2. THE EMBARRASSING INJURY AND THE DISASTROUS DATE.

There I was, sprawled on the floor in front of my crush and twelve other cute guys, not as hot as Brian but still cute. The only good thing about the incident was that all those cute guys came running up to me. Brian helped me up and made me sit on the bleachers. Which led me to think, why was I always falling in front of him? Did I need to fall more often in order to have more interactions with this male model?

"Are you okay?" Brian asked, and his eyes showed concern.

"What are you even doing out here?" My brother asked. Yes, always interrupting the greatest moments of my life.

"Honestly, it doesn't really look that bad," Lyla said in a bored tone. I don't really ask for princess treatment often in life, but this had been the one rare opportunity stripped from me.

    That night, my brother and I were two injured siblings returning home together. I did not even bother explaining to him what I was doing outside the basketball court. I had bigger problems. I had a black eye, a double date, and a best friend who was going to kill me tomorrow.

                           ******************

                   "I can't believe I'm doing this right now." Kylie said it through gritted teeth. She was standing at the edge of her bed with a beauty blender in her hand, trying to cover my black eye for the date. Unfortunately, the make-up really was not helping much and was only adding to her exasperation. 

                "I'm sorry, but it really was an accident," I pleaded.

              "I know, you dumb ass. That's not why I'm mad. It's just," she paused, and her frown turned into a look of concern. "Steph? It's not worth it; he is not worth it. I don't even care about the date right now, but this crush thing is now turning into an obsession. And I don't like seeing my best friend like this; you have so much potential, you're literally the top of the class in every subject, you're extremely beautiful, and you have goals. I want you to start focusing on yourself now, not him, not someone who isn't available for you, not someone who is in a relationship."

           I know she is right. I had to stop this. "You're right; I'm going to start giving myself more opportunities now. I'm going to go out tonight, and not once am I going to think about him." I smiled at her.

            "We're going to enjoy ourselves tonight." She hugged me. "By the way," Kylie said, with a smirk on her face, "I picked a black outfit for you to match your eye." We both burst out laughing.

                          **************

I gave myself one last look, in Kylie's full-length mirror, I was wearing a black crop top with a black leather jacket. I looked pretty decent, except for, well, my eye. However, I had a good feeling about this all; I was kind of looking forward to the date now.

             Our cab arrived, and we rushed down the stairs to say goodbye to Kylie's parents. "Goodbye girls, don't do anything I wouldn't do, and stay safe," Kylie's mother had said to us with a wink. In the car, I began to feel a little nervous. However, Kylie's clasped hand reminded me that I was lucky to share the date with her.

             We reached the theatre and went inside. The smell of warm popcorn went through my nose, making my stomach rumble. I was excited. That was when Kylie's phone started ringing—it was Nick. She told them where we were.

           "Kylie!" We heard Nick call from across the room. He approached her with a big smile and embraced her. The date had just started, and I was already rooting for the two of them. Right behind him, I saw a fairly good-looking guy with a serious face and chiseled jaw line. He nodded at me, which encouraged me to speak. "Hi, I'm Stephanie."

          "Josh." Alright, he does not say much, but I mean, we had only just met. I could give him the benefit of the doubt that he was a little shy. I was grateful for the fact that the boys were not making my eye a big deal, as so far none of them had addressed it. I liked that they were trying to not be rude.

We walked to the counter to buy our tickets and food, where I could already see Kylie and Nick moving way ahead of us. My nervousness kicked in a little, but I ordered caramel popcorn and orange juice for myself. Then I turned around and looked at Josh, who was looking at me blankly.

         " What would you like?" I asked. 

         " Nothing, I'm good." He replied, shaking his head, and went ahead to join Kylie and Nick. I didn't know what to think, so I paid for my things and joined them too. Thankfully, all four of us had seats close together, so if anything got more awkward, I would have Kylie around to help me. We had picked an animated movie, and I was really enjoying it. Right beside me, Josh was slouching in his seat, with one palm on his forehead and the other scrolling through his phone. I could not believe that he was already bored. On the other side, giggles could be heard from Kylie, and Nick kept beaming at her. It was a beautiful sight indeed.

However, it did make me look longingly at them. During the interval, Kylie and Nick wanted to go out to grab more food. "You okay?" Kylie came to ask me, and that was when she saw Josh on his phone. She looked back at me with concern. "Are you sure you're not bored?" she asked again. At this moment, if I had told her that Josh really was not interested in the date, I knew she would have asked Nick to call it a day and would have left with me. But I could see that she and Nick were having a great time, so I really could not bring myself to tell her. "Yea, yea. I'm having a good time. Go." I lied.

I was left alone with the broody Josh, who was still on his phone. He made no effort to communicate at all, and I was beginning to regret my decision to not tell Kylie the truth when the movie started again. I looked around quite a few times for Nick and Kylie, but there was no sign of them. A few minutes later, I was completely immersed in the movie and forgot about them. Quite some time later, Josh mumbled something in my ear. I turned to look at him and saw a look of disgust on his face. That was when I realized there were tears running down my face. In my defense, the movie was really emotional; it brought back emotions from my childhood, so I could not control myself. "Sorry, did you say something?" I asked him.

"I'm going to use the loo," he whispered back in my ear and left with a look of annoyance on his face. Now his anger was projecting onto me. What had I done exactly to deserve that look? But I did not have much time to dwell on this, as I got hooked right back into the movie the second Josh left.

                     When the movie ended and the lights turned on, that was when I finally turned to my side, only to find three empty seats. So none of them had returned for the latter half of the movie. Walking out of the movie theater, I called Kylie. She picked up the fourth ring, and her breath sounded heavy. "Steph?" she asked.

"Yeah, where are you?" I questioned her. "We, er, we got a little distracted. Did the movie end already? Where's Josh?" She asked.

        "God knows. He left half an hour ago, saying he had to use the bathroom."

        "Wait, what? And he hasn't returned yet? Where are you? I'm coming."

          I gave her my location. I was still glad at least one of us had had a good time. I was not dumb; I knew exactly what she and Nick had been up to, but I could easily get that out of her later. At least I had enjoyed the movie. Kylie and Nick caught up to me in a few minutes. Both had flushed faces, but instead of looking giddy, Kylie had a scorn on her face. "We're leaving," she announced as soon as she arrived.

     "Oh, okay, bye Nick." I said, waving at Nick with confusion quite visible on my face, because originally we were also going to grab dinner with the boys.

       Kylie had grabbed my wrist, and we had stormed off to the parking lot. "Is everything okay? Did Nick do something?" I asked in bewilderment.

         "Yeah, he did," she replied in anger. The second those words came out of her mouth, my heart dropped. What had exactly happened?

       "He lied to me; that idiot of a Josh guy is still hooked on his ex, and Nick wanted to get him out and about. So he asked me to bring you, and what does Josh do? Treats my best friend like shit." Oh, thank God, my mind had wandered off to way worse things. Our cab had arrived, so she yanked the door open.

  "Where are we going now?" I asked.

  "To get ice cream." Kylie's stern reply brings a smile to my face. I put my arms around her.

   "Cheer up! I hadn't been to a theater in quite a while. I had fun. If anything, Josh probably had a way worse time than I did." I smirked. "You missed the movie."

  "No, shit sherlock," Kylie smiled back, realizing what I meant.

 "So are you going to tell me?"

"Duh," she said, rolling her eyes.

                        *****************

                  We sat in the ice cream parlor, getting weird looks from people for stifling our giggles and squealing at every little thing. "And then he kissed me." Kylie narrated while her cheeks got red. 

I squealed again. "Yeah, because it was such a special night for you, I might actually forgive you for leaving me all alone."

"I'm so sorry. I had no idea Nick would lie to me or that Josh would treat you like that."

"I'm kidding; of course you had no idea; it's fine. I really did enjoy the movie."

"No, I really am sorry; I'll make it up to you. Tell me, whatever you say, I'll do it for you."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"Can we go to Simon's basketball match this weekend?"

"Ugh." Kylie groaned. "You mean Brian's basketball match?" I looked at her eagerly.

"Fine," she gave in. "But we're only going for the match; nothing crazy. You don't want a second black eye to match that, do you?"