Page 2 of My Fake Date With My Childhood Friend
“Penny—”
“I have to get to class,” I interrupted. I couldn’t do this today; couldn’t face her after what she did. “Bye.”
“Penny,” she repeated. She put her hand on my forearm. “Wait.”
“For what? You to betray me again?”
I tried to pass her, but she stepped in front of me again. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Do you really want to give up our friendship over a guy?” She asked desperately. It was pathetic, honestly. She already got what she wanted — she got Joseph. Why was she so insistent that I still be friends with her? “I mean?—”
I shook my head. “Don’t talk to me.”
“But...” She reached out to grab my arm, but I ripped it away.
“I mean it, Nikki,” I said in a dangerous tone. “Stay away from me.”
I spun around and walked down the hall, doing my best to ignore the sense that she was staring after me the whole time. Nikki hated being ignored, and I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing me look back.
She was such a two-faced friend. Did she actually expect me to stand there and hear her out yet again? Listen to her tell me about how she didn’t mean to kiss my boyfriend? How it just happened so fast? Or worse yet, would she have tried to rub it in my face? I bet she would love to do that — to remind me of how she was dating Joseph now, and I was just the loser who had been cheated on.
For the sake of my mental health — and so I wouldn’t get detention for fighting — I had to avoid Nikki as much as possible. We had to see each other, but that didn’t mean I had to act like we were friends.
The warning bell echoed through the halls. I picked up my pace. My first period teacher, Mr. Foster, had no mercy on people who were late. I didn't need to get detention this morning.
I glanced around for any teachers who would yell at me for running through the halls. Seeing none, I broke into a jog, sticking to the side so I wouldn’t crash into anyone. I took the stairs two at a time and slammed the door open. The sound of metal echoed through the small space, and I cringed. The stairs led me to a back corridor that was empty, save for somebody up the way. I broke into an all-out run. Unfortunately, I was so lost in thought thinking about Nikki that I didn’t see theCaution: Wet Floorsign until it was too late. The wet floor mixed with my winter boots covered in snow was a terrible combination. I lost my balance and let out an involuntary shriek as I fell to the ground. I squeezed my eyes shut and held my arms out to prepare for hitting the hard floor. But as I did so, I hit someone in the back of the knees and made him fall with me. We crashed into each other and landed on the linoleum floor with a heavy thud. My backpack went flying off my shoulder, and my notebook fell out, along with my pencil case and binders.
I groaned. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the boy groaned back. I pushed myself up to my knees, my lip curling in disgust as I realized I was sticking my hand in a puddle of sludge. “I assume it was an accident.”
“Yes, very much so.”
I looked up and locked eyes with the boy I'd knocked over. I swallowed back a gasp. It was Alexander Rigby — my lovely and very attractive family friend. He and I had known each other for our entire lives, and it felt like I’d been crushing on him for that whole time. It was inevitable. He was irresistible, and it didn’t help that he was around so much. With his dark hair and a smile that lights up a room, he was every girl’s dream boyfriend. Anyone would be lucky to have him. Of course, I knew nothing would ever happen between us. My crush was only a small one with feelings that only strongly appeared on New Year’s Eve every year when he would kiss me on the cheek at midnight.
But even though our families were so close and we spent pretty much every major holiday together, Alexander and I weren’t that close. We had a strange friendship where we would spend hours together like best friends whenever our families got together, but we only made small talk outside of that, especially since starting high school. There was a variety of factors that led to that — from different interests and friend groups to spending less time at each other’s houses since we were old enough to stay home when our moms wanted to have dinner together. Not to mention that Joseph had always been a jealous boyfriend, and he especially didn’t like me being around Alexander since he knew I liked him before we started dating. And I didn’t care because I was too absorbed with my friendship with Nikki to give anyone a real chance to bond with me.
“Your lip is bleeding,” Alexander murmured.
“What?” I asked dumbly, my mind still spinning from everything else that morning. Alexander grinned at my response before gently brushing his thumb against my bottom lip. My eyes widened at the soft touch. I put a hand to my lip and realized he was right. There was a cut there, and it was bleeding pretty badly.
“Oh, gosh.” I looked around with a frown. “Where did my backpack go?”
“Is it the one by the fireplace?”
I frowned. “What fireplace?”
Our school most definitely did not have fireplaces, especially not in the hallways. I spun around and held back a groan as I realized what he meant: a cardboard DIY fireplace that was taped to the wall. It might have impressed me if I wasn’t so angry about this entire season. The chimney part of it reached the ceiling, and the “brick” pieces looked so real that I would have believed they actually were brick if I thought that the school had the budget for that. The only thing that didn’t seem real were the cut-out paper flames.
My backpack had landed in a small puddle right in front of the fireplace. I scrambled over to it and dug through the front pocket.
“What are you looking for?” Alexander asked.
“Kleenex.” I could feel the blood dripping down my chin, and I started digging harder. “I know I have a small pack of them somewhere.”
“Oh.” He grabbed his own backpack and pulled out a small Kleenex pack. He handed one to me. “Here.”
“Thanks.” I took them gratefully and dabbed at the cut on my lip. It couldn't be bleeding that much, right? “Sorry about all of this.”
