Secret Crush

Chapter 6 - [Taking the Advice]

I looked down at the invitation that Maria was holding and laughed. “Hey, this happens every year, Maria, and you know our response to this.”

Maria gave me her puppy eyes. “Please Mimi, pretty please.”

I sighed, knowing that I couldn’t say no without Valerie here. And then I realized that she must have planned this. She got me alone and then attacked.

Maria’s birthday was today, and like every year, she was throwing a huge party. This meant a lot of the popular kids in our school were invited. Which meant drama central.

From the year we met her, which was of course, the ninth grade, we avoided her parties like the plague. But, just to make up for the fact that we didn’t go to her birthday party, Valerie and I would throw her a private party, all expenses covered by us.

This was how we rolled for the past three years, and she was fine with that. So I was a little surprised she was asking me to come. “C’mon Mars… Val and I will throw you another party, you know that-”

“I invited Gale Dallas and he said he’d come.”

I froze.

“You’ve worked with him before so if you come maybe you can get him to talk more to me?”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Mars… we’re not that close. We literally just worked on the project-”

“Please Mimi!” She begged. “I know you’re lying to me about not being his friend! I mean, he only agreed to come after I said you’ll be there!”

“What?” I asked, shocked.

“I swear! That’s why I’m begging you to come!”

I looked away, not really sure what to do anymore. The thought that he was coming for me made me a bit happy… but for all I knew, it probably meant nothing.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Maria giggled happily.

I raised my eyebrows. “I didn’t say-”

Maria shoved the invitation into my hands. “The party is tonight.”

“Why are you giving this to me so late?”

Maria winked at me. “So I don’t give you lots of time to change your mind.” She said before she turned around and walked off.

I rolled my eyes but looked down at the invitation. It was in a pretty, baby blue envelope and had my name written on it in cursive. When I opened the envelope and pulled out the card, my eyes widened.

It was a professionally done invitation.

And the dress code was formal.

I groaned to myself as I turned around and went to open my locker so I could hurry my butt home and get ready.

When I got home, I was pleased to see that my brother was just leaving. “Omigosh, Nate… could you wait a second?”

“Why, what’s wrong?” My brother asked, stepping back into the house and letting me pass.”

“Are you busy?”

He shrugged. “Not really. You need something?”

“I need you to drop me off at Maria’s party.”

My brother chuckled. “I thought you don’t go to her parties.”

“She begged me.” I said, making my way up the stairs. “And I’m supposed to dress formally.”

“Where’s the party?”

“Some banquet hall in Oakville.” I threw the invitation at him.

He followed me into my room as he read the invitation. “Wow, her parties are… serious.”

I laughed.

“Is Val coming?”

I shook my head. “Val would die rather than coming to this.”

“Smart chick.” Nate said.

“I’m not keeping you from something important, right?”

He shook his head. “I was just going out with Gina. She can wait.”

I hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He said, pulling out his phone. “I’ll text her now.”

I smiled at him before I turned around and opened my closet doors. “Okay…” I said to myself as I pulled out two of my most fancy dresses. What sucked was that they were still so plain. “The pink one or the green one.”

“Pink.” My brother said immediately.

I hung the green one back up and rushed into the bathroom to take a quick shower before I got ready.

After that, I walked out of the bathroom and into my brothers room to model the knee length dress for him. “You sure it looks nice?”

My brother, who was lying down on his bed, speaking on the phone with someone, gave me a thumbs up.

I smiled at him again and returned to my room.

Pulling out the straightener that Maria had bought me in the ninth grade, I straightened my hair. I then rummaged through my drawers, looking for fancy things to wear. If my mom was here, she could have seriously given me some great help.

I put on a pair of fake pearl earrings and a fake pearl necklace as well. When I looked at myself in the mirror though, I still looked so plain.

The pink summer dress with a white ribbon around the waist looked like something I’d wear on a normal day… which is exactly what I wore it for.

My brother then knocked on the door.

“Yeah?”

He opened the door and walked in. “Gina told me that you can make the dress look a little less simple by draping yourself with a scarf.

“Oh my gosh. She’s my hero.” I ran over to my closet and pulled out a thick white scarf and draped it around me. It did make it look a bit better.

“And she said heels always makes you look a bit more fancy.”

I nodded. “Tell her I say thank you.”

Nate smiled and saluted me. “I’ll be waiting in the living room.”

“Thanks!”

He closed the door behind him when he left.

I pulled out my eyeliner and tried my best to put some of it on, and after stabbing myself in the eye a couple times, I finally got it. Then I put on some foundation and powder, which was something I actually knew how to do.

Finally, I threw on a bracelet and looked at the time. It was five-thirty and the party started at six. I shrugged my shoulders. Good enough, I guess. And it’s not like I’m some sort of guest of honor.

I walked down the stairs and looked at my brother. “Ready!”

My brother got up off the couch and walked over to me. “You look beautiful as always.”

I chuckled. “Thank you!” I said as I did a curtsy.

He smiled at me as he put on his shoes. “It’s going to take about thirty minutes to get there, taking the highway.”

“I know.” I said as I put on my heels. This hall was in the city after all.

But we actually got there in forty-three minutes because of the traffic, but it didn’t matter.

At least I didn’t think it did.

But when I walked in, I groaned.

Not only was I still underdressed after all my efforts, but there were a lot of properly dressed people here and more then half of them were the ‘elite’ kids from our school.

“Mimi?”

I turned around when I heard the male voice and held my breath.

It was Blake.

Blake was the one of the two guys I dated during my high school life. He was the second to be exact. We had dated for about four months before he broke up with me.

Apparently I wasn’t intimate enough for him.

It’s not my fault that I wasn’t comfortable with the thought of letting him kiss me.

He wasn’t exactly popular when I dated him in the tenth grade. He was making his way up there though because he was a good friend of Gales. And soon after he broke up with me, his popularity skyrocketed and he joined the E Team.

Now that he was older and more mature, he looked a lot cuter then before. He had light brown eyes, dirty-blonde hair and was tall and really masculine. He was known around the school for being the best at basketball and second to Gale in soccer. But he was definitely the sportier one in his crew because he played all types of sports.

I smiled at him. “Hey Blake.”

“Nice dress.”

I chuckled. “Thanks. Nice shirt.” I said, pointing at his silky blue dress shirt.

He grinned. “You’d think that you’d be almost as dressed up as your best friend over there.” He jerked his chin at Maria, who was kindly accepting gifts from her guests, wearing a long, flowing purple gown and even a crown on her head. "Not that it looks bad or anything."

“This was all… last minute.”

“Yeah, I saw her shove the invitation in your face at school today.”

That made me raise my eyebrows, but I laughed.

“Is Valerie coming?” He asked, almost hesitantly.

I chuckled. “Nope. I wish.”

He looked relieved. “Alright then, how about you come sit with us if you’ve got no one else to sit with?”

My eyebrows rose. “Us?”

“Me, Gale, Alison, Genevieve, and Selene.”

I swallowed hard. “You know what, I think I’m gonna go say hi to Maria and hang out with her.”

Blake hesitated but nodded. “Oh sure, got it.”

I smiled awkwardly at him before I turned and rushed over to Maria.

When Maria saw me, her face brightened, but then she frowned. “Naomi, if you needed a dress, you could have called me.”

I rolled my eyes. “You could have told me about this party a couple days ago rather than a couple hours ago.”

She gave me a look which said, “fine, sorry” and I laughed.

“Okay,” she said, grabbing my shoulders and turning me around, “go sit with Gale.”

“No!” I squeaked. “I’m not going to sit with him!”

“Mimi! If you go sit with him then I can come there and talk to him to! Do it for me!”

“This is one thing I won’t do, Mars.”

“But he’s looking at you!”

I froze.

Slowly, I turned my head and looked in the direction of where Gale’s table was.

He looked away when I looked at him.

“See?” Mars whispered into my ear. “I think he expects you to come sit with him!”

I didn’t say anything, but I was suddenly startled by her shout. “Blake!”

I turned myself to stop her, but Blake was next to us in an instant. “Yeah?”

“Let Mimi here sit with you guys?” She asked him.

Blake grinned. “That’s what I told her.”

Maria smiled at him and I gasped when Blake took my hand and pulled me over to their table.

I could not believe this was happening.

I seriously shouldn’t have come here today.

Blake sat me down next to him. Thankfully there was an empty seat on the other side of me, but across from me was Alison, and next to her was Gale.

“You guys know Naomi, right?”

“Yeah!” Alison said, flipping her blonde hair back over her shoulder. “Weren’t you working with Gale on some project?”

I nodded my head. “Yup.”

“Why are you dressed like that?” Alison asked me.

My eyes flickered towards Gale, who was looking away.

“Shouldn’t you of all people be dressed a little more nicely?”

“Hey, it’s a nice dress.” Blake said, trying to defend me.

“It was last minute.” I said to her.

She looked at me, almost looking infuriated with the fact that I spoke back to her.

Her glare was a little frightening. God did I wish Valerie was here. She would have made that girl look away.

So I sat there awkwardly through the party and until the cake cutting. Most of my night was spent trying to make my conversations with Blake a little less awkward and trying to avoid the frequent glances of Gale… and the angry glances of Alison.

Genevieve and Selene, two girls I knew nothing about, didn’t even look like they knew I was here.

But I wondered why Gale looked at me so much, but avoided conversation.

Unfortunately for me, that thought made me mad, because no matter how I looked at it, it all came back to him pretending he didn’t know or care for me.

Completely different from how we acted when we were alone.

So overall, it was an awkward night…

But then, it got worse. It was time for dancing.

And I knew I needed to get the hell out of there.

I texted Valerie. Valerie who was my guardian angel and always saved me when I needed her.

Val, call me right now. PLEASE.

Right when I did, Maria came up to me. “Mimi, you’ve gotta dance okay?” She said to me, in front of all the people who were sitting with me. “It’ll be loads of fun.”

“Maria-”

My phone rang.

“Hold on a sec.” I said, answering it before anyone could see Valerie’s picture on my screen. “Hello?”

“Hey babes, why did you want me to call?”

“What? Why, mom?”

Val hesitated. “Mimi?”

“Right now? But I’m at a party…”

“You’re at a party? Oh my god, are you at Maria’s party?”

“What do you mean? Mom? Okay, I’m coming, don’t worry.”

“What the hell did she say to you to convince you to come?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’m leaving now.”

“Need a ride?”

“No, I’m good.” I said before hanging up. “My mom needs me.” I said, looking at Maria. “I’m so sorry, Mars.”

“You’re joking!” Maria said, looking upset.

“Don’t worry.” I said, getting up and picking up my purse. “Val and I are still gonna throw you a small party, remember?”

Maria sighed but nodded.

I gave her a grin and a hug before stuffing my phone into my purse and waving at Blake. “See you at school.”

He smiled and nodded his head at me.

I glanced over at Gale and saw him wearing a small smile on his face. But he still didn’t look at me.

I decided not to care.

I left the building right when the music started pumping and sighed in relief. But I still had a problem. I had to find a way home.

Thankfully, I was very good at figuring out bus and train routes and since I’ve come around here before to visit the University of Oakville, I knew which train to take.

I walked down a street lined with small shops and stopped an older lady who was walking in my direction.

“Hi! Um, could you tell me where the closest train station is?”

“You mean to the subways?” The brunette asked.

I nodded.

She pointed behind her. “Just keep walking down this street till you hit Home Depot. You’ll see the sign right across from there pointing to a stairway that leads to the station.”

“Thanks!” I smiled.

She smiled back before continuing on to wherever she was going.

It wasn’t too dark out yet, but the sun was setting and it was getting cold, so I wrapped my scarf more tightly around me and held my purse against my chest.

I always liked downtown. It was always busy with people and the buildings were so goddamn old. I loved it. It always felt like I was walking down the streets in the 1920s or something. Of course, taking out the new cars, and maybe changing the fashion too… and getting rid of all the drug dealers and creeps walking around.

That’s also one of the reasons for why I chose the University of Oakville. It’s a whole new type of area… which meant a whole new life.

As I admired the architecture of the old buildings in the distance, a man walked out from an alleyway I was passing.

He stepped in front of me, startling me.

Holding my hands out, I stepped back, my heart beating a little faster.

But he held out an empty coffee cup. “Spare change please.” Said the man who was wearing old, dirty clothes and was clearly a homeless man.

I hesitated, but smiled at him.

I always felt bad for homeless people, and I always give them some of the change that I had with me. They needed it more then I did.

Opening up my purse, I rummaged through it, looking for change. “You know,” I said, starting conversation with the homeless man, “A lot of people refuse to give you change because they think that you’re going to use it on cigarettes, alcohol or drugs.” I pulled out two dollars and dropped it into his cup. “So make sure you use this money for food. Food is a lot more important then cigarettes and drugs and that sort of stuff.”

“God bless your soul.” The man said.

I smiled at him, but felt something weird in me when I saw him look from my face to my purse.

Suddenly, he grabbed my entire purse and started to run off.

“Hey!” I yelled.

I was about to chase after him, but I stopped.

I wasn’t stupid enough to do that.

Not only was he clearly bigger and stronger then I was, but as someone who reads all the time, I know that whenever you go chasing after people who steal your stuff, bad things happen. Especially to girls wearing dresses and heels. And definitely when it’s this late and the roads were almost empty.

And I’ve got no Knight in Shining Armor to come save me.

I lowered my shoulders, feeling like I was going to cry.

And I was just trying to be nice.

My phone was in there and so was my wallet. And I wasn’t rich; it would take me a while to replace all of that. And to make it all worse, the purse was a gift from Val.

And how was I going to get home now? All my change was gone.

Suddenly, a black car zoomed past me, startling me. It roared loudly and made the homeless man, who was still running, turn his head.

I watched the car turn and screech to a stop right in front of the homeless man. It stopped close enough to scare him, but not close enough to hit him.

He fell backwards in shock after screaming his lungs out.

I didn’t realize I had my hands over my mouth until I saw Gale get out of the car and walk over to the man.

My heart skipped a beat when he grabbed my purse from him and said, “get out of here,” making the homeless man get up and run as fast as he could.

Gale then walked over to me.

“It’s Friday and it’s getting late, you’re alone on the street and a homeless man asks you for money.” Gale said as he approached me. “Only you are stupid enough to pull out your whole purse, have a conversation with him and then pretty much hand it over to him.”

I was still in shock to respond to that.

Gale handed me my purse. “You’ve gotta be careful, Naomi. Especially in places like this.” He then looked at me from head to toe. “Especially when you’re wearing something like that.”

I took my purse from him and at that moment I sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

He smiled. “C’mon, I’ll drop you off.”

“Where?”

“At home.” He said, turning around and walking towards his car, which still had its door wide open.

“I can take the train.”

“So someone can steal from you again?” He asked. “I don’t think so.”

I still just stood there.

Gale, when he realized that I wasn’t following him, turned around and walked back towards me.

“It’s easy as one, two…”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Three.” He said as he grabbed my purse from my hands and headed towards his car again.

“Hey!” I yelled, running after him. “Give it back!”

He got into his car and threw it into his back seat. “Get in.”

I hesitated again but sighed as I walked over to the passenger side and hopped in. “How did you do that?” I asked him after buckling in.

“Do what?”

“That dramatic stop with your car?”

Gale chuckled. “Blake’s dad owns a racecar track and lets us use it when it’s free.”

My eyebrows rose. “Wow…”

“By the way, you’re a horrible liar.” He said as he reversed off the sidewalk and back onto the road. “I’m surprised Maria didn’t figure it out.”

I didn’t respond to that. Now that he had mentioned the party, all I could really wonder about was why he was so quiet back at the party but talking to me so normally now.

Gale looked at me, then back at the road. “I was holding back my laughter cause I didn’t want to give you away.”

I crossed my arms. “Really? Because it seemed like you were holding back your laughter cause your friends were there.”

Gale let out a small laugh, probably not seeing how serious I was.

I could hear my dad’s voice in my head, telling me to confront him. So I took his advice. I mean, what was the worst that could happen? It’s not like I really had a friend to lose.

“Why are you doing this, Gale?”

Gale hesitated. “Doing what?”

“This!”

He looked at me for a second and back at the road as he pulled onto the highway. “Taking you home?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “No.” I said. “I mean this whole… being nice to me when we’re alone but being a jerk to me when your friends are around?”

Gale raised an eyebrow, but he kept his eyes on the road. He kept silent for a moment, but then clenched his jaw. And then he spoke. “Isn’t that what you’d prefer?”

I scoffed. “What?”

He shrugged. “I made a couple new friends in the ninth grade and you started avoiding me.” He said. “I thought you preferred us looking like we don’t know each other.”

My eyes widened. Was he really blaming me for this? “Gale Dallas, you’re being ridiculous!” I said, feeling my anger boil up. “Don’t say that I started avoiding you when you’re the one who started to ignore me!”

“That’s not true.” Gale argued. “You didn’t like the crowd I was hanging with because they were not like you.”

“Stop the car and let me out now.” I said, biting the inside of my cheek.

“Why?”

“I’m not going to sit here and let you put the blame on me you jerk.”

Gale rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to drop you off in the middle of the road.” He said. “And I’m not a jerk. If anything, you’re the jerk, Naomi.”

“Gale, c’mon, really? You really, honestly believe that I was the one who started ignoring you?”

“Yeah, Naomi!” He said. “I saw the way you looked at me on the second day of the ninth grade when you saw me talking to Alison. You were angry and clearly wanted nothing to do with me.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “If I wanted nothing to do with you, then explain why I went out of my way to invite you to my sweet sixteen, only to be disappointed because you never showed up?”

Gale pulled over suddenly, stopping the car at the edge of the highway and shocking me. He turned and looked at me. “Naomi, my uncle in France was having his birthday party on the same day as your Sweet Sixteen.” He said, rather angrily.

“Yeah right.” I pouted.

Gale narrowed his eyes at me. “And I gave you a gift to make up for that.”

“Stop making things up, Gale!” I argued. “I’m not stupid, I remember all the gifts that people give me!”

“Naomi, if you don’t remember, go ask your mother. I gave it to her and told her to give it to you the day before I got onto my flight to France.” He argued.

I looked at him, feeling my heart sink for some reason. “My mom didn’t give me anything…”

“And is that my fault now?” Gale asked, raising both his hands up. “I try to make up for it and you still ignore me at school, and now you’re even more harsh then you were before.” He said. “How do you expect me to react?”

I bit my lip.

“I assumed you preferred to pretend that we didn’t know each other simply cause I had a different group of friends.”

I looked down at my hands. “That was still a stupid assumption to make…. because that’s not true. And I still think that you were ignoring me first.”

Gale rolled his eyes but relaxed his shoulders, seeing that I had calmed down a bit. “Fine, it was a stupid assumption… but you can’t deny that I didn’t try to fix things.”

“By not coming to my birthday party.”

Gale sighed as he took his car off of park and drove back onto the highway. “And I tried to make up for that, Naomi. Go ask your mom. I don’t know what the hell she did with the gift but go ask her.”

I looked at the window. There was no way that my mother would have kept that gift from me. I mean, what reason would she have for doing that?

We were silent for the rest of the ride home. When he pulled into my driveway though, he looked at me. “Don’t forget to ask your mom.” He said, without looking at me.

“I won’t.” I said as I got out of his car, grabbed my purse and shut the door.

When he drove off, I ran into my house. “Mom!” I called.

There was no response.

I ran up the stairs and saw her sitting in her room, doing her nails and talking on the phone.

“Mom.”

She held her hand up, silencing me. “Right?” She said to the person on the phone. “You’d think she’d be a little more decent-”

“Mom!” I repeated.

My mom looked at me. “Naomi, I’m speaking on the phone.”

“Did Gale give you a gift, telling you to give it to me, for my sweet sixteen?”

My mother narrowed her eyes. “Gale?”

“Think mom, did he or did he not?”

“Sorry, give me a second Annie.” She said to the lady on the phone. She thought for a second. “Actually… oh… he did!”

My eyes widened and my shoulders dropped.

“I can’t believe I forgot about it… I think it may still be in the glove compartment…”

“Mother! How could you forget something like that?!” I asked, groaning and feeling like a fool. “You keep all your makeup and stuff in there, you probably look at it every day!”

My mother gave me an annoyed look. “Sorry!” She said. “It’s not like you remember everything, Naomi.”

I rolled my eyes and left the room, stomping down the stairs and grabbing her keys off the counter.

I quickly ran out of the house, opened the garage and got into her car.

Her glove compartment was open when I got in, making me angrier. I grabbed some of her makeup and threw it under the seat as a form of revenge.

But then I felt bad and picked them all back up.

And as expected, it wasn’t too hard to find the poorly wrapped box in the small glove compartment.

I pulled it out and felt my heart race… though it felt so heavy. Sitting back in the drivers seat, I unwrapped it and placed the wrapping paper on the passenger seat.

It was a small box, and I knew instantly that it was jewelry. And knowing Gale, it was probably pretty expensive.

I opened the box and swallowed hard as I looked down at the lovely silver crescent moon necklace. It was just the outline of it, but along the outline were shiny crystals and because it was from Gale it had so much more meaning to it then if it were from anybody else.

Our favourite thing to do as children was to go out at night and stare at the sky.

I sat in my mom’s car, feeling like I was going to cry.

I guess it was my fault that we wasted so many years, pretending we didn’t know each other.

God was I a d**k to him.

Wait till Val hears this.