Fourteen by C.M. Smith (short story to read .txt) 📕

into the living room and sat down on the couch, reaching for the remote on the coffee table and flicking on the television. I leaned back and changed the channel from the perpetual documentary programs.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I felt awkward. Sure, Evan had been over here to work on our project but never for anything else.

What was I doing? This would never work. This wouldn’t get us anywhere. Now that he’d decided to stop abusing me and treat me like a person, all we’d done is make smart-ass comments to each other, and that was it. We couldn’t build any sort of relationship on that. Friendship needed trust, and I most certainly did not trust him.

I groaned and threw the remote back onto the coffee table and rubbed my hands over my face.

This was insane. It wouldn’t prove anything. I was sure he was very much aware of that, and would have a grand ol’ time telling all of his little minions everything he thought he’d be able to get from me.

He probably didn’t even have a retainer. His teeth were gorgeous. Straightest teeth I think I’d ever seen. If the college thing didn’t work out for him—assuming he was going to college—he could star in one of those toothpaste commercials.

“Anna Weller, you are an idiot,” I declared and stood up.

I almost jumped through the roof when I heard a knock on the door and sat back down, my pulse racing. There was another knock and I stood up, slowly making my way to the door. Exhaling heavily, I turned the doorknob and yanked back on it. Evan stood in the doorway, shifting his weight and tapping his hands against his thighs.

“Hey,” he said, chuckling nervously.

“Hey.”

I moved out of the way, and he walked in, looking around the hallway as if he hadn’t already seen it plenty of times.

“So . . .” I stepped back to his side and pushed my hair behind my ear. “What did you . . . what’d you wanna do?”

“Well . . . I hadn’t really thought of that. I guess . . . we could talk, right?” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at me.

“Yeah, sure.” I motioned to the living room and waited as he walked ahead of me and plopped down into the spot on the couch I’d just been sitting in. I sat on the other end and turned to him. “How was the rest of your day?”

“It was school, you know? Sucked. Yours?”

“Sucked, too,” I said.

“Did anyone . . . you know, say anything to you? About me?”

“Just Christina.” I looked down at my lap. “Everyone else just gave me dirty looks.”

“Sorry.”

I looked up at him again, shrugging before looking down to my lap.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I was the one that dragged you into an empty classroom.”

“Why’d you lock the door?” I asked, looking up at him once again.

“It kept the conversation strictly between us, didn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, but everyone else is thinking that we . . . I don’t know what they’re thinking, but it wasn’t that we were just having an innocent conversation about our project.”

“Is that you what you told Christina?”

“No. I told her that we were going to hang out tonight.” He winced. “You don’t want anyone else to know.”

“Anna . . .”

“I knew this wasn’t going to work.” I pulled my legs up onto the couch. “Christina isn’t going to say anything.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want anyone else to know. I just don’t know how they’re going to take it.”

“Is it at all possible for you to think for yourself?” I asked, looking at him. “Forget about the idiots who cling to your every word for one second? Did you ever think that maybe I’m a pretty awesome person? That we’d get along well if you could just stop for one second to realize it?”

“They’re my friends, Arianna,” he said through his teeth.

“They’re idiots, Evan,” I shot back.

“You’re doing the same thing to them that you’re accusing me of. You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

I stared at him and snapped my mouth shut.

“At least I have a legitimate reason to not like them,” I said. “There is no reason whatsoever that they couldn’t talk to me or get to know me.”

“Like I’m doing right now.”

“Why?”

“Why do you always have to—” He rubbed his forehead before glaring at me. “I feel guilty, Arianna.”

“Then get out,” I said, looking away from him and staring at the bottom of the television stand.

I should’ve been used to getting hurt by now, but every time he opened his mouth and said something like that, it just got ten times worse.

“You can’t just send me away every time I say something that you don’t want to hear!”

“You haven’t stopped to listen to anything I might’ve said to you in the past so why in hell should I listen to you?” I snapped.

“Because I’m here!” he shouted. “I’m here, trying to make it right with you! You have to give me some room to breathe!”

“Why should I?”

“Because we can’t make this work if you don’t give too! I know that you’re pissed and you have every right to be, but dammit, Arianna, I can’t do this completely on my own.”

I blew out a deep breath and closed my eyes, resting my chin on my knees and doing my best to clear my head.

“Anna . . .”

“Give me a minute,” I said, holding up my hand.

I could see his point. I wasn’t making it easy for him, and while he didn’t deserve easy, it wasn’t fair that I kept making him jump through hoops if I wasn’t really going to make an effort. I had years of anger stored up for him and his friends, but at least he finally had found the guts to make an effort with me.

“You need to understand that I don’t understand anything,” I said after a few moments of silence. “I don’t understand why I’m always the target,