I'm Gonna Be Famous One Day (5)

I don't think I really realized the impact James was making upon me. At least not until that one day when he was talking to his friend Iva.
I knew Iva was his best friend because he constantly talked about her and how they always hung out. It didn't really bother me (one of my best friends was a guy) but that was before he talked to her at lunch.
I started feeling the immense jealousy that teenage infatuation often inspired. I hated the way that they played off each other so well. They were polar opposites. She was what many people consider 'emo.' The pure black clothing, the dyed hair, the pale skin. But she was loud and somewhat annoying. For months I tolerated her only because of my feelings for James.
I think their differences were what made them compatible. For every single dissimilarity, there was something they had in common. Iva and James fit together almost like puzzle pieces, where one was good, the other was bad. At least that was the way it seemed. And the way they talked to each other, it was so casual. I got the feeling that he revealed more to her than he ever had to me.
It never really occurred to me that they had probably known each other for many years and that their friendship was aquired. That some days they didn't like one another and their puzzle piece relationship was sometimes annoying. It just never clicked. My jealousy was in vain because later Iva confessed to me that she had liked James and he had starkly refused her, in essence, breaking what little of a heart she had (I'm just kidding).
But at the time, I could not have been more envious of the attention that he showed her. I couldn't stop thinking of how they didn't work, because he was so beautiful and she wasn't. I was almost green.
I worked through my jealousy though. I wanted James to think that I liked her, simply so I could continue being friends with him and talking to him. I was starting to get too emotionally attached, I felt it.
There was one thing that I got from James that Iva never seemed to have, though. I figured it gave me an upper hand. He always hugged me. He'd started soon after we were sitting together at lunch. When the bell would ring, he'd give me one of the hugs he claimed he didn't like. They were sweeping hugs, hugs that surrounded you and made you feel needed. I always hated when he let go.
In those short moments of us being intwined, I felt peace and happiness. I felt normalcy and perfection at the same time. He was by far the best hugger ever. I knew it.
Before hugging him became the norm, I had never been close enough to smell him. While that sounds creepy, a persons smell can be the thing that makes or breaks them. James' of course, was an intoxicating scent that only pulled you closer. What sort of made me like it was the fact that he didn't spray on Old Spice or Axe. He was designed to smell that way. Like a mixture of sweat, sex, and rock n roll (or what I imagined them to smell like together), James' scent was absolutely erotic. It became the only drug that I was addicted to.