The Bet [COMPLETED]

Chapter 12: Complications

We didn't say a single word to each other the entire time until Robin was dropped off at her house again. As promised, I didn't let her go in alone. I did notice that her father wasn't at home anymore, but I just had to give her some kind of reply to that kiss she gave me.

I dragged on behind her until we both came to a halt at her door.

"I'll see you tomorrow at school, okay?" she whispered with her back still in front of me.

I didn't reply. She grimaced and took a step inside, but I grabbed her arm and stopped her. She finally turned to look at me.

"Do you expect me to just shrug what happened in the ice cream parlour away or something?" I told her, smirking.

Robin's eyes widened. She glanced down at her shoes and started fiddling with her fingers. "Yes?"

I leaned in closer to her, forcing her to pull her head back a bit. "And why would I possibly want to do that?" She was obviously pretty uncomfortable about the situation. Perhaps the issue wasn't that she was shy. Perhaps she was afraid I was going to reject her.

My smirk dropped and I finally let her go and straightened myself again. She looked at me, startled.

"Why did you kiss me exactly?" I asked her finally.

She looked away again. "W-well, you seemed s-sad, so I wanted to cheer you up."

Oh really?

"I can't be sure that what you're saying is true if you don't look at me," I said, forcing down another smile.

Robin slowly dragged her eyes back to mine. "Look, I probably got caught up in the moment," she said quickly, "I'm sorry for giving you any non-existent ideas. I like you, but as a friend. You're one of my closest friends besides Cece. But you're just a friend. Perhaps kissing you was a bad idea to try and cheer you up, but it helped didn't it?"

I remained absolutely silent until she walked in and closed the door in front of me. And even so I just stood there. I couldn't move a single muscle. Was there really nothing behind it? It was so hard to believe...

I gripped the handle, but didn't open the door. I simply couldn't. And here I was, thinking she was the one afraid to get rejected. I got rejected before I even confessed to her.

My hand dropped meekly from the handle. I turned and walked away. Oh well, life went on, right?

Wrong.

The rest of the day I couldn't do anything right. I dropped every single glass object I put my hands on and broke them into tiny little pieces, for one. Then I went for a walk, you know, to take some fresh air. Wandering by the fisherman's dock, I accidentally knocked over a bucket of fish back into the sea. Then some random man threw another bucket of fish right over me. Seconds later my clothing was wet and I had a terrible fish stench on me. The fishermen called me all kinds of obscenities, and all I could do was apologize to them. And don't let me get started on when I got home, flung the door open and broke Mom's favourite vase...

Ugh, why did I have to fall in love with her of all people?!

"Zackie, what happened in here?" Mom's voice suddenly echoed through the house. "MY VASE!!"

I sighed and left my bedroom. In the meantime I braced myself for the scolding of a lifetime. When I walked up to her I found her muttering things like 'oh my god', 'my baby' and 'oh honey, Mommy's here'. But when she laid her eyes on me I actually got a hug from her instead.

"Why do you smell like fish?" she asked me with a frown.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't even go there."