Chapter 8
(Present Day)
"Oh my god, Claire," Ali whispered "This is starting to seem serious!"
"Have you been listening to me at all? It IS serious! Might-ruin-my-relationship-with-my-sister-forever serious!" Claire hissed. They had ordered fries and Ali was shoving them into her mouth by the handful, listening to Claire's story intensely.
"Okay well maybe it's not so bad, I mean, it stopped there, right? I know you, and you would never let anything get that far, right?"
"I told you, the Claire you know is dead and this new Claire is a bad, bad person and Darcy will never forgive her, me, Bad Claire, and-"
"Okay, okay," Ali cut her off. "Just tell me what happened next."
(1 and a half months earlier)
It had been a week since the incident in the hallway and Craig had been making more and more excuses to "come over and hang out with Darcy". In reality, Darcy was hanging out in the living room when Craig "went to the bathroom" and ended up kissing Claire in the linen closet for ten minutes. Darcy was hanging out in the kitchen making brownies when Craig "received a phone call he had to take" and excused himself into the drive way to make out with Claire up against the Oak Tree in the side yard. Aside from that, he and Claire had been text messaging each other non-stop into the late hours of the night and meeting up with each other at the park in the wee hours of the morning. In other words, they had been sneaking out for a week, and Darcy was clueless.
Claire felt terrible that she was doing this to her sister, but she couldn't really stop either. For the first time in her life, someone was showing interest in her. More than that, he wanted her. She was becoming increasingly excited and nervous about the context of their text messages at night. She would never have thought that she would be the type to type dirty text messages to a guy, hell, she would never have thought that she would be the type to do a lot of things that she ended up doing with Craig. It was like he had a spell on her, she was hypnotized by the fact that he seemed to be seeing in her so many things that no one else ever had.
Craig(4087695432)
12:45AM
I love that movie too. We should cuddle up and watch it sometime. ( ;
Claire(4087651234)
21:47AM
I would like that. But I don't know how much of the movie we would actually watch. ( ;
Craig(4087695432)
12:49AM
Not very much, I bet. It's not my fault that you are so sexy.
Did he just call me sexy? Claire thought, laying in her bed on Tuesday night. How could anyone possibly think that she was sexy? Especially now, in a pair of pink pajama pants with white bunny rabbits, and an oversized Downtown Sasquatch T-shirt that Craig had given to her the night before. She inhaled and was momentarily overwhelmed by the smell of his body wash and cologne.
Claire(4087651234)
12:54AM
I'm not sexy, you are just crazy. ( :
Craig(4087695432)
12:55AM
Don't you know how sexy you are? Meet up with me at the park so I can show you…
Claire(4087651234)
12:56AM
I'll be there in ten minutes.
Craig(4087695432)
12:57AM
See you soon, Sexy ( :
Claire snapped her phone shut and jumped off of her bed, grabbing a pair of jeans and heading to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth; put her jeans on and pulled her hair into a pony tail. She would have to sneak to the living room to get her shoes, and then creep back into her bedroom to climb out of her window.
There was one light on in the living room casting a warm glow but there was no one there. Claire grabbed her sneakers from under the coffee table and noticed Darcy's cell phone lying on the couch next to the TV Remote. She picked it up hesitantly before she flipped it on and scrolled through her sister's text messages.
She knew it was wrong but it was just so weird for Darcy to not have her phone attached to her face or glued into her hand. There was no way that she would have just left it out here, missing calls and text messages. Something had to be up and Claire needed to know if it had to do with Craig.
She scrolled through some text messages from Manny forgiving Darcy for the whole Craig thing and inviting her to help with the first dance of the school year, and a few text messages from Emma asking why Darcy had blown her off that afternoon, and then there it was.
Craig(4087695432)
8:00PM
Yeah, I'm just not feeling to good. Maybe tomorrow night?
Darcy (4083072384)
8:01PM
Uv blown me off 4 the past 3 nites, C. R U Mad at me? ) :
Craig(4087695432)
8:07PM
Not mad, just been busy.
Darcy (4083072384)
8:08PM
2 Busy 2 C me? ) :
Craig(4087695432)
8:12PM
I'm sry, maybe tomorrow I will feel better and we can get ice cream?
Darcy (4083072384)
8:13PM
Can I at least call u? Im lonely and want 2 hear ur voice : /
Craig(4087695432)
8:20PM
Sry, my throat hurts. I'll call in the AM. G'nite.
Darcy (4083072384)
8:21PM
OK talk 2 u 2morrow then. ) :
So there it was, he was blowing Darcy off so he would be around to text Claire. She didn't really know what to think of this. On the one hand, it was really sweet that he was making time for her, but on the other hand what he was doing to Darcy was really shady. Then again, she thought, what I'm doing is really shady. She knew that they couldn't do this forever, it wasn't fair to her or Darcy or even Craig really.
Claire put the phone back down on the couch where she had found it and crept back to her room. She put her sneakers and a crept out the window. Looking back at her sister's window she decided that she would have to talk to Craig about this tonight. They couldn't keep doing this to Darcy, it had to end.