Blind Beauty (Currently Editing)

Chapter 17: I Love Her, Man

While Brett and Bailey were outside in the cold white north, Emma and Mike walked through the hallways of the school. Emma had no interest in going outside preferring the halls of the school to discuss the matter at hand.

She couldn't shake the sadness though that Brett had bestowed upon her, as Mike walked silently beside the girl. Eventually Mike realized that he needed to break the silence, because Emma was lost in a dark place.

"So what's up?"

Emma managed to take a deep breath to calm her self down enough to look at Mike. A tear was sitting on the corner of her eye lid just waiting to roll down her face.

"Look I know we barely know each other but it's only because I care about Brett that I'm doing this."

Her stern sadness made it clear that her feelings for Brett were true.

"Go on."

"Ok basically he's getting in to deep with a damaged individual, I've tried to help but Bailey keeps interfering. You see I tried to help her once before but she saw it as me competing with her and she's hated me ever since," She stopped and looked at Mike who was contently listening to the problem. "So I was wondering if you could say something to him for me."

Waiting for Mike to reject the request she looked down at her feet, awaiting his unfortunate response.

"Yea sure."

"Really."

Mike's response shocked her as she looked up at him, the tear was running down her cheek as she wiped it away. The bell rang and people started to enter the hallway.

"Yea I see how much you care, so I'll do it."

"Thanks and don't tell him that I said I care, I'd like to do that myself, when the time comes."

"Of course, but just between you and me, he cares about you to."

Her cheeks turned a rosy pink as she heard those words, along with a matching grin across her face. Emma waved at Mike and walked away from him to her next class, Mike does the same and goes a separate way too. However little did they know that Bailey was right behind them and heard what Mike said to Emma.

***

The rest of the day passed by for Brett, the final bell rang and he began to print out the weekly report to hand to Mrs. Hart, Cam walked past him putting a hand on his shoulder and pushing past. Brett gave him a nod as the paper finished printing.

He put it on her desk and headed to the bus. He got on the depressing vehicle and takes his regular seat amongst the crowd of angsty teens before staring out the window. Surprisingly Mike chose to take the bus with him today and brought a tag along, Nielsen.

Mike sat next to Brett, while Nielsen sat behind the two of them leaning over the seat. His chin almost sitting on both of their shoulders.

"Hey Brett, who was that lady friend of yours, that you were walking with at lunch?"

Nielsen wasn't wasting anytime as he got straight to the hard hitting questions.

"What do you mean?"

"Dude, don't hide it. We saw you walking with a girl at lunch."

Brett made the attempt to avoid the question, but Mike was right. He did indeed lock eyes with him at lunch and all three of them knew it. Feeling a light tap on his shoulder Nielsen was nodding taking Mike's side, as Brett buried his head in his hands knowing that this conversation would go on for the next twenty minutes, if he didn't admit the truth.

"Yea man good for you for gettin in with the ladies. Also that reminds me, what about you Mike, who was that little cutie that stole you away from me?"

Looking at his friend shocked Brett couldn't help but feel a lot of the pressure disappear from him and transfer to Mike.

"What?"

"Yea Mike totally has a babe of his own now."

"Seriously?"

Nielsen was really pressuring them both as Mike turned to face Brett keeping Nielsen in his peripheral.

"Look when we get to our stop, we have to talk about something."

"Okay man, whatevs."

The curiosity was wearing on Brett now as he started wondering who it could be. Then his mind started to wander to stupid dating activities they could do together as the flirtatious voice of Nielsen cut off his thoughts.

"Look at my boys growing up, and already making double date plans, potentially."

He wrapped both of his arms over each of their shoulders only to have Mike and Brett brush him off. The conversation came to a quiet end, the occasional couple sentences were exchanged between the group as the bus finally pulled up to Mike and Brett's stop.

The boys walked to the door as Nielsen waved good bye and fell back in the seat looking out the window. Mike and Brett both pushed through the back door of the bus being the first ones out. Mike lived at the top of the hill, while Brett lived at the bottom, so the corner was their hallway point.

They stood there and watched cars pass by until Brett finally turned to face Mike.

"So who's the girl man?"

"Dude, It's not like that at all, Nielsen is just playing around."

"Yea sure, now we're even though and you can't keep teasing me. So who is she?"

Brett continued to badger Mike until he finally spilled the beans.

"Dude shut up for a second okay. It's Emma."

As the words escaped Mike's mouth, Brett's joking tone became really serious.

"What did you just say?"

"Look she-"

Before Mike couldn't even try to explain, Brett exploded as his intense feelings for Emma came rushing out. It had been a long time since he had felt this way, the last time being the day he told her, that he loved her.

"Dude what the fuck?"

"Man calm down, we're not together or anything she just wanted to talk."

"Bullshit man, how could you do this to me. Y'know I fucking love her man."

There was those three words once more. Truthfully he wasn't angry at Mike, he was angry with himself that it took him this long to admit it. With everything that was happening between Emma and him he had bottled it up and unfortunately let it all out on Mike.

"Bro, wait."

"Don't bother man, I got stuff to do."

Brett walked across the street cutting a car off almost getting hit as Mike watched his best friend walk away. Doubts ran in Brett's mind. Was Mike and Emma really together, or was he just blowing this all out of proportion. Even if it was true would Emma even be attracted to him now after he had hurt her so much. Maybe it was truly over and he should just settle for Bailey and see where that path would lead him. The thoughts bothered him all night, knowing that over the next few days or even weeks he would likely have to make his choice.