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This time I mean it.
* * *
Avoidance is the perfect answer.
So far, I have managed to do my best not to see Jordan, or if I do, that there are other people around.
It’s been months since the party, and although Jordan has tried messaging, calling, or trying to find me alone to talk to me, I’ve managed to avoid him. Each time reassuring him that we’re fine. I think he has finally given up. I don’t want to lose his friendship, but more importantly, I don’t want Xavier to lose it either.
I don’t know if anything has ever been said between them, but I know it’s usually an unwritten rule never to date your best friend’s sister. In fact, many great friendships have been ruined over this exact problem.
So, I’m taking one for the team and making sure it never even gets close to that happening.
That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.
Not the fact that I’m protecting my heart from being broken by the only guy who has ever come close to owning it.
I’m not stupid.
Jordan is off to college at the end of this year, and so am I. The problem being we are going in different directions. My love of fitness, nutrition, and rehabilitation means I’ll have a lot on my plate in college and no time for any distractions.
More importantly, Jordan’s life is about to change in ways he can’t even imagine right now. I don’t want to hold him back or stand to the side and be crushed by the lonely days and nights that a long-distance relationship would involve.
Then there’ll be all the female groupies. It will be just like this past year where I’ve gritted my teeth every time one of them is all over him.
Same shit, different location.
Girls who want to screw him just to be able to say they have, to climb that social ladder or to use him for the social status that being with him will bring them.
I know I’m a cynic, but history has shown me that sadly that’s what keeps happening.
If that’s what he wants, then good luck to him, but I can’t stand by and have my heart broken while he continues to play the field.
I’d like to think that’s not Jordan, but I just don’t know. It wasn’t long ago that he didn’t even know I existed other than being Xavier’s sister.
Sitting at the table in the cafeteria with the girls, I can see Jordan across the room with Xavier and half the team. They’re all sitting on top of the table, feet on the seats and looking like they rule the school. The athletics team like to think it’s them, but they never had a chance. It’s always been the football team, followed closely by the ice hockey team. I mean, if you ask the hockey boys, they’ll argue the point, but there has never been a doubt that this is a football school.
Jordan finally got the message that nothing was going to happen between us, and he backed off. Yet it hasn’t stopped him from watching me from across the room for the past thirty minutes. I try not to acknowledge it, but it’s a little hard when his stare is like a magnet that draws my attention to him, no matter how hard I try to escape it.
“I can’t believe in two days’ time we are going to graduate and all start moving in separate directions,” Selena comments as she keeps looking in her phone at her reflection to check her hair is in perfect placement.
“I’m going to miss you bitches,” Jocelyn says while coating her lips in more lip gloss than any mouth would ever need.
I don’t even know why I’m friends with these girls. I’m just not like them. I’d rather be in workout gear than dressed in clothes that are uncomfortable, purely because they’re so tiny and cover so little that I spend all night trying to pull them to cover my skin.
“I know, but we’ll be going out with a bang. The party on Friday is going to go off, big time. Who are you going with, Nat, or flying solo again?” Selena nudges me in the ribs.
Seriously, I’m over this shit!
“You say it like it’s a serious curse. Oh, watch out, Nat has the single and dateless cooties!” Fuck, that came out louder than it was supposed to, and of course, it’s the moment the cafeteria chooses to go a little quiet.
“I’ll date you, Nat,” Johnson yells.
“Me first,” Ericson’s loud voice booms over the top of everyone else’s.
“Like fuck either of you are going near my sister!” Xavier stands up and slaps them across the back of the head.
“And you wonder why she doesn’t have a date, big brother,” Jordan cuts in. “She’s a big girl and can make her own decisions. Isn’t that right, Nat?” Jordan looks at me like he’s trying to get every word he is saying to tattoo on my brain.
