Collette Archer
Can you believe what stupid James said to me, and then the audacity of him to warm me up. I shouldn't have crashed on the floor, it's just that I was sad because of being yelled at, he did the same thing to me 6 years ago too, ugh I hate him!
Anyway, Lia took me to the living room and made me watch Friends, to feel better. But seeing Chandler just made me feel worse and then I started crying about how Matthew Perry should have still been alive. But after a while it did make me feel a little better, Friends always does that for me. Then I noticed that Lia was asleep and I laid her on the couch, got her legs up and brought her a blanket because of the cold.I was gonna just go and sleep in my room, but i just wanted to watch a little more, so I sat on the cold ground, and I don't remember falling asleep. And then we all know what happened, I only remember waking up in James' arms, why'd he have to do that? Especially right after yelling at me, I was seriously freezing though so maybe he was just being a decent human being but I'm not going to thank him for it, because I hate him.
I get dressed, and rush down because I was very late to class. I see him down. He made breakfast today, as Thalia and I were both late, Thalia hadn't come down yet and I really didn't want to interact so I just leave without breakfast.
My classes go fine, but I can't get the thought of James Pierce out of my head. It kind of felt nice, when I was in his arms. "NO NO snap out of it", I tell myself looking at the mirror in the ladies room,"You hate him, HATE!""Who do you hate", Penny replies"Oh my my best friend's brother", I say, "He's a douchebag""Aren't they all?" she replies and we laugh together. Penny is one of my classmates, she is fun, and direct, and hates drama just like me, that's probably why we click so well. See James was totally wrong, i do have friends. But they are really less, is that really because people don't like me? Oh my god, am i really letting that asshole change how i feel about myself? No. Never will that happen. I love myself, and the fact that he hates me, wont make me hate myself, he can suck it.
My friends may be less in number but they all are really good friends and as for the people in university, I just got here two days ago so it's understandable that I don't know many people but I do kind of already have a group, there's penny, and Patrick who clearly likes penny but well, she's very hard to impress and then there's jerry who is the sweetest, and Rita who's also really nice. The five of us, have almost all our classes together so we all kind of just formed a group, I don't know any of them properly yet but they seem nice enough.
Thalia and I meet after classes to go get some boba tea. We both love some good boba. But as we walk, she looks kind of sad. I ask her why and she replies, "I just feel really terrible when you and James fight, I love both of you so much, and I can't take any sides too, and you both can't seem to solve your stupid problems, how am I supposed to act around you guys?"
She's right, I do feel bad for her, she's all ways stuck in between our fights and she hasn't even done anything,(nor have i technically, he always starts the fights).
"You're right, I'll talk to him" I say"Really?" She smiles "but what if he yells again?".
"Then I'll yell back this time" i say
We get home and James is on the couch watching a movie. I gesture Thalia to go up and tell her I'll manage. She obliges, then I go and tap on James' shoulder, "Hey, Can we talk?"
"Mm hmm, what's up?" He says like everything's normal, douche!
"Well, I know we have our differences -"
"You mean we hate each other" he cuts me off
"Uh huh yeah, but this" i say swinging my hand between him and me, "it makes Thalia feel bad, so how about we make an agreement? You can continue to hate me, but just make it subtle, when we are around her, just act normal, and just pretend like you don't want to kill me, ok?" I say
"Of course, you'd suggest this, you're so good at pretending, aren't you?"Seriously? I just told him not to do that, and he's already starting a new fight."This is exactly what I'm talking about, don't say stuff like this when she's around"
"Well she's not around"
"You're such a-""Are you guys done? Did you talk it out?" Thalia asks while coming down the stairs.
"Yes, little sister, we are totally fine" James says
"Uh huh" i smile"Great" she smiles and hugs the both of us.
It's been a week since we agreed on not to fight explicitly and in front of Thalia, and I don't ever interact with him alone, so really we haven't fought at all. It's been great and peaceful, but I'm afraid it's not going to last long. This is like the silence before a storm.
I have been avoiding any form of interaction with him, but unfortunately I'll have to interact with him today. Our IP law professor gave us an assignment to go to a law firm and well interview some people and observe how they deal with cases, and believe me, I was open to choose any company but James'. But my stupid friends thought he was 'cool', when he came to give the guest lecture and all and literally all of them voted to go to his firm, so in my team, everyone except me wanted to go to his firm, and I still tried convincing them not to but well, they were being so stubborn so I had to give in.
None of them know that I know James and I'm not going to mention that either. We go to James' firm and I haven't had any time to well give him any sort of prior information, I mean it's not like I'm going to bump into him, he's like the junior partner of the firm, and we'll probably deal with someone not so high up , right?
Wrong. We enter the firm and he's the first person we see, he was totally flirting with the receptionist and she was laughing at everything he said. Ha ha he's sooo funny! Maybe I should warn her about the fact that he's a two faced liar. She turns to notice the five of us and I pretty much hide in the back, so that James wouldn't see me.
"Good afternoon, Mr pierce", Penny says
"Hey, how do you know my name?" James asks
"Oh you gave a guest lecture, to our class, we actually had a project, so we were wondering if you could help us out a little" penny asks
"Sure, why not, let's go to my cabin shall we?" He says and gestures for us to go in front, which everyone does, but that is not good for me cuz then he'll see me, I try to turn and run back but then he grabs my arm.
"What are doing?" He says, "did you really think I didn't see you?"
"Shh" I take off his hand, "you don't know me, now act casual" I whisper and follow my friends and he walks behind me.
We go inside his cabin, which is huge, and so professional , unlike his room which looks like a teenage boy's bedroom. And I also forgot to mention that he was wearing a suit, and he looked really good in it, not that I care. He sits on his chair, and asks us to explain what the project is first. We do, mostly just Penny and Rita talk, Patrick and Jerry are just starstruck and I don't want to talk to James one bit. He hears them out and then gives us all the information we need. He was quite helpful today, unlike his usual self. He even shows us some of his previous cases which were in the news, all of us huddle and look at the screen of his computer, I'm the closest one to him and I can smell his woody perfume and it reminds me again of that time his hands were around me when I was freezing, I shake the thought off and go and stand behind the others, so that I'm far away from James. He pauses, when I shift as if noticing me moving away and then he glances at me, with guilt, no that can't be right, I'm probably just seeing things. He immediately shifts his eyes back to the screen after a second.
After all of our work is done, we (and by that I mean my friends excluding me) thank James and leave his cabin, my friends leave first and I go in the end but before I can leave he grabs my hand and pulls me back."What?" I whisper"I'm going home, you want a ride?" He says
"Ya ok" I say, "I'll wait for you outside?"
"Mm hmm" he saysI tell my friends to leave and then when they do, I get into James' car.
"How come you offered me a ride?" I ask
"Umm well, I know you usually walk from university, and you probably don't know your way home from here, so" he says
Unbelievable, satan is showing concern for me, he's probably just doing it out of responsibility though."Gee thanks" I reply.
After a while I'm freezing. "Can I turn off the AC?" I ask because, well, his car, his rules, right?"You're cold? You still get cold so easily," he says, "This is barely even room temperature."
"Fine, leave it on," I say, giving up"
"I would normally not give a damn about you, but you practically froze to death the other day, so you can turn it off."
"Seriously, why are you giving me a ride? And why did you help me out that day? I would have been fine, today and that day."
"I had forgotten for a while that you were an ungrateful bitch, thanks for reminding me" he says and turns off the AC. What the hell? He says the meanest things, and his actions are never at par with his words. Ugh, I hate him, he's such an ass.
"You know what, just drop me off here, ill walk home, it's close anyway"
"It would be my pleasure to kick you out" he says and pulls the car over.Okay so maybe I wasn't expecting him to actually kick me out, because its dark and well, I don't think its close to our house either, why did I have to open my mouth, I hesitate for a second, and he lets out a laugh, like he didn't think I would get out, and I'm really not going to swallow my pride, especially in front of James, so I get out of the car and start walking.
I realized where I was after I got out of the car and took the turn that goes to our house, and then I realize that James' car hasn't passed by, but that probably makes sense because this is a pretty small road, so he probably took the other route. I mean it's not like anything is actually gonna happen to me right? My neighbourhood is pretty safe but the more I walk down this street, I just see things that I don't recognise, which means I'm on the wrong street! Shit. I immediately pull out my phone which had like 2% charge left last I checked, and as I expected it's dead now.
I'm starting to freak out cuz this street just looks really shady now, and I'm alone, without any charge in my phone, this is really not a good sign at all. I see a turn, up ahead and all I care about right now is getting out of this street so I take the turn but then immediately regret it cuz the street just got smaller and shadier and to make matters worse I see three big drunk men and they see me and start walking towards and I freak the hell out, maybe they are harmless and they not walking towards me but I'd rather not take the chances so I turn back to where I came from and my bump into someone. I'm 3 seconds away from screaming, did one of them somehow block me or is it one of their other drunk friends. I don't open my eyes and do a silent prayer. And then something absolutely wonderful happens, my prayer gets answered and I hear James, " What are you doing?"I open my eyes after hearing his voice and jump into his arms. I wrap my hands really tight around his neck. "Woah" he says but then he realises that I was freaked out so he wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me closer.
"Don't ever leave me again" I blurt out almost in tears and then I immediately realise what I said and regret it cuz he's probably gonna say something sarcastic and make fun of me now, but he doesn't."I won't" he says without a hint of sarcasm. I get my hands off of him and he takes off his hands after 3 seconds."How'd you find me?" I ask
"Well I saw you taking the wrong turn and then I tried to call you but you're phone was off so I followed you" he says
"You have been following me since the beginning? Why didn't you stop me? You could have just called out my name!"
"That would not have been fun now, would it?" He says, "I wanted to see the look on your face when you realised you were wrong and alone"
Unbelievable! He is such a sadist."That's so mean! are you happy now? Did you see the look on my face when I was freaked the hell out?" I ask holding back my tears."Barely, you immediately crashed into me and I'm pretty sure my shoulder is dislocated" he says rolling his right shoulder."I hate you!" I yell and he pulls my right arm with his and wraps his left arm around my waist. "Yup me too! Glad we agree on something" he says and pulls me towards the car.We go back home in absolute silence. And Im still thinking about what could have happened if James wasn't there, he saved me but then he was being mean also but he was hugging me too. We reach and get out of the car, I step towards our house but James stops me.
"Would you quit sulking? Nothing happened, you're fine. Don't overreact." James says to me coldly, "when you tell Thalia about this, she's gonna treat you like a precious little princess anyway, you can stop with the acting, just how much attention do you want?"
"What is wrong with you? When did you become so cruel? We used to be good, why do you hate me so much?" I ask."I'm not the cruel one between the two of us, and I hate you because I finally realised what sort of a person you are" he replies and walks in to the house, leaving me out alone, it hasn't even been an hour and he already went back on his word. What was I expecting even? Of course he' s gonna be like this, I knew that, then why am I sad?
I enter the house, bottling up all my feelings, and putting on my fake smile so that Lia doesn't see through me and find out something is wrong."What took you guys so long?" She asks me, "I asked James and he said you'd tell me" my eyes turn to James and he's just standing near the kitchen with his arms crossed, looking at me."It's nothing sweetheart, we just got lost a little" I reply
"What do you mean you got lost?"
"Well I really wanted to get cake and so i asked James to go in that direction but then the shop wasn't there so we were searching and i didn't even find it so we gave up and came back home" I say"Wow! That's sad but... since I'm your telepathic twin, I got you cake! I was passing by your favourite shop and thought of getting some"
"Noooo! Really?" I kiss her cheek, "your the best best friend ever"
We eat our cake and I slip away a little later and go to bed. But for some reason I just can't sleep so I call up my grandma, "Hey gamma" I say to her and she recognises the sadness in my voice and asks, "what's wrong munchkin? What made my sweet grand daughter sad?"
Hearing her voice just makes me want to cry and I do, I let it all out and she just stays quiet and listens to me cry. I love my gamma so much, she's always there to just listen to me and never asks me any questions.
After I stop crying, she says, "don't worry darling, everything will be alright, just give it some time, everything gets fixed when you give it time".
"You promise?" I ask"Yes munchkin, I promise" she says. Then we talk for a while and I feel so much better and I go to sleep.
"You are coming, end of discussion " Thalia yells
Sometimes she is exactly like my mother, and this is one of those times. James has this reunion thing coming up and Thalia knows James' friends, and they invited her too, so I could have had a quiet weekend alone at home. But Lia is forcing me to be her plus one and come with her. My mom does this too, always forcing me to go out of the house and socialise, when I just wanna stay at home, paint and watch a rom com!
"There's literally nothing you're gonna do here, and believe me, James' friends are fun , the reunion last time was Epic! So you're coming, I'll snitch on you and tell your mom if you don't come"
"Ugh fine I'll come, no need for threats, let's be civilised, you're really annoying sometimes" I protest
"Beautiful, pack your bags, it's going to be great!" She exclaimsI really did not want to see James' face, but I guess I'm going on a trip with strangers, one person I really hate and my bff (who I'm not so tight with right now cuz she's forcing me to do this), sounds fun, doesn't it?