DYLAN'S POV
Yesterday was a flop for me. I know I should stop having high hopes when it comes to my dad but for some reason I just can't do it. Some people might call me a 'big baby' or make fun of me for having 'daddy issues' but I really can't stop not caring for the promises he makes and wanting to get closer to him with each passing day. I just want to do the things that most of the boys do with their dads. Is that asking too much??
Ever since we moved to the US, I've been seeing less of him with each passing year. He wasn't even around the night Forest was born. A little part of me had even begun wondering if what Tyler said about my dad putting his work above us was true. Of course, I didn't really pay attention to that part of me.
I tried my best to get my dad off my mind and focus on more important things. That wasn't really difficult because at that very moment, Morgan walked into the cafeteria looking as beautiful and angelic as ever.
God, I want to marry that girl!
I was a hundred percent sure that I had drool by the side of my mouth but I didn't care. As long as Morgan didn't see me, I didn't care who else did.
"Fly trap," Tyler said and shut my mouth in a very un-ceremonial way.
"It's embarrassing how you stare at her like that all day long. "
I glared at my best friend who just pretended like I wasn't there and went about eating his pizza.
"Look at her!" I exclaimed all too loudly. Thankfully the cafeteria was as noisy as ever so no one actually heard me.
"Who wouldn't stare?"
While the urge to beat my so called best friend with a bamboo spear became overwhelming, I decided to calm my nerves by looking at the only person who could do it.
Morgan had on her favorite denim mini skirt with her thigh high boots. She was putting on her brother's varsity jacket instead of the camouflage one she had on earlier. Her long black hair was curled at the tip and it flowed gracefully down her back.
Behind the medicated glasses that she was forced to wear after the summer of tenth grade, her blue eyes twinkled in amusement as she laughed at one of her friend's joke. Her lush pink lips parted slightly as she tried to suppress the grin that was threatening to show. In all honesty, Morgan Daniels was the prettiest girl in the whole of Avondale High. Probably in the whole county.
I remembered what Tyler said to me yesterday about Morgan asking of me. I'm sure the shock on my face did not hide how I felt when I heard that. I was beginning to wonder if she was starting to see me the way I saw her but my demon friend decided to burst my bubble by saying she just wanted an apology from me. I felt like burying him in that park.
As I looked at Morgan's smiling face, the overwhelming urge to talk to her consumed me. I couldn't properly talk to her yesterday because of you-know-who and that kinda left a hole in me that needed to be filled up ASAP.
I'll just use the excuse of wanting to apologize.
As I stood up from my seat, a hand reached out and grabbed mine. I glared hard at Tyler's hand hoping it would fall off.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" he whisper-yelled.
" Where does it look like I'm going?" I replied yanking my hand free from his grip. "I wanna talk to Morgan."
He sighed and bent his head muttering incoherent (probably curse) words.
"I hope you are aware she hates you?"
"That's not news," I said shrugging my shoulders.
"You took her cookie."
And just like that I was back to feeling like an abandoned little kid on Christmas morning.
I had totally forgotten about the cookie incident and the fact that I was supposed to stay away from her until she calmed down. I came to the conclusion that the bad luck from yesterday followed me here.
"You have to have a little bit of constraint if you want Morgan to forgive you...for the cookie incident that is. She's never gonna forgive you for anything else."
The more Tyler spoke and gave me reasons not to talk to her, the more deflated I became. Until...
"Wait," I said cutting him off abruptly. "You said she asked of me yesterday." My voice had a little bit of hope in it. Tyler stared at me skeptically before slowly replying, "Yes."
"That means she wants to talk to me." Realizing where I was going with this, he started shaking his head vehemently.
"Dude, do not..."
"You can come with me so it'll look less like me wanting to talk to her and more like an ambush."
" Dy-"
" Bye," I said quickly cutting him off and walking away to meet Morgan at her table.
As soon as she saw me the smile she was wearing faded away-as usual. But what wasn't usual was the absence of the nasty glare that she always sent me after the smile left her face.
Was this a dream? Am I imagining things?
I heard shuffling behind me and turned to see Tyler glaring at me. When I looked back at Morgan, she was doing the same thing he was. I couldn't help but think I had imagined that brief moment she didn't hate me.
"What do you want dickwad?" She looked angry but didn't sound like that at all.
Okay Morgan, you're confusing me now.
"Good morning Squeaks. Did you sleep well?" She folded her arms across her chest and cocked her head at me.
"Thanks to your not being present in my dreams last night, I actually did." My heart began to pound at an incredulous rate. I don't think Morgan knew the implications of her words.
"Are you saying that you dream about me, Squeaks?" I just couldn't hide my excitement anymore so I began to grin. That grin grew wider the moment I spotted her reddened cheeks. Someone seated at the table snickered but I couldn't tell who it was because my eyes were fixed on Morgan.
She looks more beautiful flustered.
Morgan looked away from me obviously trying to avoid eye contact. I'm sure she felt really embarrassed.
"What exactly do you want, Dylan?"
I almost laughed at how serious she tried to sound. But I did not because that would have been worse for me.
"I heard you were looking for me yesterday..." Hey eyes widened and her face reddened. I didn't think that was even possible from how tomato like she already looked. I decided I had teased her enough and quickly added,"For an apology." She seemed to relax after that.
"I'm sorry for hurting you yesterday. Can you please forgive me?" It was obvious I was just teasing her and being the quick witted girl she was, she figured it out. The glare intensified.
"You know if you keep squeezing your face like that, you're gonna have wrinkles pretty quickly. Don't you want to stay young forever?" I wiggled my brows and smiled at her and she did the exact opposite.
"Dylan, your apology is not accepted." I pretended to be heartbroken-which wasn't all that difficult since I was actually heartbroken-and placed my left palm over my chest. Then I closed my eyes and groaned dramatically.
"Now, if you'd excuse me Dylan, I have important things to do at this moment one of which is not having to see your face for a second longer, so..." She got up and started gathering her things. Now, if I could go back in time, I'd go back to this particular moment because of what happened next.
Instead of the most handsome Korean-American man alive to just walk away after being harshly rejected by the love of his life and come back another day when she wasn't that mad at him anymore, he decided to just make things worse.
Now, seated just a few inches away from where Morgan kept her chemistry assignment close to the edge of the table was her favorite chocolate drink. I was once told that I was cursed with long arms. I understood the meaning of that statement then.
In my defense, the bottle wasn't well balanced. Either that or the table was a little off. Whatever it was it wasn't entirely my fault and I really wished that Morgan saw it that way too.
I just wanted to run my hand through my hair like I usually did when Morgan wasn't giving me what I wanted. It was at that very moment that Morgan's lucky pencil dropped. I guess the pencil wasn't that lucky. In my mind, it all happened in slow motion but in reality it was just one stupid second that it took to ruin my life. I'm just exaggerating that last part though.
As my hand slowly moved up, the curse decided to take it's course. My apparently ridiculously long arms stretched out way more than it was supposed to and knocked down that bottle of chocolate. My question now is 'why the hell was it left opened?'
I will not lie, I have imagined Morgan being drenched in chocolate. But in my imagination, she was naked and I was licking it off her. There was nothing about her brother's varsity jacket in that fantasy. Did I mention that that jacket was leather?
I was still in shock about how the whole thing happened so it took me a while to realize that there were now three other females standing beside my future girlfriend. While Ivy tried to calm her down-because Morgan was practically shaking like a leaf-Elle was trying to get the chocolate out of her hair. The quiet girl just kept giving me nasty glares while she fumbled with the jacket. I don't know why she was bothered with that thing; her friend just got bathed in brown goo.
"Oh my God, Morgan are you alright?" It was my best friend that asked that question. I didn't even realize he was no longer behind me and was now standing beside Morgan with the rest of her friends. No wonder I felt so cold and alone.
Morgan was obviously still in shock as well because if she wasn't she would have been yelling at me by now. But that didn't stop me from getting prepared for that outburst that was sure to come.
After waiting for ages for her yelling spree, Morgan finally looked at me. Her eyes were cold and I shivered again. It was like I was looking at hatred in the face, if hatred was as pretty though.
"This," she started through gritted teeth, pointing at the jacket, "is freaking leather. White leather." She picked up her bag and the chemistry assignment that wasn't stained-thank God-and shoved them, including that lucky pencil that was also to blame for this incident, inside her bag. Then she marched angrily out of the cafeteria with her friends following her.
I was surprised that that was all she had to say. The fact that she didn't yell at me frightened me even more.
Tyler walked up to me slowly and placed his hand on my shoulder. He sighed and shook his head before saying, "I told you not to come here."
A little part of me wished I had listened to him, but the part that refused to admit that he was right decided to blame him for not fulfilling his duties as a best friend which included stopping me from doing crazy shit like this. He was supposed to convince me no matter what that coming over here to meet Morgan wasn't the best idea. So, if we think about it, really, it's all Tyler's fault.
So angry at him now that I couldn't voice my thoughts, I removed his hand from my shoulder and shook my head at him. He was surprised by what I did and gave me a questioning look.
"You should have tried harder. I'm mad at you." I walked away from him leaving him utterly confused and dumbfounded. That was his punishment for not doing his job right.