Deaaannn
Hailey
Something is seriously wrong with me.
Why the fuck would I sleep with the one person I hate so much?! What the actual fuck is wrong with me?!
And the more I think about it, the more I could feel how fucking messed up I must be because I can still feel him in my entire body and I... liked it.
I... actually liked sleeping with Caleb!
I... liked sleeping with him that I... wanna do it again.
"Oh my god" I said as I shook my head repeatedly and messed my hair up as I stared at the ceiling of my dark room.
That also made me slap my mouth as soon as possible, in case Caleb heard that as well. I can never be too safe now. If he managed to hear the vibrations of my dildo, there is no sound in this goddamn room that he can't hear. This sucks!
But as much as I wanted him inside me again, I needed to sleep on it because this just wasn't very rational and logical. And ideal.
Yeah.
I just haven't had sex in years and this was a whole new feeling to me that my body haven't fully processed it yet. Yep. That's probably it. I don't really like sleeping with Caleb. I'm just... confused.
And considering that I didn't wanna think about it anymore, I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best.
The past two days had been awkward as fuck, and I could only imagine how much more awkward it would be tomorrow.
But just to be sure, unlike how I did the past days, I made sure to wake up an extra hour earlier than I usually do, and made sure to take additional precautions by making sure that there were still sounds coming out of Caleb's room to make sure he was still in there before I sprinted out of my room, making sure to scout the premise before I left my apartment and sprinted again towards the elevator.
Unfortunately for me, Caleb probably had the same idea because as soon as I get to the elevator, he was already fucking there!
I would've turned around and waited for him to leave, but I figured that would've been more awkward considering the asshat had already seen me so I just stood in front of the elevator a couple of feet away from him and made sure to not make a sound.
I was just glad that he didn't say anything and just flat out ignored me like he didn't know who I was.
Or that he had just slept with me last night.
Damn. Is this how he treats most of the girls he sleeps with? But more importantly, why the hell do I care?
The air inside the elevator was so thick, and the time it took to get to the ground floor seemed to take so long, especially since the elevator doors opened in every goddamn floor.
And I personally would've gotten a sigh of relief, were it not for the fact that despite the elevator stopping countless of times, nobody entered the elevator.
It was just me, and the guy whose guts I hate...and whose guts were literally just shoved deep inside me last night.
I began picking on my nails anxiously while I tapped my feet on the ground as we waited in anticipation and watched the screen indicate how much further before we'd finally reach the goddamn ground floor. Get an apartment at a higher floor they said.
From the side of my eye, I look at Caleb, and it annoyed me more to see how calm he was. Like nothing even happened. Like he didn't just throw himself at me.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, I made sure to rush out of there so I could finally breath the sigh of relief that I have been holding for the past minute. I literally just spent a minute or two inside the elevator alone with Caleb, and the tension was choking me to death.
And in all honesty, I wish it did.
I mean sure, he was going to be walking behind me considering that we were going to the same place, but at least there was a good distance between us.
"Hailey" I hear someone call out before I finally snap back. I look up and see Maddie, my classmate and friend, looking at me worried. I look around the classroom and see that everyone were already preparing to leave, meaning I had just spaced out the entire class hour.
"Yeah?" I answer
"You've spaced out. Are you okay?" she asked as she placed the back of her hand on my forehead
"Yeah. I'm fine. I was just thinking about...some stuff" I told her before I got out of my seat and followed Maddie and the rest of our friends out of the room and headed somewhere for lunch.
It took at least ten minutes before we could all decide where to eat, and in the end, we all decided the campus cafeteria was the best place to go since we still had another class after our lunch break.
As me and my friends ate lunch and ranted about our classes, I saw Caleb sitting at the other side of the cafeteria with a few of, I'm assuming are also his classmates, while he was busy flirting his way into sone blonde girl's pants.
And watching that unfold was making me nauseous.
Not because he literally just slept with me last night and was already making his way to someone else. No. God no.
It was the fact that watching this unfold reminded me so much of when we were still in high school. It was the same exact view.
Him and his man-whore friends all seated at a cramped cafeteria table, and everyone of them were busy flirting with some random girl who they decided would be "lucky" enough to sit at their table.
And on the other side of the cafeteria was me and Casey and our other friends.
This just seemed Deja Vu-ey.
At this point, I let out a small laugh at the thought and shake my head as I fork one of the penne pasta on my plate. Even miles away, Caleb didn't change one bit.
"So anyway, I know you've been spacing out the entire day, so like what we literally just talked about" Maddie began "A bunch of us are planning to go out tonight. You in?"
"Hell yeah I'm in!" I answer with a huge grin on my face. It didn't take too much convincing for me to say yes. I was down for anything that had booze in it.
After our classes for the day ended, I headed to some Chinese restaurant and bought some Kung Pao Chicken for dinner before heading to my apartment to get ready for the night out.
As I walked through the hallways and looked for my keys in my bag, I catch a glimpse of Casey trying to unlock her apartment.
"Hey, Case" I call out. She looks at my direction, and as soon as she sees me, she flashes me one of her fake smiles—just a huge grin that could fool anyone, except me. And surprisingly, Caleb.
Something was wrong.
"Oh. Hey. Haven't seen you in a while" Casey said as she waited for me to reach her, and as soon as I did, I began searching her face and body. Anything to indicate or give away what was wrong.
"What happened? Who are we killing?" I asked her, making her lose the creepy grin on her face as she frowns at me.
"Dammit, Hailey. I was hoping that would already work on you! I've been practicing!" Casey answers like a child before she pouts and crosses her arms.
"Bitch, I've known you since you were still sporting those unmatched slippers. You're not fooling anyone" I answer, making her let out a small laugh before she goes back to her whole melancholic vibe.
She bites her lip as if she's still thinking about it, which sort of hurts me in a way that we've been best friends since and we always told each other everything, but now, she was hesitating.
And it sucked. Because we decided to go to the same school and live exactly right next to each other, yet we don't even see each other that much anymore. Ironically, I see Caleb more than I see her.
"Can we... go to your place?" Casey finally says "I don't want Caleb walking in on us"
All I did was nod before she walked behind me to my apartment. She immediately threw herself on the couch while I went to the kitchen and looked for something and took my dinner out of the bag.
"You eat dinner yet?" I ask her
"Uh, yeah. A bunch of us went to get pizza after class" Casey said "Get me some coke tho"
"Sure" I answer as I take two cans of coke from my fridge and sit beside Casey, who immediately opens it and takes a gulp.
"So what's up?" I ask her as I mix my food with my chopsticks and briefly offer it to Casey, to which she politely declines with her hand up.
"So uh.. you remember River, right?" she asks
"River? What about him?" I ask as I put a chicken into my mouth. As far as I know, Casey's been staying over this River guy's house majority of the week, which explains why she hasn't been next door in a while.
Casey took a deep breath as she fidgeted with her fingers, preparing herself for what she was about to say next.
"I saw him talking to some... girl" Casey began
"And?" I ask. Casey didn't make a sound so I looked up at her and she was just staring at me. "Case"
She took another deep breath before looking away.
"They... kissed" Casey answered, making me stop from putting another chicken into my mouth.
"Oh, Casey--" I begin, before she briefly cuts me off
"I mean, it's my fault anyway" Casey says as she wipes the tears forming on her face
"How is it your fault that the guy you're dating kissed another girl?" I asked, a bit furious. Cheaters were definitely low-tier people so I never understood how people who get cheated on would think that it's their fault. Cheaters are just a bunch of insecure assholes, and it's a them problem.
"Uhh.." Casey begins before she flashes me a sheepish smile "I may have... made it clear to him that I didn't... wanna date him like that"
I blink for a bit before that bit of information finally registers into my system. Welp. It definitely is her fault.
"Seriously?" I ask her, all the sympathy now semi-gone from my system "And you told him that... why?"
Casey simply shrugs, and without looking at me, she answers.
"You know why"
I froze.
I knew why. I knew exactly why my best friend had been stopping herself from falling in love again. She was a nineteen year-old girl and she now thinks that taking risks for someone who wasn't worth it was just gonna leave her disappointed again and she wasn't gonna risk it.
You know like how people always say that if you don't take the risk, you might regret it? Well, Casey has a different perspective.
She thinks that not taking the risk now and eventually possibly regretting it later on was easier than actually taking the risk again and eventually end up getting disappointed as soon as you've already invested so much.
I, unfortunately, don't agree with her.
Unlike her, I was always the hopeless romantic type who would be willing to take the risk if given the chance. Of course, not recklessly. If I was gonna take the risk, I had to be sure.
Not like how I ended up sleeping with her brother and...how did I even get to this? The fuck?
But like what I was saying, everything Casey believes in isn't gonna be easy for her, considering the bitch was someone who fell easily.
And when that happens, it was already time for her to go ghost.
"You do know you're not gonna make this easy if you keep hanging out with guys you randomly meet, right?" I tell her, but she just lets out a laugh.
"Funny thing is... ever since we got here, I've been only hanging out with River" Casey says as she smiles, as if reminiscing what could've been, before she takes a deep breath "But I guess that's over now" she adds before she crosses her arms and leans back as she stares into the void.
We sit there in silence for a bit as I finish my dinner. I was never really one to give good advices, since that was Casey's forte, and it made us both a really amazing pair. I was the listener, and she was the talker.
I had a lot of opinions about this whole River thing, to be honest, but I felt like Casey didn't need any advice, and truth be told I didn't know how I was gonna word them anyways, so we just sat there as I attempted to formulate something to say and break the silence.
"Anyway, what have you been up to?" Casey begins as she faces me again and takes a sip from her coke "Caleb isn't bothering you anymore is he?"
I freeze on my spot.
Oh my god! Does she know something?! Holy shit!
Casey knows when I'm lying so how do I make it so she believes everything I tell her? Shit! Shitshitshitshit!
"Can we not talk about your asshat of a brother for a second?" I tell her as I roll my eyes, making her let out a laugh
"Ah, so I see nothing has changed. You still hate each other's guts" Casey says before chugging her entire can of coke. And as soon as she was done, she stood up and went to the kitchen to throw the can.
"Hey" I call out to her "Me and my friends are planning to go out tonight. Maybe you'd wanna come and clear your head or something?"
"Nah, that's fine. I have plans tonight anyway" Casey answers. I open my mouth to answer, but quickly stops when I realize what she just said and scrunch my eyebrows. This bitch was literally on the verge of tears over some guy, and she already has plans?! "Not with River! Or a new guy! With friends!" Casey quickly clarifies, making me sigh in relief.
"You're a walking red flag, you know that?" I tell Casey
"Yes, but you love me anyway so shut it" Casey says as she waves at me before heading out the door, leaving me to eat my dinner in peace.
By 9pm, I began getting ready. Turns out that when they said we were going out, they meant we were going to some party at some apartment a couple of blocks away from mine. And since it wasn't that far from my place, I decided to just meet my friends there, and surprisingly, I was the last one of my friends to get there.
It was a little over eleven and the place was already super packed.
We were in one of those rich type of apartments, so the place was huge, especially since it was a loft with high ceilings and an amazing view of the city.
"Beer?" Maddie asks as she hands me my red cup before dragging me deeper into the apartment to where our other friends were.
"Damn son, this place is fucking amazing!" I tell Maddie as I let my eyes wander around the place
"Glad you think so" I hear some unfamiliar guy voice say, before I turn to my left and see one of the most attractive human beings I have ever seen in my life.
"Hailey, this is Dean. He's a junior and this is his party" Gina, my other friend, introduces.
"Nice to meet you" I tell him as we shake hands. "I love your place" I compliment. Truly, I did. For a guy, he kept the place really nice.
"Thank you. The view is really what sold me on this place" he tells me
"Yeah, it's actually pretty amazing. I would love to wake up everyday with this view. It's gonna be like, a driving factor to get me up in the morning for Professor Smith's class" I tell him, making us both laugh. In my defense, who the hell made the class schedules and decided that putting the most boring professor at an 8am class was a good fit?!
"Well, if you think the view here is amazing, you should see the view from the loft" he answers, making me scrunch my eyebrows up. Holy shit, is this dude flirting with me?
"Really?" I ask him
"Come on, I'll show you" he tells me as he tilts his head and holds his hand out as he gestures me to follow him, and without hesitating, I take his hand as he leads me through the crowd and up to his loft, making sure to look back at my friends who were looking at me with teasing smiles.
And like what he promised, the view really looked better in there.
His bed was leaned on a glass wall and it was just so surreal looking into the city like this.
"So? What do you think?" he asks as he walks closer to me.
Before I could answer however, from the side of my eye, I catch a glimpse of, you guessed it, Caleb downstairs.
But that wasn't what caught my attention. No.
It was the fact that he looked furious as he glared at River who was standing a couple of feet away, with a girl who I'm assuming is the girl who Casey saw him kiss.
And from the looks of it, Caleb looked like he was about to walk over to River and punch the lights out of him.
And while Caleb was usually a calm, cool, and collected person, if it involved his sister, hell was definitely about to come.
"Hailey?" Dean calls out, snapping me from my thoughts
"Right" I begin "Uh, the view is really really great, but could you excuse me for just one second?" I didn't have to wait for Dean to answer before I decided to start walking down the stairs and sprinted towards River as fast as I could before Caleb could beat me to it.
Luckily, I get to River first, stopping Caleb on his tracks.
"River" I tell him as I grab his arm. He flashes me a small smile before he begins looking around, obviously looking for some blonde girl whose name starts with a letter 'C'.
"Hey Hailey" River says "Is..."
"No" I tell him, which slightly disappoints him "But I need to talk to you. Now" At first, River looks slightly confused before passing a glance at the girl he's with. But as soon as she catches a glimpse of Caleb glaring at him, the color on his face starts to drain and he looks at me with a worried smile.
"O-okay" he says. I flash him a small smile before I drag him away from everyone. Especially Caleb.
"Look, before you say anything, it's not what it looks like" River began as soon as we were out in the hallway.
"Relax, you're in the clear. Casey told me" I told him, making him sigh in relief "Caleb, however, does not know, so that explains why he was ready to beat you up in there"
"O-oh.." River mumbles as he looks down for a bit before making eye contact with me again "Listen, Hailey. Don't get me wrong. I like Casey, I really do"
"But... she doesn't wanna date you" I fill in for him. He purses his lips and nods. I sigh and look around, just to make sure no one could hear what I was about to say next before looking back at him.
"Look, Casey just has... a lot of baggage" I begin "She's just... scared of getting serious with someone and then end up lost, hurt, and disappointed again"
"It was that bad, huh?" River says after a couple of seconds of silence, and all I could do was look at him with a confused look on my face.
"She... told you about that?" I asked River.
"Yeah" he answered. "I mean, not everything, but... just enough to know that the guy was an asshole who needs to be in jail"
I blinked for a bit. Out of all the guys Casey dated since.... what's his name, River was the only person she trusted enough to be able to tell him about her trauma. Casey must really like him, huh?
"Well, let me ask you something" I begin, making River look at me as he waited for the next thing I was about to say "Do you really think that kissing some random girl and going to a party with said random girl is going to make Casey jealous and change her mind?"
"That... wasn't what I was going for" River attempted to clarify, which only made me roll my eyes.
"Please. As soon as you saw me grab your arm, you began looking around for Casey" I tell him.
"Well, what am I supposed to do? I can't date Casey but I can't date other people too?" River says. And all I could do was take a deep breath.
He was right.
I didn't like seeing my best friend hurt, but she put herself into this position. And it sure as hell wasn't my position to be getting into things.
"You're right" I tell River after a couple of seconds, making him look confused than ever.
"What?" he asks
"You're right" I repeat "Casey put this on herself, and you sure as hell can date whoever you want"
Maybe it was the booze or just the mere fact that I told him he was right, but River looked at me even more confused than he already was as he opened his mouth and closed it again.
"You're... siding with me?" he asked, and I nod at him like it was already obvious "What the hell is going on?" he mumbles.
"Nothing" I simply answer "I just think that you're both idiots for liking each other and then not taking the risk anyway" I add before I reach for the door to open it, but before I could get in, River pulls my arm to stop me
"Wait" River says "Are you telling me that Casey likes me like that too?" I smirk and scrunch my eyebrows like that was the dumbest thing he's said. Which it was.
I mean, clearly Casey likes him like that. She's been spending majority of her time at his place since we got here, and this idiot never got the hint? Sheesh.
And they say we're the confusing ones.
"Oh, look at that, my friends are already looking for me. Bye!" I tell River as I quickly pull my arm off his grip and run back inside before he could follow me and clarify some more.
"Hey, where were you?" Maddie asks as soon as I get to her talking to some other people
"I had to talk to someone" I answer
"So that explains why Dean is now talking to some bimbo" Maddie says as she takes a sip from her cup. I look at her in confusion before she points at Dean, who, sure enough, was already about to take someone up to his loft.
"Uh... did me going upstairs mean anything?" I asked Maddie, who turned to me and looked at me like I was some idiot.
"Dude, why do you think he even took you up there in the first place? Alone?" Maddie asked rhetorically. I turned to the direction of the stairs again as I realized how dumb I was, but quickly shook the thought off. Whatever. It didn't matter anyway.
The rest of the night went super fun.
As soon as I had drank my tenth shot of tequila, I was already in my party girl era and just straight out enjoyed the night.
Thankfully, my body digested the tequila well and I didn't end up getting super wasted and was well enough to walk back to my apartment.
But as I walked through the hallway, the more I got closer to my apartment, the more it became clear to me that someone was waiting for me at my door.
And as soon as I saw who it was, all the alcohol slipped out of my system and I suddenly became sober.
"Why'd you do that?" Caleb asked in a serious tone. He was leaning on my door with his arms crossed over his chest as he glared at me
"Do what?" I asked as he scooted to the side to let me unlock my apartment. Caleb scoffed.
"You're the worst best friend ever, you know that? Letting Casey's boyfriend cheat on her like that and letting him off easy?!" Caleb said, obviously oblivious to the real story. So I laugh and shake my head before pushing my door open before turning to face him
"God, you really are clueless, you know that?" I tell him as I enter my apartment. Unfortunately for me, Caleb decided to follow me inside
"Okay then. Enlighten me" Caleb says as he closes the door and walks towards me
"It's not my place to tell" I tell him before I turn my heel, but before I could begin walking, Caleb pulls my arm and turns me around so I could face him before he places his fist on the wall, now completely cornering me.
"You think you know Casey better than I do, right?" he says in the calmest way possible before he leans closer to me "So enlighten me" he adds, making sure to emphasize every word.
And I don't know if it was the alcohol, but having Caleb this close to me was making my chest pound harder and my breathing erratic. I wanted to look straight into his eyes to assert dominance, but something was making me want to look down at his mouth and just kiss him again. Fuck! What is wrong with me?!
So I gulp.
"Like I said" I tell him with a new found confidence as I lean closer to him "It's not my business to tell" I add, making sure to emphasize each words as well like how he did.
Of course this only made Caleb furious as we stared down at each other furiously, waiting for the other to cave.
But weirdly enough, when I said 'waiting for each other to cave', I never really expected that that meant we were both gonna head for a kiss.
Because before I knew it, for the second time, his mouth was already on mine, with my arms wrapped around his neck, as he carried me towards my room.
NEXT CHAPTER IN A BIT I PROMISE!!!!!!