Chapter Nine #2
Thankfully, his phone buzzes, taking away some of the awkwardness. He sweeps it off the table and scans the screen, then groans. “I’m going to punch him when I get to my dorm.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“Beck lost my chem notes. We have a test on Monday and I was hoping to get in some studying over the weekend.”
My brows fly up. “You were going to study over the weekend?”
He shrugs. “This school is much more advanced than Everheart. I won’t survive if I don’t put in the extra work. And Beck’s just making everything so darn harder.”
“It’s overwhelming at first,” I tell him. “But you kind of get into the groove of things after a few weeks. Trust me, you won’t be doing your homework over the weekends in a few weeks. You’ll be out partying like everyone else.”
“They have parties here?”
“Not on campus. There’s always a rich kid throwing a party at one of his or her mansions on Fridays.”
“Yeah? Do you go to parties?”
“Usually not. But sometimes my friends want to go.”
He nods and then focuses on his book.
“Did you go to a lot of parties at your old school?” I ask.
“Considering the guys at my school were girl-free for five days out of the week, yeah, you can say they threw a lot of parties to meet girls.”
“And you went to them?”
“Sometimes. When my friends and I had nothing better to do.”
It suddenly dawns on me that Kylen and I just had a decent conversation. One might think that’s a good thing, but it’s not a good thing at all.
“I should get going,” I say, leaping to my feet. “I have a date.”
I want to slap myself until I see stars. Why in the world did I say that?
“A date? Nice. Cool. Awesome.” He shifts in his seat and drops his gaze to his book.
“It’s not really a date,” I quickly explain.
“It’s just a hang with my friends. We watch movies every Friday night.
Sometimes I call it a date as a joke. You know, because most people go out on dates on Friday nights?
But when my friends were single, we all didn’t have dates.
So we were each other’s dates. But they have boyfriends now, so I guess I’m the only one with no… never mind.”
Why the heck am I rambling to him like this? It’s none of his business. And did I basically just admit to him that I’m a loser because I’m the only single one left of my friends?
Before he has a chance to respond, I snatch my backpack off the library table. “I’ll check out as many books as I can and do more research over the weekend. See you.”
I check out of the books and race out of there before he can even blink.
Ugh. I want to slam my face into the wall of the building. Why do I care if he thinks I’m a loser who can’t get a boyfriend? I shouldn’t care what he thinks.
Does he have a girlfriend? It doesn’t seem like it.
Not that I care whether he does or doesn’t.
I bet it won’t be long before a girl sinks her claws into him.
The girls here look down at the guys who aren’t rich, but Kylen is super good-looking, and I know some of the girls here just want to have fun.
Why does the thought of him with another girl make my stomach churn?
When I return to my room, I find Sophie making a list of movies to choose for tonight.
Since she loves romance, she always picks the most epic love stories in the world.
I don’t have the heart to tell her I’m not in the mood for a romance, especially because she’s on Planet Love now, and all she wants to do is watch romance movies and read romance books.
“Raven! You’re back a little early. Did something go wrong? You didn’t chew his head off, did you?”
I toss my backpack onto my bed. “There was no need to chew his head off. But I survived.”
“Are you okay? You seem bothered.”
I drop down on my bed. “Just a lot of confusing emotions. He doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but…”
She sits down next to me. “He still hurt you. Maybe you should talk to him about it. Tell him how you feel.”
“Tell him I’m still not over what happened when he doesn’t seem affected by it at all? Forget it. I’d rather jump into the jungle with gorillas.”
She holds up her hands. “Okay, okay. You don’t have to spill your heart to him if you don’t want to. It’s just that in so many of the romance books I read, a lot of heartache could be avoided if the hero and heroine just told each other how they felt—”
“I know you found your perfect romance, Sophie, but real life isn’t like books.
My life is definitely not like a book. Maybe in books, a girl can confess her feelings to a guy and it will be reciprocated, but that doesn’t happen in real life.
In real life, most feelings aren’t reciprocated, and the person’s heart is shattered into a million little pieces.
I’m not strong, Soph. I won’t be able to handle it if he…
” I hiccup and realize I’m battling tears.
“Oh, Raven.” She flings her arms around me. “I’m sorry. You’re right that life doesn’t always work out like in books. I’m sorry for making you feel bad. You’re obviously still very hurt over what happened, and being stuck as Kylen’s partner is clearly making you feel worse.”
“I’ll survive,” I say with a brave smile as I pull out of the hug. “Don’t worry. I just need to get past it and then everything will be okay.”
She slides her hand into mine and squeezes it. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I told you that all I need is you guys and I’ll be okay.”
She smiles as she hugs me again. “And we’ll do everything we can to make you feel better.”