Regrets

Chapter 8

"Paul!"

Oh no. Not now.

I know I've not been a good person in the past, but do I really deserve this?

"Paul!"

It was no good. Ignoring her wasn't going to help anything.

I turned around.

"Hey Kelly." I didn't even bother to try and sound pleased to see her, because I seriously wasn't.

Kelly didn't seem to notice my lack of enthusiasm though because she was beaming at me, seeming to have totally forgotten the incident that had occurred the last time we spoke.

Wasn't this my lucky day?

"Hey Paul!" she chirped. Then, getting right to the point, she said,

"So, did you hear about the Winter Formal?"

God, where did she think I'd been? The whole year had been talking of nothing else since it had been announced this morning.

"Yeah," I said, starting to walk away. Kelly, needless to say, followed.

"So are you going?" she asked.

I couldn't believe this. Save the odd death glare, Kelly had totally ignored me since my second week in this school. And now here she was, expecting me to ask her to the dance! Because that's what she was doing, hinting to me that it was ok for me to ask her now.

"Maybe," I said.

She smiled, flicking her long blonde hair. She really was hot.

Too bad I wasn't interested.

You see I fully intended to have Suze as my girlfriend by the time the Winter Formal came. I was positive my plan wasn't going to fail.

Then came the inevitable question. "You got a date yet?"

I grinned; this would be interesting. "Yes."

It was a lie, but that didn't matter, it was only Kelly after all.

Kelly's mouth opened, then closed again, but she didn't say anything. Clearly this was not the answer she had been expecting.

"Oh," she said eventually, and then she forced a smile. "Yeah, me too."

I smirked. I couldn't help it. "That 's great." Then, fed up of this conversation, I said, "See you."

Then I walked off.

-

It appeared that April was avoiding me. To tell the truth this actually came as a bit of a surprise, I hadn't realised she'd been that upset by what I'd said to her yesterday. I wished she'd picked a better time to start hating me though. I mean, I had a plan; this really wasn't helping!

It wasn't until the beginning of lunch that I got a chance to talk to her. I was just about to walk out of the classroom we'd both just had English in when I noticed April was still writing something. Now that was convenient.

I waited for a few other people, including the teacher, to leave the room then I shut the door. April looked up at the sound of the door closing and a stunned appeared on her face as she realised it was just the two of us in the room. She stared at me, clearly unable to think of anything to say.

"You okay, April?" I asked casually, walking over to sit on the desk next to hers.

She quickly got over the shock then shot me a look as she began to pack her things away. "What do you care?"

Definitely mad then… Ugh! Bloody April…

I returned with a fake smile, "You know I do. So, I'll ask again, how are you?"

She glared at me and, noticing that I was between her and the door, growled, "Fine."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the short answer. Okay, it just really seemed like she just wanted to get away from me, but what would I look like if I let her do that? She didn't even really have a reason to be mad at me in the first place. She really can't take a joke.

"Are you sure there's nothing bothering you?" I asked. I guess it wasn't really the best thing to say to her, but at least this time I got a proper answer out of her.

"No, I'm just great," she said very sarcastically. "I'm especially enjoying having your precious Suze bug me every chance she gets."

It begins…

The Suze trying to get April to confess thing, I mean.

"About your brother?" I asked.

Her eyes narrowed then she looked away and nodded.

A small smile crept onto my face. "She can be stubborn," I said.

A look of annoyance flashed through April's eyes. I quickly stopped smiling.

"I'm not giving in to her, " April told me, giving me a determined look.

I briefly wondered if I should start trying to convince her otherwise, but I left it. I needed to get her trust first.

"I'm sorry about last night," I said.

She looked up at me, and then sighed.

"It's okay, I guess," She said softly. "I mean, it's not like I need you to break it to me gently. That you're not interested in me that way, I mean."

I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but she carried on talking. "I mean, I just have to take one look at you whenever Suze is nearby to know that."

Now I was confused. "What?"

She gave me a sad look. "You've been pining over for so long. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole school knows."

I do not pine! As for liking Suze… everybody knew? Impossible! Suze didn't even know herself!

I shook my head. "Going after Suze was ridiculous," I told her, putting my plan into action. "I mean, I have to get a life. I can't let her take it over just because of her stupid boyfriend."

The strange thing was… that was all true. I wasn't going to pay any attention to it, of course. But when I thought about it, I knew this was how I should feel. It makes more sense than what I'm doing, but let's face it; I've tried giving up on Suze before. And I knew it wouldn't work any better if I tried it again. So I ignored it.

"So, you've… given up on her?" April looked disbelieving.

Pushing my thoughts away, I grinned at her. "Precisely."

"But – but you told me last night that that you love her!"

Oops. I tried to think of an excuse, But all that came to mind was, "Yeah, well… things change."

Convincing, I know.

"But- "

"So," I interrupted her. Let's get to the point, shall we? I just wanted to get this over with. And I had to start with this. After all I was doing this all for Suze, really. She can get as mad as she likes, but it won't change that. "Who're you going to the Winter Formal with?"

She stared at me, like, I don't know, a car was about to hit her or something. "Well…"

-

I put down my pen, fed up of doing homework. I needed to go out somewhere, just for a change of scene.

I picked up my phone and dialled April's number. We could go to the Coffee Clutch or something. I didn't really care where, but I'd decided I was going to get to work on the next part of my plan. Or at least get to work on deciding what the next art of my plan was going to be.

April said yes about going to the Winter Formal with me, of course. Now that she'd forgiven me for what happened last night, she had no reason not to. It meant, however, that I was going to have to be careful around Suze in the future. I had to make it look like I was over her, which, if what

April had said earlier about my feelings being obvious were true, would be a lot harder than I had originally thought.

On top of that, I had to make it look like I was actually interested in April. It would not look good if it seemed to April like I was just using her to get over Suze. I had to convince her to trust me. It had occurred to me earlier that to do this I might have to tell her what I did to Jesse. She already knew I was keeping it secret from her. How much could she possibly trust me if I didn't tell her?

I'd have to make sure she'd believe me first, though. The last thing I wanted to do was to scare her off by making her think I was crazy. I had to figure out a way to test how much she'd believe.

I had a lot to do. And who knows how long it could take? So why not start tonight?

-

Half an hour later I was sitting with April in the quietest corner of the Coffee Clutch that we could find. Perhaps we should have chosen somewhere else to go. Somewhere quieter. The place was packed with people from school. Adam and Cee Cee were sat a few tables away, talking and, in Adam's case, shooting dirty looks at me. I ignored him. Luckily Suze wasn't there, the less time I spent with her, he easier it would be to convince April that I was over her.

I turned to April. She had that look on her face again. Something was bothering her.

"What's up?" I asked.

April looked up from her cappuccino.

"Huh?"

"Something's worrying you," I said.

"Oh," April said, returning her gaze to her drink. "I was just thinking about something I saw on the news today."

I hadn't watched it, so I didn't have a clue what she meant.

"Care to elaborate?" I asked.

She sighed. "It's just…" she spoke quietly so nobody would overhear, "They arrested this other guy for Eva's murder today and…" she trailed off.

I had a pretty good idea what she was on about though. "And you feel bad cause it wasn't him?"

April nodded. "I hadn't actually thought about something like this happening."

This was perfect! If she carried on feeling bad about this then she'd confess in no time. But not without my help though, I still had to carry on with my ingenious plan.

"What are you going to do?" I asked the inevitable question.

She shrugged.

I could tell she wanted to change the subject.

"If you want to talk about it we could go somewhere less crowded."

She frowned. "I don't think so."

"You probably should talk about it to someone, you know. Just to get it off your chest."

She shook her head. "It's not that… It's just that Matt - you know, my brother - he wouldn't like it if he knew I'd told anyone."

"So just make sure he doesn't find out," I told her. I mean, it was obvious, wasn't it? What was so difficult to understand about that concept?

She didn't seem to get it, though, as she just shook her head again, "I don't think I should risk it."

Oh, please. What was he going to do? Kill his sister? I don't think so! I was going to ask something else, but I didn't know what. Besides, she had her mouth firmly clamped shut, so that was it. End of conversation.

It wasn't until I was giving her a ride home that she brought the subject up again. We were both sitting in silence then she just said, "Do you think Suze will stop trying to get me to turn Matt in?"

That was easy to answer. "Not a chance."

April groaned. "How does she even know about it? There were no witnesses. It's impossible for her to know about it!"

I kept quiet. Should I say anything? April had said that she didn't believe I'd lie about something about this. And this was my chance to tell the truth. Should I take it?

"And what if Matt finds out? He'll go mad. He'll think I told her."

I turned to look at her and saw the panic on her face. April loved her brother but I could tell, just by looking at her, that she was scared of him.

"Have you got any ideas?" she asked me. "All I know is that she's definitely hiding something, otherwise she'd just go straight to the police. God! How does she know?"

I took a deep breath, then said it, "Because Eva told her."

A/N: Yay! Cliffhanger! And 'April's brother' finally has a name! Hurrah! We were going to call him Disco Stu… (Okay, not really, but we were in Science, being bored to Hell and trying not to get detention for talking all lesson) Elaine wanted to call him Matt though (Since I was listening to Muse – or was it Ultimate Disney…? Whatever. Anyway, Matt is the name of the singer so I took it as a sign) so Matt he is!

Time to reply to you lovely reviewers…

Nikki007: You're really confusing me you know. One minute you're all 'I love Paul' and the next you're like 'Argh! Die!' Make up your mind, woman! lol Thanks for reviewing.

Holli: thanks!

Lollilicious: Good grief. That is confusing to spell. Any luck with the competition yet? It's been like months hasn't it? Sorry about that. Thanks for the review.