CHAPTER FOUR

I had a nice long bath and I changed into something comfortable.

I wish Rayna would think of herself as what she is; Pretty. I love her kind of pretty, I don’t know why she thinks I’m messing with her because I know I’m not. I’m serious. She’s not like Emma, Emma isn’t a beautiful girl, well, on the outside, but she doesn’t look down on herself the way Rayna does.

She’s so confident about the way she is…She’s a really sweet and cheerful person and she does everything she can to keep everyone around her happy. It doesn’t even matter to her whether anyone calls her ugly [Hey, no one is ugly, never call anyone ugly. They’re just not as pretty/handsome as the term] because Myles thinks of her as the prettiest girl on the planet, the most perfect. He adores her, that’s why their relationship is amazing, it is one I look forward to sharing with Rayna…I’d adore her and love her with everything in me.

She’d never have any reason to doubt me or my feelings for her.

I just wish she’d stop shutting everyone out and freaking let me in. Rayna occupies my mind all the time. When I see or hear that she’s sad, I don’t seem to think straight. I don’t like the effect she has on me, because it isn’t something I can control. I’m freaking Kyle Robertson! I reek of self-control people! But nooooo, Rayna just had to come along and ruin it. She’s turning me soft, and I’m not soft. I like Rayna, I’m even afraid to use ‘love’, so we’ll leave it at that.

I would love a chance to hold her close. Now I wish I’d told her how I felt about her in the hallway when I had the chance. The longer I keep this in me, the crazier I become.

Although, I don’t understand why she’s this insecure about herself, and it hurts me. I’ve been there like twice for one of her breakdowns. She wasn’t talking directly to me those two times though, the first time, she was talking to Maeve, really crying. We were having P.E. and they’d stayed back in class. I happened to be passing by and I heard someone saying; “Take it easy please”, and she sounded teary-eyed. I took a look, and what I saw broke my heart. That was the first time I’d seen Rayna ever cry. Ever.

She’s usually this strong, self-willed girl that has wise words of comfort and hugs to dole out whenever she saw people she cared about in distress. At times she got angry and went to confront the cause. I admired that about her, so you could imagine my surprise and hurt when I saw her crying, talking more about her reason.

It took a whole lot not to barge in and tell her how much I liked her and how it hurt that she thought of herself as such. The second time was with Chris. He was hugging her tightly while she cried and was lamenting from time to time.

I felt jealous [selfish I know, but I couldn’t help it, I’m sorry], but I was more unhappy, but I thought it was great that she didn’t want the world to see her weak. I began to admire her all the more.

I sat at my desk and threw my head back and sighed. I began to recall the morning’s events and began to smile once more…

“Get the hell away from my dress you jerk!”, she yelled.

That was a really pretty dress, I can’t lie. I imagined her in it and I loved what I saw…

“It’s quite pretty Rayna…Try it on?”, I pleaded.

“I own the dress, I wear it when I want to. Now put it down”, she ordered. Her stubbornness could be annoying. Very annoying. Why be stubborn at a time like this? When I was dying inside to see her in that dress? I didn’t know when I voiced my thoughts…

“Don’t get all stubborn on me now Rayna, not the time. Put it on!”, I said, my voice gaining a little volume, even though I wasn’t meant to be in her room, or house altogether, at that time…

I think I realized what I did because I got this surprised look from Rayna, and I apologized immediately, but I didn’t expect the words that followed after my apology, trust me…

“Sorry, it’s just that I wanted to see you in it. You and that dress are the same. Pretty”.

See what I mean when I say I don’t have control over what I feel for her? I don’t particularly like not having self-control over stuff. It’s one of my values. Self-control.

One hiccup came from Rayna.

Then another. And another.

She suddenly couldn’t stop.

Ah jeez.

I suddenly remembered I hadn’t eaten, so I went to get myself something to eat...

RAYNA’S P.O.V

I and Maeve usually had music classes by 3:30 pm every Saturday. Our mothers took turns dropping us off.

Today was mine's turn. I glanced at the clock on the wall, the time was 3:02 pm. I texted Maeve to come over. I wanted to tell her what happened before classes started…

In the next ten minutes, she was at my doorstep.

“I’m coming!”, Mom called out from the back.

I heard a door open.

“Hello there! Maeve darling, how are you today?”, Mom asked fondly. She’s quite fond of my best friend.

“I’m very well Mrs. Peters, and you?”, she replied, smiling.

“I’m doing great, thank you very much”, my mother replied, equally smiling.

“That’s nice to know. Where’s Rayna please?”, she asked.

“She’s in her room”

“Thank you. I’ll head towards there then”. And in the next five or seven seconds, I heard someone knocking at my bedroom door. I opened up to Maeve.

“I have a lot to tell you”, I told her.

Then I started my little story, from the hallway incident up till this morning…

10 MINUTES LATER…

Maeve seemed to be in thought after I narrated my little story, then her facial expression changed into, I don’t know, she seemed to look…touched or something. Then she started smiling, like, really big.

“Uhh…Are you okay?”, I asked her. She didn’t look so to me. I don’t exactly know what she found funny in anything I said.

“Don’t tell me you don’t understand what’s going on Rayna, despite all the novels you claim to read”, Maeve asked, looking like I was something that landed on the face of the earth by mistake.

“If I did I wouldn’t be here asking you to explain what’s going on, so no, I do not understand”, I sassed.

“Think it through Rayna, stop being so shallow”, Maeve urged.

She looked serious, so I tried to understand what she was getting at…

Okay, I’d never seen Kyle lost for words around a girl, or anyone. He reeks of confidence.

He’s usually rude to me, as earlier stated by Kamila, but he seemed to be polite today.

He even called me pretty, and there were times I caught him staring. Like when I was stifling my laughter when Kamila was lying to Mom and she was falling for it. Kyle had opened the wardrobe wide enough for his face to come into full view. I’d caught him looking at me, and I was giving him dirty looks. When he saw that I was looking back at him though, he looked a bit red, like I’d caught him doing something wrong. I began making faces at him, and instead of retaliating, as he’d normally do, he just smiled. I didn’t like it, because I usually enjoy it whenever we bicker.

He so much wanted to see me in that dress…

He called me pretty…

He was staring at me…

He no longer had words around me…

Wait a second. Oh no.

I think my face gave me away because Maeve started smiling again. I didn’t know she could smile so big.

“Yes, Rayna… Yes, he does…”, she insisted.

“No..”, I gasped

“Yes..”

“No”

“Yes”

“No”

“Y__” Stop it Maeve. Stop. Stop!!”, I shouted at her…

“S... S... Stop it..”, then I began to cry…

“It’ll be fine Maeve. Kyle doesn’t seem like that kind of guy”, Maeve said, holding me close to her, so that I cried into her chest.

How do I explain this?...