The Beauty in Between: Too Close (A Beautiful Series Novella) by Lilliana Anderson

you teenage boys can be very convincing.”
    “We’re just
friends Mr Mahoney. It’s all we’ve ever been.”
    “Hmmm,” he
said, drinking the last of his coffee as he got up from his stool
and took his mug to the sink. “Well, I’ve got work. Do you have
clothes? Or did you come here like that?”
    “Like this,” I
told him sheepishly.
    “Alright, talk
to Carol. She’ll get you something of Tom’s to wear home.”
    “Thank you Mr
Mahoney.”
    “No sweat kid.
Just don’t do this every night.”
    I sat in the
kitchen on my own for a while and finished the cup of coffee. It
wasn’t long before Mrs Mahoney came into the kitchen with a pile of
folded clothes and a pair of flip-flops and placed them on the
table in front of me.
    “I was told you
might need these,” she said with a half-smile, before ruffling my
hair and tilting my head up by the chin. “Are you alright?”
    “Yeah, I’m ok.
Thanks for these.” I said, indicating the clothes.
    “It’s no
problem,” she said, getting her own cup of coffee and leaning
against the bench top to take her first sip. “Is that your
competition in there with Katrina?”
    “Yeah, I think
me being here has caused a bit of a fight.”
    “It’s hard
being best friends with the opposite sex. He wouldn’t have cared if
you were a girl.”
    “True,” I said,
standing up and taking my cup to the sink. “Listen, I’m just going
to put this stuff on and get out of here. They obviously need some
time to talk.”
    “Alright dear.
Look after yourself ok, and tell your mum I said hi.”
    “Ok, thanks Mrs
Mahoney.”
    ***
    When I went
back home, I needed to have a big chat with my mum about what had
gone down the night before. She kept promising to get me another
car, but I told her not to. It wasn’t important. I knew she felt
really bad, but I assured her it wasn’t her fault. She was trying
to be nice. She couldn’t have known that he’d be such a jerk about
it.
    We were sitting
down staring numbly at the television when we heard a knock on the
front door, and Katrina stepped in. “Hi Mrs Taylor, David. Do you
think we could talk?”
    Nodding, I
stood up, ignoring the pain in my feet to walk with her toward my
room, waiting for her to go inside before following her.
    “What’s
wrong?”
    “He dumped me,”
she told me before bursting into tears and flinging herself at me.
I caught her in my arms and held her, rubbing her back and shushing
her until she calmed down enough to speak.
    We sat down on
my bed, and I gave her some tissues to dry her eyes and blow her
nose. “Is it because of me?”
    “No… Yes…it’s
both of us really. He can’t handle the fact that you slept in the
same bed as me and can’t imagine that we haven’t been screwing each
other this whole time.”
    “So he’s
throwing away a one-year relationship because I slept in your
bed?”
    “He’s been
jealous of you for a long time. He thinks we spend too much time
together. He says it’s not normal for a girl and a guy to be as
close as we are without you know…”
    “I’m sorry
Trina. I really am,” I told her, and I truly meant it. I knew how
much she cared for him, and I hated that I had come between
them.
    “It’s alright
David. I think I’m going to swear off guys from now on. What’s the
saying ‘Boyfriends come and go, but friends are forever’?”
    “Yeah, I think
that’s it.”
    “Well, that’s
the way it has to be I think. If a guy can’t handle the fact that
my best friend is another guy, then I don’t want to know them," she
sniffled.
    “Hey, why do
you think I don’t date?”

Chapter Ten

    Before the
school holidays ended, and we started our final year of high
school, my mum surprised me with yet another car. This time it was
a bit of a bomb, an old red Celica wagon. It did the job. On the
weekends, I would take it over to Katrina’s place, and her dad
would teach me how to fix things on it.
    Surprisingly to
me, even though she’d broken up with