The Bet [COMPLETED]

Chapter 9: Lingering feelings

Diane's boyfriend, Justin, arrived around 8 PM. Kevin's hyper mood instantly dropped as soon as he arrived. I guess Kevin was right this time. He seemed much older than Diane, for one. Then again, girls oddly love dating guys twice their age. But his appearance was also a bit drastic. He had piercings for as far as I could see, and I had a feeling there were probably more at places I couldn't see, too. But if Kevin was judging him only by his appearance, I couldn't agree with him. He seemed like an okay guy.

That was until he started to smoke and Kevin absolutely lost it.

"Who do you think you are, smoking in our house without permission?!" he shouted.

I held him by his shoulder; he seemed like he was about to floor the guy.

Justin simply shrugged. "Diane gave me her permission."

"Diane's not the only person living here!" he snapped back at him. The fact that Diane suffered from asthma was what riled him up this much. "Whether she gave you permission or not is not important right now. Put it off before I do it for you."

Diane seemed obviously uncomfortable about their arguing. Her eyes shifted to me, pleading for assistance. I pulled Kevin back a bit.

"Perhaps it would be best if you left," I told Justin calmly, "It's almost midnight, too. Please."

He glared at me for a while before sighing. "Fine, fine. I'm leaving." He glanced at Diane. "Next time come to my house will you?"

She grimaced. "I'm sorry..."

"Why are you the one apologizing?!" Kevin snapped.

"Kevin, just shut up and calm down. He's already leaving." After these words I glared at Justin, a sign he really had to go.

"Why did you interfere, Zack?" Kevin asked me, much calmer now.

"You were making a scene. And you almost woke your parents up," I replied.

He didn't argue with that. Turning back to Diane, he asked: "And why did you give him permission to do that? Soon enough you'll be giving him permission to rape you or something."

I rolled my eyes but didn't say a word.

"How is letting him smoke the same as letting him rape me?" she replied in her typical soft voice I loved so much.

Kevin ignored this, probably because he didn't know how to answer her. "Don't you know that him smoking in your vicinity is bad for your asthma?"

"Yes, I know," she said sincerely, "But I left the windows open. You came barging in my room without even paying any attention to that."

"I'm just trying to look out for you, Diane," Kevin told her with a frown on his face.

"I know, I know." She gave her brother a hug. "But Justin's really not that bad of a guy. Sure, he needs to work on his manners, but you need to give him a chance."

"I don't know, Diane, I have a really bad feeling about that guy..."

I secretly agreed with him, but I was hoping we were both wrong.

On the next day I handed Robin her keyboard. At first she pushed it away.

"It'll never work," she said.

"You didn't even try it yet," I protested. If she played her keyboard daily, say three times a day, she'd be sure to start moving her fingers again. Beside her therapies, this just had to speed things up at least a bit more. "Come on, just try it. We'll start bit by bit, okay?"