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"Where’s Dane?" she asked, taking a bite of pizza

"He forgot a project at ho another bite of my salad

"Have you talked to hiry She had been pushing me to talk toShe had no idea how badly I wanted hiiveof the sort at ho

"About what?" I asked, trying to sound every bit of the blonde I aht at , Alex You can’t hide your boyfriend fro him I’this Either you introduce everyone and deal with the consequences or one day you are going to have to choose The longer you let this go on, the harder it will be" Her words ripped throughemotional pain to be felt inI already know, but to hear her say it toreinto choose It should be so easy, but it wasn’t I couldn’t look at her so I kept et what it is like to have parents who treat you like their little Barbie doll, ready to marry the perfect Ken My parents would hate Dane They wouldn’t even give hi him Hell, they probably wouldn’t even let himent on him" I took a deep breath to hold back the tears

"You can’t keep doing this Look what it’s doing to you This is going to tear you apart," she said as she rubbed slow circles on ht about it I was just avoiding having any thoughts relating to the eventual consequences If I pushed it away long enough, it was almost as if it doesn’t exist

"I can’t do it right now I can’t I’et back, I will have a couple more months of peace before I have to start to, please?"

I heard a tray hit the table and looked up to see Dane His face was red with anger and his shoulders were tense He opened his , but just shook his head and turned on his heel toward the door The hurt expression on his face was too much to take in as I sat there completely confused and shocked What had just happened?

"Aren’t you going to go see what that’s about?" Jade finally asked

I nodded as I got up fro into a couple students along the way As soon as I was outside,on a bench with his head in his hands Still confused, I started to walk toward hi he would look up and this, whatever it ould all go away

When I reached him, I sat down next to him and put my hand on his back He looked up at me with sadness in his eyes "Don’t touch me" I quickly removed my hand His voice was co

I wasn’t good at confrontation I avoided it whenever I could "I thought you went back to your apartive ood enough to go to a wedding with you, huh? I’h to meet your perfect little fa this? Is this some of bad boy experiment to piss your parents off?"

It took me a little bit to process his words and when realization hit, I felt sick He had heard us He had heard everything that Jade and I had talked about at lunch and he was ht I was protecting hi him because I was afraid "I’m sorry It isn’t like that You’re not an experiment I tried not to fall for you, I really did I knew I shouldn’t have you, but I couldn’t stopmy parents off, Dane I love you and need you Don’t you see it?" My voice started off as whisper, but quickly elevated as rew