When Perfect Meets Crazy novel Chapter 40

“Are you guys good now? Or do I need to teach Claire a lesson?”

Those were the first words out of my mouth when the couple returned. They were both wearing placid expressions that gave me no clue as to how the conversation had gone but I was leaning towards still together seeing as there was no hostility or crying and to top it off, they were walking back together.

“We broke up,” Ian announced.

“What?” I blinked.

He nodded.

“No.” I shook my head in denial. “No. Claire doesn’t get to have this. I should’ve known she would do something like this. Look, Tammy, Ian and I? We’re no--”

“It’s fine.” She gave a one shoulder shrug. “It’s not that. I know him. We dated for almost two years. He’s not the type to cheat. He detests it.”

“So... why?”

I wasn’t following her logic. If that wasn’t it, then what was the problem? There shouldn’t have been any.

“It’s not you and him. It’s him and apparently something he can’t tell me.” At this, she flashed him an accusatory glare, then sighed. “The long distance thing wasn’t really working anyway. I guess it’s just time.”

All I could do was blink.

She adjusted the strap of her purse, flashed him a forced smile, then walked away.

“Take care of him. He was good to me,” she called over her shoulder on her way out.

My eyes narrowed, the incredulous look finally falling off my face.

“Did you,” I faced Ian, “just use me as an excuse to break up with your girlfriend?”

“Ex,” he corrected.

“Clearly.” I hissed. “Did you?”

“No.”

I eyed him up, distrust blatant in my gaze. It definitely felt like it from where I was standing. But on another hand, that had to be the cleanest, friendliest breakup in history. If he had used me as an excuse, it shouldn’t have gone down so smoothly. I wasn’t sure what to believe.

“So why did you break up?”

“We... I don’t want to tell her. I don’t... I don’t know.” He heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Like she said, the long distance thing wasn’t working. There was no point anyway.”

I decided to ask the obvious. “Why didn’t you just tell her?”

He shrugged.

“You told me,” I pointed out.

“You found out,” he corrected.

“She is your girlfriend.”

“Was.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you wouldn’t tell her.” I hissed.

We were literally just going round in circles.

“Can we just drop it?”

“It’s your relationship.” I shrugged. “Oh sorry, was.” I sniped. “Now, it’s nothing.”

I went in on Monday ready to let Claire know her ploy, whatever it was, had failed. I spent the rest of Sunday trying to figure out what her goal was. It was unlikely but it could’ve been for Tammy to issue an ultimatum for Ian to stop hanging out with me. News that I was friends with one of the Carringtons had rocked the school and with him actually showing up to -sort of- pick me up twice, it could be that Claire felt threatened by my growing popularity. After all, it was the only place she excelled beyond me.

Or her endgame could’ve been for Tammy and Ian to break up with me coming out as the relationship wrecker. If that was her plan, then Tammy had pretty much put a stop to it when she followed my account last night and liked some of my hairstyle pictures. For some reason, some white girls tended to love the black afro and protective styles.

Anyway, I wasn’t even following Ian so Claire had little to go on if she wanted to go down the relationship wrecker route.

I might not have been able to trace the plot back to her but I wasn’t going to spare her any dignity when it came to rubbing the soiled plan in her face and lunch in the cafeteria, surrounded by all our mutual friends and a fair amount of eavesdroppers was the perfect setting.

“Mae, do you remember Ian?” I called out.

Luckily, she was seated on the opposite side, at the extreme end of the table. I was seated in the middle with Claire just two seats down on the same side as Mae. My voice rang out clear, interrupting -and putting an end to- ninety percent of the side conversations. My relationship with a Carrington was that much of a hot topic. Any bit of information about it was decidedly juicy. Conversations at neighbouring tables also died down in favor of eavesdropping.

I smiled inwardly.

“Like I could forget,” Mae replied, a surprised look on her face.

I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t one to venture information unasked. Randomly bringing it up had to be a surprise.

“He broke up with his girlfriend suddenly. Apparently some jealous idiot sent her a picture of him the day he came here.”

It took all my willpower to keep my gaze from straying to Claire and to keep from using more colourful words.

“I mean, wow. How desperate do you need to be, yeah? That’s... that’s just inexcusable. Trying to sneakily break up a relationship like that,” I added.

“Oh my God.” Mae blinked. “Are you se... Wow. That’s... Wow. I mean... Wow. I can’t. That’s insane. That’s too low. Some people are insane.”

Her face was full of incredulous disbelief. Quite unlike myself, she was one of those people who liked to believe in the good in humanity so this had to be a hard pill to swallow.

From my periphery, I noticed Claire’s annoyed frown. Well, she wouldn’t be Claire if that was all it took to stump her.

“I know. The worrying part is that she goes here.” I faked a shudder and stared straight at Claire, wordlessly challenging her.

“Wow,” she cooed, slapping on a sympathetic expression. “How’s the girlfriend taking it? I mean, you do have to take a little responsibility here. If you’re weren’t with him all the time...”

She let the sentence hang unfinished, shooting a pointed look my way to sway our audience. I scoffed inwardly and prepared for my innocent girl act.

“Why does everyone think we’re alway--” I let the rest of my sentence drop off abruptly, contracting my facial muscles into a frown. “Hang on. What makes you think I’m with him all the time, Claire?”

I cocked my head to the side.

“You’ve only seen us together twice. The girl who dm-ed Tammy -Tammy is his girlfriend- said the exact same thing. That Ian and I are always together.”

It took all the will power in the world to keep from smirking as everyone’s gaze swung to Claire, suspicion clear on their faces.

“Well, I... Mandy said it the other day. That he was always at the library with you,” she fibbed, staring back with innocence that, for once, not everyone bought.

“No, she didn’t,” Mae refuted, her eyes narrowing with distrust. “She said she heard he was there. Once. Does he always go with you?”

She directed the last part to me.

Trust Mae to perfectly recall every conversation about a cute boy. At this point, even boys were paying attention.

“No, he doesn’t,” I answered, directing an accusatory look at Claire. “Were you the one who did that? Sent Tammy the picture and everything?”

“No.” She bared her teeth at me. “I don’t even know them.”

“You know their Instagram handles,” I countered.

“So does everyone at this table,” she hissed.

Seriously, when was everyone going to learn that they could never win against me with words. I was a master debater on her way to being the best lawyer in the country. Making people believe what I wanted them to was going to be my job.

“Everyone at this table doesn’t know what the girl said in Tammy’s dm.” I shook my head, wearing a look of disappointment for the sake of our audience. “I can’t believe you.”

Honestly, I had no morally upright expectations of Claire but if pretending I did was going to put another nail in her coffin, I was all for it.

“I’ve lost my appetite,” I announced, eyeing her with unveiled disgust.

I got to my feet, smirking internally when Mae, Zach and Aaron our resident musician, followed suit. It wasn’t the epic takedown I had wanted but since she wasn’t entirely the reason they broke up, I was willing to settle for this. Besides, I hadn’t expected her to slip up and give herself away the way she did. It made the victory even sweeter, knowing that without her slip-up I had nothing concrete on her. It felt good. Really good.

I couldn’t wait to tell Ian. He’d be so proud.

My phone vibrated in my bag. I plucked it out. It was Trevor with new lyrics.

guess how many nights I’ve been thinking of you?

I chuckled and shot a text back.

That wasn’t even remotely hard.

Zero, Chris Brown.

My turn.

I read his text again, pondering just what the perfect reply would be.

‘Guess how many nights I’ve been thinking of you?’ I echoed mentally over and over and over again.

“Got it.” I grinned broadly.

I typed out my response and hit send.

It’s a spell that can’t be broken. It’ll keep you up all night. Boy, you belong to me.

I went to math class smiling widely.