady like this. His finger swirled small patterns on the fabric of my shirt, and it felt strangely soothing.
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked suddenly, his fingers stopping in their place on my arm.
My options were simple. Ask him to stay, or tell him to leave. So why was I struggling with the question so much? It was so simple… but it also wasn’t. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I said finally, after a long pause of consideration.
He mumbled something I didn’t understand and I felt him turn his face so his lips pressed against the top of my head.
Immediately a few red flags went up. Whoa. What? No. What? Foster isn’t here. I didn’t move, but I definitely felt like reacting. Then again, how was I even meant to react to that? Brady seemed to take this as a sign that it was okay and his fingers began to skim over my arm again in longer, lighter patterns. Maybe I should’ve asked him to go. This was weird. Why was he acting like this? I mean, I knew he was a player, but that wasn’t a good reason to screw with me like this. It was simply cruel to play with a girl’s emotions just because he could.
“I’m sorry I kissed that girl,” he murmured against my hair. He sounded like he was being serious, another thing that surprised me. Since when was Brady considerate?
You don’t need to be; this is fake, remember? The only reason I even asked you over was because I knew Foster was watching somehow… I mean, it was fun, but…
“I was just… frustrated.”
So you needed to maul a girl in front of me?
Brady muttered something else that I missed. Damn his low voice; I missed what he said half the time, I was pretty sure of it. After a few moments, his hand moved from my arm to around my waist. He was being really weird. He was probably just tired or something and not sure of what he was doing. A few minutes later, his breathing evened out, and I was pretty sure he was sleeping.
I looked at the screen which was now back at the title screen of the movie. Maybe I really was going crazy, but the reflection on my TV of Brady and me on my couch was… nice. I shifted a little bit to be more comfortable and closed my eyes. If he was asleep, there was really no escape for me without waking him up, so there was really no point in trying to get out of my fate of sleeping here.
&n
bsp; As I lay with Brady, something hit me suddenly. If I had gotten Foster to believe I felt something for Brady, could I have possibly made Brady think I felt something for him? The next question that came to mind following that was even more troubling than the first one:
Did I feel something for Brady?
Chapter 8
Foster
I pushed the weight up away from my chest and exhaled sharply. “Fifty-three,” I huffed, bringing it back down and pushing it up yet again, “fifty-four,” I panted hard and did the last bench press, putting the weight back and sitting up. My arms burned in a satisfying way and I paused thoughtfully. Working out had always helped me clear my head. I’d been considering something for several hours, and now I was certain of what I was going to do. Picking up my phone, I dialed Anika’s phone and called her. It was pretty early on Saturday, and I’d been able to work out the fact that she didn’t like mornings, but I figured she’d pick up if I called enough times, though it was probably going to bother her. The phone was answered on the first ring, and I immediately felt like something was off.
“Hello?”
The voice wasn’t Anika’s, but it was annoyingly familiar. I’d been right to think something was happening. “Who’s this?”
“Brady. Who’s this?”
“Foster.”
He was silent, yet I could practically hear the hostility in the silence. Brady was definitely not happy that I’d called her, but I honestly didn’t care. I had absolutely no interest in him, other than the irritation I felt about him being at her house this early. “What exactly are you doing calling my girlfriend at eight in the morning on the weekend?”
“I’d rather talk to her than you, so if you could return her phone, that’d be great. I trust that she wouldn’t be very happy if she knew that you were touching her things.”
“No. She wouldn’t want to talk to you, trust me. We were sleeping.” Anger rose in my throat. He had no right to dictate who spoke to her and who didn’t. There was a quiet female voice on the other end and Brady spoke again. “It’s just Foster. I figured you wouldn’t care.” Again a muffled voice. “Because you were sleeping.” Her voice rose and they began arguing. Suddenly, Anika’s voice replaced Brady’s.
“What, Foster?”
She was angry, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t because of me. “I want to see you today.”
“Okay.”
I was startled. She wasn’t going to argue against it? She must be super pissed at Brady to not even hesitate about meeting up with me. Either way, I was excited to see her. “Okay. Meet me at school, and we’ll go from there. Sound fair?”
“Sure, whatever.”
Brady was yelling in the background, and Anika’s line went dead within seconds. Anger flooded through me again. He didn’t have the right to yell at her. I didn’t even yell at her, and I had to watch her be happy with someone else. That’s what love was, after all: wanting the other person to be happy, even if it didn’t include you. He didn’t love her. I could tell he might think he did, but he didn’t.
I took a deep breath as the fresh anger brought more energy to my arms.
I lay back down and started doing bench presses again. If I was going to be calm enough to talk to her, I needed to work out and waste the extra energy I had before I saw her.
***
Anika was standing outside the school, just like she said she would be. She was in one of her normal outfits—just a hoodie and jeans—and I almost smiled at the sight of her. Her small frame against the brick of the school was such a welcome sight. Her head was lowered, but I didn’t take much notice of it until I got closer to her. Was she… crying?
“Anika?”
She looked up at me instantly. Her eyes were red.
That scum made her cry.
I was going to kill him.
After I’d calmed her down, though. Right now, I was too concerned to leave her alone. I got close to her and bent my knees slightly to lower myself so that I could look her directly in the eye. “What’s wrong, Anika?” My voice was low and gentle.
She shrugged.
“Don’t give me that.”
“I’m not actually dating Brady,” she muttered.
“What?”
“I was never dating Brady. Honestly, I didn’t even like him before you came to the school. He offered to help me keep you away from me, and I said yes.” Her eyes brimmed with pain, but she smiled at me with quivering lips that proved to me the falseness of her smile. “It’s okay, though. Because that’s over. I’m sorry I tried to get away from you so badly, and I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“I don’t care about that. Don’t apologize.”
She looked at me, half with disbelief. “You seriously don’t care that I lied to you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you can never do anything wrong in my eyes.” I smiled a little. It was the truth. There was nothing she could do to permanently leave me angry with her; not after what she’d done for me. This was the girl who had turned my entire life around. The disbelief in her eyes grew a little and she looked away from me. I hooked my finger under her chin, lifting it so she faced me again.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured again.
“I told you not to apologize. You will never have to apologize to me, Anika. I can promise you that.”
She looked up at me and I was thankful to see that the tears were gone from her eyes. God help Brady if he ever went near her again. Anika smiled a little at me, then looked away again. “I call you creepy a lot, but I think you’re just not sure how to express yourself, so it comes off as creepy. I mean, you should definitely tone down the obsession part, but…” Her blue eyes looked into mine and I felt a slow energy grow within my body.
“But?” I prompted.
“But… you’ve never actually done anything bad to me.”
I wanted to tell her that I was physically incapable of doing anything to harm her. I wanted to tell her that I’d waited to see her again and thought about her often and that it had been a miracle for her to still be in this town at all, but I refrained so she could finish speaking.
“I’m sorry I judged you. You seem nice. Just a little confused.” She tilted her head, then she did something that completely shocked me. Anika stepped closer to me and wrapped her arms around my lower back, pulling me closer to her and into a hug. I straightened up immediately and my heart raced as she let her head rest against my chest. She’d never actually gone out of her way to touch me before, let alone in a way that was affectionate. “Can you forgive me?”
There was nothing to forgive. “Yes.”
“Friends?” she checked.
“Friends.”
***
We stayed at the school for a couple more hours after that. It was relaxing to be with her and not have her telling me to leave her alone. She didn’t even cuss at me. Brady must have really screwed up to have her change like this, but I was kind of thankful for it. I knew there was something off about their relationship, but I was almost sure that they were really together. I figured they were just not very compatible and going to break up quickly. Did this make me right?
Anika looked at the school from where we were now standing by my car.
I watched her. She was just so fascinating to watch. Maybe once she got over Brady, I could make her realize that she belonged with me. If I could get her to see that, I wouldn’t need to hack her phone and computer cameras anymore, because I would just keep her with me all the time. The idea of having that kind of relationship with her made me smile out of nowhere, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy looking at the school.
“I don’t like it here,” she murmured after a while.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t like it. The people here hardly know I exist, and the ones that do…” She closed her eyes. “I want high school to be over. The only reason I stayed here when my paren
ts moved to Washington to take care of my grandparents was that Mitchell and Sierra are here and I couldn’t even fathom the idea of leaving them here alone. I mean, I don’t want to sound like they need me or anything, but I still don’t think it would be fair of me to leave them behind like that. I just… want it to be over, I guess.”
I nodded. It was understandable to make statements like that when she was upset.
“When I was in fifth grade, I thought I loved Brady,” she stated suddenly, opening her eyes but not looking at me. “Then he called me a freak and told me he wanted to date pretty girls. We never really talked, but he was kind to me before that, and I wasn’t really used to people being kind to me. That’s when I met Mitchell. He offered to play chess with me, and I said yes. I even lost the game to him on purpose so he would keep teaching me because I didn’t want him to go away. After that, I met Sierra. She was just so happy all the time, I thought if I was around her enough, I could be happy like that too. The three of us were friends all throughout middle school, but now things are changing again. Mitchell hasn’t been around as much as he used to be. He just holes himself up in his room with his electronics when he leaves school. He hasn’t challenged me to chess in weeks. That can’t be healthy, right? Sierra basically avoids me. Brady became part of my life out of nowhere, and then he was gone again. Everything is going backward now. First Sierra left, then Mitchell, then Brady. Everything is going in reverse, and I don’t want it to.”
Listening to her and the sadness hidden behind her calm tone, my heart broke a little. If that pattern was right, I should have been the first one to leave. Though, technically, I guess I had. I turned and looked down at her more directly.
She looked up at me in a slightly confused manner, and I dipped my head to get closer to her. Her breath hitched, but she didn’t stop me.
So I kissed her.
Chapter 9
Brady
I walked into my room and slammed the door behind me. I was physically shaking from anger. Anika. It was always Anika that got me this riled up. She’d broken it off with me out of nowhere and gone to meet Foster. And what do I get for going to try to find her and ask her to talk about it? I see her kissing him.
Mine Page 6
