Title: He Was Never Mine part 6/?

Betaed: by Purple Black Roses who always gives me great advice. Kudos to ther…

Rated: T at most

Disclaimer: I don't own them, I'm just having fun with the characters, so don't sue…

A/N: You guys are wonderful! I've tried to answer every review I've ever gotten, but let me know if I forgot somebody… Keep them going! I also would like to warn you that this story is coming to an end in a couple of chapters, I'm thinking three more… So as always, let me know what you thought f that part so I can make the next one even better!

Chapter 6

"The Panthers didn't make it to State though they fought tooth and nails for it. They had a few great games, some really good ones, but it just wasn't enough."

"You still went to their games?" Holly asked, a little surprised.

"In Dillon, the only acceptable reason for skipping a game would be if you had to go to mass. Needless to say, there weren't a lot of masses being celebrated on Friday nights. Not to mention that if they were, you would have been expected to pray for the Panthers."

Holly raised an eyebrow with a smirk and Lyla could tell she was thinking about small towns. The girl had been born and raised in Dallas and was always surprised to learn about smaller towns.

"Anyway, I think that's the reason the good people of Dillon were so surprised when Tim and Julie came out as a couple, because he was a Panther and she was the Coach's daughter. They felt like they hadn't scrutinized them enough and had missed the clues. But if you had been watching them make their way into each other's arms, like I had, it was really not that big a shock. Does it make me pathetic to admit that I was watching?"

"He was your ex whom you invested a lot in emotionally during your relationship, so yeah, a little pathetic but also completely understandable at the same time. So, what did you see?"

"It was really gradual. I can't say anything like: in March they were holding hands, but by May, they had gotten past second base. What I saw were mostly little signs that were indications of how close they had becoming. Though, a month after the break-up, I felt like they were everywhere. I would see them walk down the halls, not touching at first, but definitely together. They would go to the school library to study before he had practice. Dillon folks wanted to praise Julie for tutoring Tim, but I knew that if it had been tutoring at the beginning, then, it was more of a habit, something along the lines of companionship. I also saw them a couple of times at the grocery store. He had become her official chauffeur, whether it was for an errand or whatever else, he was picking her up to and from school most days. It was perfect because while he had football practice, she would go to her dance class or the book club, or whatever.

"When he received an official positive answer to his scholarship application, I'm sure there was some celebration going on at the Taylors. The next day at school, Julie was beaming, glowing. She was just exuding with satisfaction.

"Soon enough, they started caring less and less about the public eye and started touching each other in public. God, that sounds so dirty… I'm talking chaste PDA of course, you know, they would walk down the halls together, like with him holding her around the shoulders and her arm around his waist. He'd touch her hair, she'd do the same. Real chaste PDA.

"What broke my heart was how soon after the break-up he started being happy, and not just looking like it, but expressing it. I knew him, I could see past his trademark smirk and his nonchalant behavior. I may not have known what was going through in his head, but I knew his body language by heart. He was truly happy, even if there was no serious groping involved. I think it was the normalcy in their relationship that elated him so much. When we were together, we had to work on not making the same mistakes again, and then I started comparing him with Jason. With Julie, what they had was much simpler. They had a clean sheet, they were standing on good ground.

"What became obvious, at least to me who was always watching from afar was the gravitation. I think it existed even when I was still with Tim but I'd missed it before. I started noticing that they took turns behaving as the other's sun. There was a magnetic pull. Where one was, the other was near, as if attracted by electric forces. Back then, I thought it was just Julie, that she was irresistible to him, attracting him like a moth to a flame, because I felt like he was always the one looking for her, but now I can tell it went both ways.

"One day, just a few weeks after we were over, I went to a post game celebration. I was standing near the bar, wondering why I had decided to come…

Flashback

Her mom had been getting on her case, saying that she wasn't going out enough for a girl her age, so to appease her, Lyla had promised to go to the party. And there she was, looking like a fool when she had asked for a non-alcoholic beverage, standing next to the drink station. She looked at her watch and decided that she wasn't staying longer than thirty more minutes. She'd rather drive alone in the Dillon streets until it was a more reasonable hour to come home without her mother moaning, rather than watch her classmates drink and screw blindly like they were right now.

She took a sip of her orange juice then browsed the attending crowd. Smash could be seen, flirting with several girls like his life depended on it. Rally girls and Cheerleaders tried to get into a player's pants for the night. Landry Clarke was having a debate with one of the science club member, Tyra looking slightly bored but holding his waist tightly. A few meters from them was Matt Saracen, surrounded by three Rally girls, but he was looking grimly in another direction, barely paying them attention. Lyla followed his glance, her heart clenching as she saw Julie Taylor with a shy smile on her face, making her way to Tim and Santiago who were having some kind of discussion. When he saw her approaching, Tim's smile broadened. Lyla could tell it was a real smile and not a smirk. The blonde stood next to him, holding a bottle of soda and beamed at him before turning her attention to Santiago and greeting him too. Lyla's heart felt another tug when saw Tim wrap his arm around the girl's waist and gently but firmly pull her down on his lap. She blushed lightly then thanked him. Tim started whispering in her hear and she laughed, leaning back against his chest. He put his head on her shoulder then went back to his conversation with Santiago. Feeling like a peeping tom, Lyla couldn't help but notice that the couple was holding hands.

Poor Saracen, she thought, she could sympathize with his gloomy mood, they were both in the same boat there. What she couldn't fathom was how oblivious the rest of the crowd had been to the scene. They were too busy drinking and partying probably.

Lyla hated herself for constantly spying on them, but she couldn't help it. She knew that the two weren't a couple yet, or at least as far as Dillon was concerned, but she felt hurt at how close they had gotten so fast. They were also not afraid of expressing their friendship through physical contact of any kind, but maybe they had always been that touchy when together. She remembered how they had kissed and hugged after the trig results. She wondered if, when they were locked in the sanctuary that was the Taylors' house, they had touched so much, especially when she was still dating Tim. Spying on them for so long, she had noticed quite bitterly that he was more comfortable expressing himself through physical gestures when he was with Julie. She had dated him for more than four months but he never seemed to reach that level of comfort around her.

Her thoughts were interrupted when someone came to the drink station. She cringed when he saw it was Tyra, then blushed to the roots of her hair when she saw that the blonde had noticed who she had been staring at.

Tyra arched an eyebrow then proceeded to get a refill of her drink. Lyla kept clenching, waiting for the acid remark that she was certain would fuse. When she had poured the beer in her cup, the blonde turned to go back to her boyfriend, and Lyla couldn't help but exclaim "That's it? You're not going to say anything?"

Tyra stopped, and her free hand went to her waist in a defiant posture.

"That's it," she confirmed. "What do you want me to say?"

"Nothing, that's the point, » Lyla cringed, "I don't want you anywhere near my case, but that's just not like you. So bring it on, get it off your chest. The anticipation is killing me."

The blonde chuckled a little bitterly, then said "I won't get on your case, Lyla. The world doesn't revolve around you, and maybe I have nothing to say."

Lyla eyed her suspiciously, her lips pressed tightly.

"Even if I wanted to say anything, like call you on your stalkerish tendencies or about the Pity act you've got going on," Tyra said, "I wouldn't. The reward wouldn't be worth the risks. So drop it."

"The reward? The risks?" Lyla asked, following the girl's glance to Tim and the Taylor girl. "Did Julie asked you to not get on my case? How dare she!"

"Careful there! I may have been asked not to rub in your face the break-up details, but if you start badmouthing my girl, then you're fair game. So tread lightly, Garrity," Tyra exclaimed, raising a threatening finger as her hip propped out in a defiant manner.

Lyla felt shock and wonder while the other girl stood in a defensive pose.

"I don't get it," she blurted out almost against her will, "I just don't get it. I've known you Tyra, ever since we were girls. You don't let people tell you what you should or shouldn't do. How did Julie Taylor managed to tame you...or anybody else for that matter?" she added, thinking about Tim.

"I agree, you really don't get it if you think it's about getting tamed. She is my girl, I'm hers. When she asks me to spare somebody from my wrath, if I think it's something that won't change who I am, I will. It's the kind of things that you do for the people you love. She didn't tame me, or anybody else."

Lyla stared at the girl, completely clueless, and the blonde said "See? That's one of the reasons I agreed not to argue with you. It's really sad that you don't get that kind of friendship, it means you've never experienced it, and it makes me feel sorry for you. It's one of the rare things Julie and I agree on as far as you're concerned, you lack girlfriends. Ever since you left the cheerleader squad and after Waverly went back where she came from, you've been very lonely. You should have at least a girlfriend to help you through the break-up."

Lyla didn't answer since she couldn't argue. She had been awfully lonely. It made breaking up with Tim worse because she had lost the only person she had talked to. After some time, she said "So I should thank Julie, right? Just another thing I have to be grateful to her for… This list is getting out of control…"

Tyra smirked but didn't comment.

"Can I ask you something then, Tyra? I thought that since she's your girl and all that, you would be pissed she is so friendly with Tim. I don't get why people who claim they're so protective of the Taylor girl just don't see anything wrong with her hanging out with Tim. I thought you most of all would remember his reputation and old ways.

Lyla felt like a hypocrite speaking such words, but she couldn't help but feel that way, and maybe her orange juice had gotten spiked or something, but she knew she may never have another occasion to talk frankly with Tyra and she wanted to make the best of it.

"I was mad, at first. I didn't want her to fall for him when he was such a jerk. But it's working out. That's the thing I learnt these past few months: not everybody will be good to everybody else," the blonde said with a hand on her hip. "Because that's what it comes down to, in the end: she's good to him, she makes him reach out of his comfort zone, and he is also good to her. He has been the key to her getting along better with her family. They benefit greatly from hanging out together. For example, you and I will never be good to each other, no matter what happens, unless we get a personality change, but she's good to me and to Tim. So even if it pisses me off that they get along so well, and that he'll listen to her when she talks, that he actually tries to be better and worthy of her, things that he never did for me or you, I won't make a fuss about it. The day he starts being bad to her though, I'm coming after his ass and he knows it."

Lyla was disheartened, a hand on her stomach. A part of her had always counted on Tyra to step in and make the Tim and Julie friendship go away. If the Taylors had accepted him as a friend of their daughter, she had counted on Tyra to be the voice of reason. She had been wrong.

"When did that happen?" She asked, motioning to the two teenagers laughing together. "You've seen it too?" She suddenly asked, looking straight in the blonde's eyes, "it's not just a delusion I'm sharing with Saracen?"

"You mean the way they seem to be getting closer and closer? So close that one day they'll wake up and discover they've been in a relationship all along? Yeah, I've seen it too. He comes to get her at my place every time she is over, he's even sat with us at lunch a couple of times. Believe me when I say, I've seen it too. I warned Julie time and time again about how truly poisonous he can be, but he keeps proving me wrong, so who am I to judge what they have going on? It's been a slow process, though it's been more obvious since you guys broke up. At first, he was just a stranger in her house, that she had to tutor, and then it became a friendship. I think he didn't think that highly of her until she confessed to the Coach that he hadn't been trying to get in her bed but only help her go to bed (Lyla made a mental note to enquire about that part another time). He loved the fact that she stood up for him when most girls would have played it low. They started hanging out for things not related to homework after that, and here they are!" The blonde said with a shrug.

"But the touching thing… Were they touching that much when Tim and I were still dating? I thought he wasn't the touchy kind of guy."

"He wasn't either when we were dating. But the Taylors are, and I guess he discovered that he was that kind of guy or something. It used to surprise me the way Julie would jump to hug me whenever I was confessing something bad or good, but now I know that's just the way she was raised to interact. You get used to it pretty quick too, and it's really not that bad. And I guess, yeah, now that you mention it, I guess they have been touching more freely in public since Tim became single again."

"In public?" Lyla asked. "How do you know how they behave in private?"

"They never had to hide it from me. It would have been hypocritical if I said anything since Julie acts the same with me", she said pursing her lips. "Besides, haven't you heard? My boyfriend is all about double dating nowadays… At first he thought we could do it with Julie and Matt, but when he realized that they were done for good, he warmed up to the idea of double dating with Tim and Julie. It doesn't matter that they aren't actually dating, it's just the double dating thing, it makes him feel like we're becoming more mature and adult, and that it means that we're going to make it in the long run. I don't need that kind of crap to know that I won't be getting rid of him or vice versa anytime soon, but I can deal with that. It's okay, we've had fun the few evenings we spent with them. That silly boyfriend of mine," the blonde rolled her eyes.

Lyla browsed the crowd once more as their conversation came to a pause. She met Saracen's eyes, and he then turned his head as if questioning his sanity that he was actually seeing the cozy arrangement Tim and Julie had going on. Tyra saw his gesture and her eyes narrowed.

"I swear," she growled, "can't he get a fucking clue? If he isn't more careful, Tim will kill him."

"It's hard to let go of someone you've loved," Lyla said with true sympathy for the boy.

"But when the other party falls for someone else, you should realize that what you had is dead," Tyra said with a pointed look. "I had to threaten to kick his scrawny ass twice after he tried to corner Julie at school. If he tries it again, then I'll just tell Tim about it. Since Julie only tells him afterwards about Saracen's harassment, he just gets angry, and Julie always makes him swear that he won't retaliate in anyway, which pisses him off even more. The next time Matt corners hers, I'm going straight to Tim so that Julie won't have time to make him promise squat. He needs to finally let go of this dream he has about him and Julie and a fucking picket fence. You and I both know that he doesn't stand a chance. Julie's never gonna be his anymore."

"Just like Tim will never be mine, is that your subtle point?" Lyla asked. "Give me a break. Can't I take a little time to grieve our relationship? I loved Tim…"

"Yeah yeah… Just don't try to interfere. They have a great thing going on. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go back to Landry. There's a Rally girl whose gonna get slapped by yours truly if she doesn't back down."

"Of course. See ya Tyra."

"Whatever."

Lyla quickly finished her drink and then fled from the party. Screw what her mother would say, she just wanted to crawl in her bed with some chocolate and maybe grieve a little more.

End Flashback

"After that party, and when I saw that Tyra had basically given them her blessing, I realized that I couldn't stay anymore. Before the break up, I was hoping to go to A&M but it wasn't an option anymore. So I started looking for new ways to escape Dillon. I heard about India and the volunteers they needed there, so I enrolled in it. I was hoping to escape before Tim and Julie discovered they were in love. Once again, I had rotten luck."

Leave a review and make my day!