Two Hearts: The Hunt [Slowly Editing]

Chapter Seventeen

Caleb's POV

"Did you guys see the Instagram picture Nathan posted up?" Corey asked, his eyes glued to his phone as he swiped at it with his thumbs. "Looks like he's finally out of the hospital."

"Am I the only one who thinks that it's a bit weird for guys to have Instagrams?" I questioned, leaning back and resting my elbows on the higher step behind me.

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with guys sharing photos of themselves," David defended. He frowned. "Well, as long as they're not making duck faces at the camera. Besides, Instagram is a great way to check out girls."

"Agreed." Corey nodded, running a hand through his brown hair.

"Do any of you know if Nathan's going to be able to make it to the game tomorrow?"

"No. But I'll send him a text right now," said Corey with his phone still in his hands.

We were seated in our usual spot at the front steps of school facing the school parking lot, waiting for school to officially start. From where I was sitting I could see battered disposition of Catalina's ugly green Jeep parked in one of the best parking spots in the lot. No doubt, she had charmed someone into giving it to her seeing as that she never got to school early enough to claim that spot as her own. But why was I letting her infiltrate my thoughts? I was just going to stop thinking about her, plain and simple.

...I couldn't stop thinking about her. Ever since Chemistry yesterday, all I could see in my head was her slim figure; her smooth alabaster skin and white smile; her blonde cascade of wavy hair. This unfortunately caused me a bit of trouble in my other classes because I kept spacing out. If I wasn't thinking about how she looked then I was thinking about ways to prank her and to humiliate her in front of the school again. And if I wasn't thinking about that, then you can bet I was replaying our conversation in Chemistry over and over, remembering the way her icy fingertips felt at the nape of my neck. The way her soft lips brushed against my hot ear and made me feel things I hadn't felt in a long time.

If you asked me, I'd say I had become worse than the rest of the guys in this school.

I sighed and looked up at the sky. Once again clouds that hovered overhead were tainted grey, heavy with the promise of rain. Maybe David was right. It's like it only rains above the school. Maybe it really was cursed.

Corey, David and I were the only ones sitting at the steps on this particular morning, and you can give a huge thank you to Catalina for that. Yep, she had really done it this time. I can't say I was surprised that she had managed to fulfill her vow. She really did get the entire football team of the school to fall head over heels for her. And she had done it in two days. I would have been quite impressed if it wasn't for the fact that game day was tomorrow and half the guys on the team weren't talking to each other.

Joseph and Jared were a prime example of the type of fighting that ignited between our team members. Joseph and Clarissa had broken up thanks to Clarissa's refusal to achieve independence from Drina. He wanted Clarissa to stop following her around like her little minion and to stop listening to whatever she said. But Drina was the "ringleader" of the group and captain of the cheerleading team so you can probably guess what Clarissa's firm answer was to that particular request.

Then the arguing started. During practice yesterday, Jared, always being one to start problems, accused Joseph of flirting with Catalina during lunch even though he had just ended it with Clarissa the day before. This was true-all us guys had noticed it but we didn't dare call him out like that because we knew what would happen if we did.

Fighting.

It was the classic case of "you've done something wrong but you won't admit it" and, "I'm innocent, you're just jealous." Arguments related to Catalina soon spread like wildfire throughout the rows of the locker room-it was the same argument, just different people. Before I knew it I was in a room filled with countless angry, hormonal teenage boys. And if you thought girls were bad when they were jealous, then these guys had nothing on hair-pulling and nail-scratching. I lost count of how many guys I had to hold back to keep them from resorting to physical violence. It was then that I knew the world had gone shit-crazy.