Definitely Not Average - Chapter 23

First of all, I just have to say that I am SO, SO SORRY that I have not posted for so long. But I can explain: my internet connection has been playing up again, and I was actually just about to post this chapter up two days ago, and just as I'm about to press the 'Submit Article' button, BAM! the connection goes, leaving me angry and frustrated. So I'm sorry.
This chapter is dedicated to Zeviyane, the one who understood.
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My heart skipped a beat, and began to thud, thud, thud uncontrollably. I took in a big gust of air as my haywire thoughts - This can only be a dream, this can only be a dream - twisted and turned in my mind.

‘W-what did you s-say?’ I asked shakily, sure my eyes were as big as saucers.

‘I want you to be my girlfriend.’ He repeated confidently.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. ‘Marc…’ I started hesitantly. ‘I…I haven’t known you for very long.’

‘I know,’ he said immediately, not looking the least bit perturbed by what I thought to be a very awkward situation. ‘But I…I really like you, Grace. And…and I promise I won’t be a jerk to you or anything.’

I bit my lip. Why did life have to be so goddamned hard? I mean, I was perfectly happy before. Well, no, I wasn’t really, but my life before had been predictable. Just the way I liked it.

‘I don’t know,’ I said slowly, rubbing my forearms as the afternoon breeze brushed against me. ‘I’m not sure I like you in that way, Marc.’ And I was telling the truth, only I wasn’t just not sure, I knew that I didn’t like Marc that way, because my heart belonged to another, as those romantics say. And I wasn’t the type of girl that was able to love two people at the same time. Emotional overload.

‘Please, Grace,’ he pleaded. ‘Just give me a chance.’ Whoa. This was starting to sound like one of those really cheesy rom-coms.

‘I…I don’t –‘

‘Just promise me you’ll think about it,’ Marc cut me off. ‘Please.’

I nodded slowly, not sure I was going to like the result of my being a pushover. ‘Okay. I promise to think about it.’

He grinned and, unlike T.J’s, it wasn’t just like the sun coming out. It was just a smile. ‘Great.’

I managed a small smile, and stood up. ‘Well, it was…’ what could I really say? It was nice talking to you? No, definitely not, because then I’d be lying, and I liked to think of myself as an honest girl. ‘It was nice talking to you.’ Ah well, there goes honesty.

Marc smiled again. ‘You, too, Grace. You, too.’

I turned to go, but his arm pulled me back, and a feeling of dread built up in the pit of my stomach. Before I could stop him, Marc had leaned forward and planted his lips softly on mine. Then he turned and walked out of the park gate, and turned back only once on his way to wave at me.

I groaned inwardly. I really had to stop letting people kiss me.
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The next day at school, I assumed was going to be somewhat uneventful, since Marc wasn’t at school. T.J noticed my funny mood, and asked me several times what was wrong, and I replied that nothing was wrong, until after the bell rang when he practically exploded. ‘That’s it, Grace! Tell me what’s wrong.’

I ignored the many stared that followed me and T.J out of the school gates; I was beginning to get used to it now.

I sighed. He really was persistent. ‘I just…I have….’ I couldn’t finish off the sentence.

T.J frowned, and even in my muddled state I knew that he looked adorable when he was confused. ‘What?’

‘I…Marc…’ I thought that that sentence was a little bit of an improvement.

At the mention of Marc’s name, T.J’s face turned sour. ‘What about Marc?’ He asked moodily.

I bit my lip, contemplating how he would take the information that I was just about to tell him. ‘Marc…he…he…he asked me to be his girlfriend.’ I said the last part so fast that I confused even myself.’

‘Huh?’

I groaned. I really didn’t want to have to repeat myself. ‘Marc…he asked me…he asked me to be his…his girlfriend.’

And just like that, his adorable confusion turned to pure, unadulterated fury. ‘What?’ T.J hissed, and I actually stopped walking and took a step back at the unmasked rage I saw on his finely chiselled features.

‘I…he…’ I was too scared to say anything remotely recognisable.

‘He asked you out?’

I winced at his murderous expression, said, ‘Yeah.’

T.J looked around furiously, as if he could spot Marc because of how furious he was. And then, suddenly, he swung his head around to face me, and his expression cooled, but it only looked more deadly. ‘What did you say to him?’

I blinked. ‘W-what?’

T.J slowly closed his eyes, and I’m sure we must have looked like some pretty strange people just standing on the sidewalk, one looking like he was about to kill the first person he could find, and the other one looking as if she’d like to catch a plane far, far away. ‘What did you say to Marc? Did you say yes?’

I was a little taken aback by his forceful behaviour, but I tried not to show it. ‘I…I told him…’

‘Yes?’ It was clear that his teeth were gritted together.

‘I told him I’d think about it.’

T.J groaned and covered his face with his hands. ‘Grace.’

I was only slightly offended that his tone of voice sounded that I ha done something majorly wrong. ‘What?’

‘I…I…’ His anger had obviously dissolved into nothing, replaced with…hopelessness. ‘Grace,’ he whispered, looking miserable. ‘Don’t say yes. Please don’t say yes.’

My heart wrenched at the sight of him, and I found myself snaking my arms around his neck and burying my head in his shoulder, whispering soothing words. ‘T.J, it’s Okay, it’s Okay. I haven’t said yes.’

He wrapped his arms tightly around me and sank his face into my neck, inhaling deeply. ‘I…you confuse me so much, Grace.’

I smiled wryly, and a car honked at us as it passed. ‘Yeah. I do that to a lot of people.’

He kissed my forehead, and butterflies immediately started flitting around my stomach at that brief brush of his lips against my skin. ‘I just…I’m you friend. I don’t want him to hurt you.’

‘Yeah.’ I forced a smile, though inside my heart was breaking, breaking…breaking. ‘Friends.’
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The next day at school was…I don’t really know how to describe it.

Rachael, for some reason that was unfathomable to me, was being nice to T.J, following him, giving him compliments, smiling flirtatiously, and generally acting as if she was a girl with a crush. And it bothered me for some reason.

‘T.J!’ Rachael squealed, clip-clopping up to us – well, him, really – the following morning.

I had to stop myself from groaning. She was wearing a yellow-lace cami, with a pair of white short shorts. Next to me, dressed in my usual jeans and t-shirt, she looked like a movie star on vacation

T.J just looked at her, and I could tell that he was wondering what the hell she was doing, though you had to look close to see it behind his usual façade of coldness.

‘So how have you been?’ Rachael asked, not seeming to notice the many people that actually stopped on their way to tutor and stared.

This time the slightest crack appeared in T.J’s mask, a whisper of a lead. ‘Fine, thankyou.’ He answered cautiously, while I just stood there looking stupid.

‘And Grace, how are you?’ She turned her head to me, looking politely interested.

‘Uh, fine thankyou,’ I said, not quite sure how to take this ‘new Rachael’ – though I knew it was far from new. She was the performer and this was her act.

She beamed. ‘Good.’ And was it just me, or was I the only one that caught that calculating presence behind her crystal blue eyes?

And then, without a word, T.J tugged on my wrist, and I frowned, and the seemingly casual flick of his eyes toward the west told me that he wanted to get away from her.

‘Goodbye.’ T.J said, his voice flat, to a startled Rachael. I supposed she wasn’t used to T.J’s abruptness.

And then he turned me around, and I followed his footsteps, leaving a furious and bewildered Rachael behind.
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We were in R.E, and I couldn’t help sneaking glances at the boy that had the rightful place in my heart.

I always found it interested the way he looked at things, as if from a tainted and cynical point f view, seeming generally surprised when the outcome is a little optimistic than he ever thought it would be.

Though I knew that T.J was an all-round hottie, and that I knew I had no chance whatsoever with him, I wondered if other people up caught the other things that I did, like the way he glanced down and a slight pinkish tinge appeared on his cheeks, and his dimple would indent just a little bit. Or the way his eyes sparkled when he was in a slightly better mood than he had previously been before, or the way his nostrils would flare and his back would straighten while his fists clenched at his sides when he was angry. To casual onlookers and probably all of the population of my High School, to them T.J was just a hot body. But I don’t think it ever occurred to them that he was a person - with a past and a future, memories and fears and likes and potential, and it made it even more special because he was T.J The T.J that I could never have.

‘You Okay?’ A voice broke me out of my pained thoughts and back into the classroom, where everyone was talking and laughing as Mrs. Ferguson didn’t really care. ‘You look hurt.’

I blinked rapidly and quickly composed myself. ‘No, no. I’m fine. I was just…I was thinking.’

T.J’s handsome features clouded over. ‘About Marc.’ It was not a question, and that set my temper flaring.

‘What have I told you about jumping to conclusions?’ I hissed, my fists balling into fists on top of the table.

He sighed and rubbed hand over his face, and I immediately felt guilty about my small outburst. ‘Sorry, Grace,’ he said with a tired smile. ‘What I mean to say is – are you thinking about Marc?’

‘No,’ I said truthfully.’ ‘I’m not.

To any girl that was madly in love with T.J Becker, they probably would have optimistically and hopefully taken his seemingly jealous behaviour as a sure sign that he liked them. But I, simply being me, knew that this was not the case. For some unfathomable reason, T.J acted extremely protective over me, like he would a sister. He never minded my talking to some of his girl friends, since they weren’t really a threat when it came to my sexual preferences, but whenever a guy even glanced at me, his fists would clench and that that thing would happen to his eyes where they darkened and narrowed to slits, all because he knew how sensitive I was. It was quite sweet really.

He seemed to want to say something more, his fingers fiddling with the frayed tassels at the end of his pencil case, but after his lips formed soundless words for about half a minute, he gave up and turned his head away.

‘T.J?’ I said gently, putting a tentative hand on his shoulder.

We were sitting by the window at the back of the classroom, and it was that time of day where the sun had just come out and the slivers of light snaked across his face, illuminating his beauty. My breath caught, and my heart mourned the fact that he could never be mine. Never.

He was staring at me with an odd expression, as if looking for something. ‘I…’ he started. He lopped hopeless, if I was being honest.

And then, suddenly, his arms were reaching for me, snaking around my waist and pulling me into him, while I instinctively wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my head in his neck.

People were staring, but we didn’t care.

‘Come to my house after school?’ T.J breathed in my ear, his head turned to whisper in my ear.

I nodded.

This was an arrangement that Just Friends would make, but the way his voice felt in my ear and the way I reacted to it made it feel like so much more.

T.J Becker was the centre of my thoughts, and as much as it chagrined me to have feelings for someone who didn’t return them, I couldn’t deny the raw emotion in the love I had for him.

I inhaled deeply, breathing in his masculine scent.

His arms around me tightened, and he murmured something I didn’t catch into my hair that I don’t think I was supposed to hear, anyway.

And there in his arms it didn’t matter that I had one-way feelings, it didn’t matter that we could never be something more then what we were at that moment. Because I was good at playing Let's Play Pretend.