... not in love with Kale Eddison (15 page)

Izzie sighed,
she decided to ignore the email but if Maddie kept pestering her;
she’d have to tell that their friendship was definitely over. Izzie
felt quite sad; Maddie had been her friend for seven years but her
recent behaviour was evident that she was not a true friend. Izzie
then realised she had a dilemma concerning Kale; on one hand,
should she blame him for destroying the friendship, or should Izzie
be grateful that he helped her to realise Maddie’s true colours?
Izzie decided to go with the latter for the time being; she was too
tired to dwell on it too much.

The next day,
Izzie found reporters outside her house again. She sighed as she
opened her front door and they all came running. She really didn’t
want to have to deal with this … but, at the same time, she
couldn’t help but think that this was her chance to put the record
straight. She took a deep breath, smiled at the first reporter who
was close to her and said, “What do you wanna know?”

There was a
fight to see who could get their microphone out quick enough. A
local reporter was the first to thrust hers in Izzie’s face. Izzie
eyed the manic look on the woman’s face and began to really regret
her decision; nonetheless, she smiled and waited for the woman to
speak.

“So, Ms Frank,
is it true that Kale Eddison visited you in the hospital when you
were ‘supposedly’ sick with tonsillitis?”

Izzie bit back
her scathing reply and forced herself to smile sweetly, “Yes, it’s
true he visited me when I was
genuinely
suffering from a
nasty bout of tonsillitis.” Izzie deliberately put heavy emphasis
on the ‘genuinely’ and smiled innocently.

The woman
raised an eyebrow; sceptical, “Uh huh, and tell us Ms Frank, are
you playing with Mr Eddison’s heart for fun? Is this all a big game
to you or do you
genuinely
have feelings for him?”

Izzie sighed
and refrained from slapping the woman, “Look, I know there has been
a lot of speculation about myself and Kale but I want to put the
record straight, right now.”

All the
reporters inched closer and the woman raised an eyebrow again, “Ok
then Ms Frank, enlighten us.”

Izzie forced
another smile, “First, it is Izzie and I want you all to know the
truth; I have been portrayed as some sort of evil vixen in this but
I can assure you that I am not. The truth is, there is nothing
going on between Kale and I or any other male for that matter –
yes, by that I mean I have no interest in Jake Greenberg either.
Anyway, all I’m saying is that I’m not playing with anyone’s heart;
I am not chasing Jake or Kale. All I want is to be left alone
because I am not involved in the juicy love triangle that you all
seem to believe I am a part of. Kale is merely a friend – and I use
that term loosely as it is more on his part than on mine; due to
the fact that I can barely stand him. And as for Jake; I’m not
involved with him romantically either because I barely know the
guy. Now, do you have anything else you want me to clear up?”

The reporters
talked amongst themselves for a few minutes and then a man from the
back move closer.

“Ms Frank – I
mean Izzie – do you really expect us all to believe that when the
evidence declares otherwise? Kale visited you in hospital and
stayed
the
entire
night! Now what does that look like
to you?”

Izzie sighed,
“It may look like something but it doesn’t mean that it is; he was
just being a concerned friend. Now, if you don’t have any questions
that
don’t
accuse me of being some sort of temptress, I need
to get to school.”

They all
muttered and Izzie made to walk away but Julie Falls piped up with
one last question, “I’m s-sorry Izzie b-but I c-couldn’t help b-but
n-notice that y-you s-said that y-you can b-barely st-stand Kale
and I w-was w-wondering if y-you w-were the g-girl he m-mentioned
at the p-press co-conference last w-week?”

Izzie laughed,
“Yeah, he probably was referring to me since all the other girls
seem to worship him!”

The reporters
laughed but Julie wasn’t finished yet.

“Ok b-but the
w-way he sp-spoke of y-you, it s-sounded like he m-might have
f-feelings for you. D-do you n-not think this is g-gonna be a
p-problem?”

“No!” Izzie
exclaimed adamantly but she couldn’t help but blush; if only this
reporter knew how much of a problem Kale’s feelings were! Izzie
shook her head, “No,” she said more calmly, “Kale knows where I
stand on this – regardless if he has feelings for me or not –
because I am definitely not interested in him that way and that’s
not likely to change anytime soon.”

Izzie watched
Julie eye her shrewdly and squirmed when the woman spoke again.

“You s-sure
a-about that?”

“Yes!” Izzie
retaliated, a little too quickly. Luckily, most of the reporters
didn’t pick up on this. However, Izzie was sure Julie had and sure
enough, Julie gave Izzie a knowing look, “I think y-you p-protest
too m-much.” was all Julie said (exactly what her grandmother had
told her, Izzie couldn’t help but notice).

Izzie found she
had nothing to say to that and remained silent while all the
reporters – sensing that they would not get any more juicy gossip
today – started to make their way back to their cars or vans and
drive off.

Izzie made it
to school without being followed by the reporters and was thankful
that they didn’t seem to be lurking at the school either. She
pulled into a parking space and noticed that everyone appeared to
be already in the building, apart from Kale; he had just pulled
into the space next to her. She glanced at her watch, 8.40; at
least she had five minutes to spare before the first bell rang.
Izzie grabbed her bag, got out and locked the door just as Kale did
the same.

“Hey,” Kale
flashed her a mega-watt grin and Izzie felt herself blush stupidly
but he didn’t appear to notice, “how you feeling? You look a hell
of a lot better … the last time I saw you, a ghost had better
colour!”

Izzie pretended
to frown at him, “Ha ha, you’re such a comedian. So, managed to
break out then, did you?”

Kale smirked,
“Yeah, all the reporters eventually left and I decided to make a
break for freedom.”

Izzie smiled,
“Yeah, well it looks like they’d somewhere else to be since they
were at my place again; I only just got away.”

Kale frowned,
looking very annoyed, “I’m sorry Izzie, they just never know when
to quit. They didn’t bug you too much, did they?”

Izzie shook her
head, “Nah, I just set the record straight when they asked about
your hospital visit and I tried to get them to listen my side of
the whole ‘love triangle’ story. Dunno if they’ll listen but at
least I tried.” She laughed a little and Kale smiled but didn’t say
anything.

“So,” Izzie
began, changing the subject, “do you think Ms Belson will be pissed
that two of her main characters have missed the first rehearsal for
the play?”

Kale laughed,
“I totally forgot about that … it was Tuesday, right? Well I think
she’ll let
you
off since you’ve got a legit excuse.”

Izzie chuckled,
“Yeah right, Ms Belson’s your number one fan; she’ll forgive
you.”

Kale smiled,
opened the main door and they made their way to their first
class.

School passed
quite quickly and both Kale and Izzie had been relieved to find
that Ms Belson had rearranged the first rehearsal for next week.
When the final bell rang, Kale walked with Izzie to the lockers and
then out to the car park.

“So,” Kale
hesitated and Izzie looked up at him, waiting.

Izzie let out a
small laugh, “You gonna finish that sentence, movie star?”

Kale
half-smiled, “Funny … um, I was going to ask you … are you working
now or do you think we could help each other with our homework?”
Izzie noticed that he had paused significantly before quickly
tacking on the end bit of the question; she just didn’t know
why.

“Um, no, Dad
gave me the rest of the week off so I could catch up on school
work. So, you wanna go to the library then?” Izzie gave him a
curious look as he looked to be deep in thought.

Kale was
cursing himself silently; what the hell was wrong with him? He had
wanted to ask Izzie if she would be his proper date to the
Halloween Dance on Saturday but found that he couldn’t. Well, it
was more the fact that he shouldn’t that had stopped him; Izzie
wanted to be friends – she had made it perfectly clear at the
hospital – and nothing more. He was just going to have to accept
that, he shook himself mentally and paid attention to what Izzie
was saying. “Yeah, the library sounds like a great idea; let’s
go.”

Izzie nodded
and they made their way back into school and headed in the
direction of the library.

Once they had
managed to find two seats, they took out their books and set to
work on a particularly nasty essay on ‘Hamlet’ for Mr Mason’s
English Literature class. Izzie found herself not really paying
attention to what she was reading or writing; her thoughts kept
dwelling back to what both her grandmother and the reporter, Julie
Falls, had said about Kale. Izzie wrestled with her thoughts; did
she really feel something more for him but she just didn’t realise?
She frowned and sneaked a quick glance in Kale’s direction; he was
immersed in writing what looked to be a lengthy paragraph so he
didn’t notice Izzie’s staring. Izzie sighed and quickly returned
her gaze back to her essay when she noticed Kale glancing over and
smiling. Izzie forced the thoughts about Kale to the back of her
mind and willed herself to pay more attention to her homework; it
was not easy.

Kale was quite
pleased at himself for actually doing something constructive; he
had nearly finished his essay and he hadn’t thought that much about
Izzie, even though she was sat directly in front of him. The few
times he had looked her way, she had looked quite confused and
frustrated; he wondered what was bothering her since the essay was
not
that
difficult. He had to admit, he was still debating
whether or not to ask Izzie to the dance as his date; but he was
positive that she most definitely would not go for it! He finished
off his last sentence and set his completed essay to one side and
tried to find something else to do to distract himself. He settled
for learning some of his lines for the play; learning a script was
always
the one thing that was guaranteed to keep his
attention.

Izzie noticed
that Kale had breezed through his essay and was now looking over
‘Much Ado About Nothing’; she envied him, she had yet to write a
full page of her essay. She really thought she was going to go
truly insane if she didn’t stop thinking about him. Izzie was just
really confused – there was no other way to describe it; the more
she thought about her feelings towards Kale, the more she wondered
what it was that she was feeling – not love but it certainly didn’t
feel like hate. If she was being honest with herself, she had never
felt hatred towards him – not even when they had first met – it was
more annoyance than anything but did that necessarily mean she
didn’t like him? Izzie shook her head, closed her eyes and massaged
the temples of her forehead; she was beginning to get a migraine
with all this overanalysing! She sighed aloud and opened her eyes
to find Kale pushing a note across to her.

You look like
your brain’s fried, what’s up? Anything I can help with? You can
look at my essay for ideas if you want … I won’t tell! x

Izzie glanced
up to find him flashing one of his Hollywood smiles and she smiled
back. She read the note once more – ignoring the kiss he had added
since it made her feel … well she didn’t know exactly; was ‘giddy’
the appropriate word for it? – and started to pen back a reply.
When she had finished, she pushed it back across the table to Kale;
his eyes quickly scanning the page.

Yeah, you
could say my brain’s fried! Just not from thinking about the essay
… anyway, thanks for the offer but I think I’m nearly there. Don’t
let my crazed thoughts distract you from learning your lines. x

Kale was
definitely distracted now; what was Izzie being so cryptic about?
How he wished he knew what she was thinking about; it was bound to
be interesting if it didn’t concern the essay. But, alas, it seemed
like he wasn’t about to find out; a brief glance at Izzie confirmed
that her attention was now back on her essay. Kale sighed and then,
deciding to be daring, he quickly wrote a reply and passed it back
to Izzie.

OK, if you
change your mind, just let me know. Anyway, once you’re done, how
about we get the hell out of here? I’m sure you feel drained after
your first day back and I sure as hell could do without going back
to my house to find the paps still there … do you wanna maybe do
something? I don’t mind what as long as it is away from school,
photographers etc. etc. – I think you get the picture. What do you
think? X

Izzie skimmed
the note quickly; she really wanted to agree but she didn’t want
him to get the wrong idea. It sounded a bit like he was asking her
on a date and, despite how she thought she felt, she decided it
would be best if they remained friends; it would be less
complicated that way. Although, there was the possibility that
Izzie was getting way ahead of herself and that Kale was merely
suggesting it innocently; perhaps he had no intention of making it
a date. Ok, she really needed to stop overanalysing and just make a
decision. Izzie didn’t over-think her reply, she just put pen to
paper and kept it as brief as possible.

It’s a nice
idea Kale, really, but I’m actually feeling pretty beat. I’m still
not back to my normal self yet and I could do with the rest. Sorry,
hope you’re not too bummed.