AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The question was, did she want to protect Lucas, or hers
elf?
If I got her alone somewhere later and told her, straight-up, that Lucas had run his car into me on purpose that time, that he’d destroyed my phone and intimidated me until I was willing to give him some of my time, I was pretty sure I’d learn all she had to tell.
I would also be putting Lucas completely at her mercy by giving her the information she needed to destroy him. Myself, too, if I cared enough about what happened to him—and especially after that night we’d spent together, I did.
If I just wanted to know what had happened, I could ask Lucas. But he might refuse to tell me, or become angry with me for prying into his past… or he might lie. There were a lot of risks.
I had a choice to make here.
I didn’t get a chance to talk to Tamara until lunch time. Carlene was in a lot of my classes, and apparently now that Lucas was making me official, she was going to do everything she could to bring me into the fold. It was overwhelming and a bit annoying to be honest, but I could see she was trying, and I had promised myself I wasn’t going to pre-judge these girls out of eventually liking me.
Tamara had Aileen with her, looking like she would have rather been anywhere but there.
“All right, Calista,” she said, “so what is going on here?”
I’d never felt more awkward in front of anyone in my life, and that included every popular kid who’d given me a hard time over the years.
“I texted you,” I told her. “Lucas and I got together properly, it was very sudden.”
“And now you’re part of his little group,” said Tamara, “is that it?”
Aileen was making faces at me where she thought Tamara couldn’t see.
“I just would have thought we were worth more after all these years than you just dropping me a text while you’re hanging with your new beau’s friends,” Tamara said. “People have been asking me what’s going on all day. Absolutely loving it when it’s clear I don’t have a fucking clue. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
Yes, I did, but I could never tell her.
All I could do was try to look apologetic for my distraction.
“We’re still friends,” I told her. “I don’t want to stop spending time with you just because I might be spending more time with Lucas from now on.”
“But if I want to spend time with you now am I going to have to also spend time with Ashleigh and Carlene?” Tamara demanded. “Because I do not want anything to do with those bitches.”
“I don’t think Carlene is that bad actually,” I said. “She seems kind of nice.”
Tamara spun and stalked away, Aileen glancing back at me a few times as she followed.
No, there wasn’t a chance in hell Tamara would be able to spend time with Lucas’s crowd. She was shy, but she fired up whenever she felt threatened… and what I knew about Lucas’s friends already was that being bitchy and hostile was part of the fun. They would rag on each other and trade really nasty, really personal jokes… and I was kind of used to that after all my time working at Stacks Brothers, even if I didn’t particularly like it, but I didn’t imagine Tamara ever would.
I asked myself, why should I care? The two of us hadn’t really been spending much time together for months. But I could see now that was my fault in large part, because I had let myself get caught up in this loopy plan for improving my future prospects, which wouldn’t have been so bad… if I hadn’t just happily wasted my time at the expense of our friendship.
Welll, I wasn’t even sure we had a friendship any more.
Lucas went out with Steven that night, which left me pretty relieved. I still hadn’t decided whether I should confront him over Ashleigh’s allegations, and I didn’t think I could spend any time with him doing anything else until we’d sorted that out. Certainly not the sorts of things he was hot for.
At least I hoped my mother would make for some much-needed nonjudgemental company where the situation with Lucas was concerned. I hadn’t seen my parents since before our big hook-up, but I’d kept them updated on my still-alive status via text, so they had to have figured out what was going on.
Mum almost met me at the door, but I was surprised to see she wasn’t smirking like the cat who’d just about scored the perfect son-in-law. I figured there had been some beef with Dad and was going to let them keep the details for my own sanity, but when Dad got home he didn’t seem to be that much different to usual when it came to me and Lucas. He actually asked how things were with the two of us, which was more than Mum managed.
She was the one who had the problem, then?
Well, it seemed like today I was just in for it in terms of confronting people who had issues with my finally managing to get any boyfriend at all.
“Okay, Mum,” I said, with Dad right there, “what’s going on here? You’ve been nudging for me and Lucas to get together officially since the accident, for goodness sake.”
“It’s true,” she admitted. “But I think I’m starting to see things a bit more from your dad’s point of view these days. I thought you and Lucas would be a great couple… but that was before I knew how much you were going to change yourself to fit with him.”
