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“Go if you want to go. We’re not stopping you,” I reminded her casually.
It was like poking a bear and I knew it. I suppose it was my passive-aggressive way of lashing out. Whatever. It felt good.
Trinity growled in response. She didn’t need to say it, but we were both thinking to ourselves that that would never happen. She turned to pass what she’d learned down the lunch table and I could almost see the indecision spreading across faces like wildfire. No one’s plans would be concrete until Trinity gave the go-ahead that we were all going to Caster’s party.
I sighed and thought again how I couldn’t wait for high school to be over.
I didn’t let my exasperation show, however. I’d long since discovered how to live inside the shark tank without getting eaten or becoming a shark: never let ‘em see you sweat. Don’t show any emotion, no matter how many you’re feeling. It just reveals your weaknesses and, to them, weaknesses are like blood in the water.
I try never to let them see me get angry, upset, defensive, flustered, uncertain, anything. I’m sure that, to them, I seem somewhat robotic, but it keeps me out of trouble and keeps them at arm’s length. And that’s how I survive.
Spearing a cucumber with my fork, I nibbled its crisp edges while I listened with half an ear to what was being said all around me.
Drew and Devon were talking to Josh about how to get more horsepower under the hood of the Mustang they were working on. Trinity was whispering to April and Aisha so quietly I couldn’t hear her, which invariably meant she was talking about me (Trinity was rarely ever so quiet). Summer was regaling Carly and Shana with her personal success stories of pairing ankle-high boots with a skirt. Chace and Minty were arguing over which freshman at the table next to ours had the nicer rack.
All their talk jumbled in my head as my mind strayed once more to a pair of the most intense eyes I’ve ever seen. I was both intrigued by my unusual reaction to him and aggravated by it. I mean, it’s not like he’s Damon Salvatore hot or Keith Stone smooth. But regardless, he’d certainly managed to work his way into my head with absolutely no effort on his part whatsoever.
What’s worse is that I have a boyfriend. I shouldn’t even be giving him a second glance, much less thinking about him so much, and yet I just couldn’t seem to escape those eyes.
Shaking off thoughts of him—again—I looked out across the campus. As if they were drawn by some invisible magnetic force of nature, my eyes collided with the very ones I was trying to forget.
There he was, sitting beneath a tree all the way on the other side of the green expanse of grass behind the school, and just like before, he was simply staring at me.
I shouldn’t say “simply.” There was nothing simple about the shower of chills that rained down my back and arms. There was nothing simple about the flutter in my chest that made me feel short of breath.
Instantly, I forgot all the reasons I was avoiding him, all the reasons I was trying not to think about him. At that moment, I just wanted to hold his gaze as long as it would hold me back.
Penetrating, unwavering and extremely unsettling, his boldness was probably wildly inappropriate, but not in a stalker way. It was bold in a good way, in an exciting way. The way he looked at me, I felt like the only girl in the world.
He didn’t smile and he didn’t move a single muscle. He just stared at me, like he was seeing right into my soul. I sat perfectly still and let him.
“Ohmigod, Ridley! Could you be more obvious?” Trinity’s tone was a little louder and sharper than need be and it carried all the way down the table. I knew she was trying to get Drew’s attention.
I jerked my eyes away from the fathomless brown ones and turned a frown on Trinity.
“Obvious? About what?” I assumed my most casually confused expression.
It was important to remain calm and appear casual no matter how not casual I was feeling. I hid every iota of emotion behind a carefully schooled mask of confident nonchalance. It was essential.
“Who’s that?” At Drew’s question, I felt like sneering. Her plan had worked perfectly.
“Who?” I looked up questioningly. I didn’t need to ask to whom he was referring; I knew, but I did so just to prove my point: that I had no idea who they were talking about.
“That guy over there,” he said, tipping his head toward the stranger. “The one that’s about to get his teeth handed to him.”
My eyes darted back to the mesmerizing ebony ones, but I looked quickly away before I fell into their depths again. Then, with a shrug that belied how jittery I was, I said, “I don’t know.”
“Hey,” Summer said, throwing her two cents in. “That’s the guy from yesterday, the one who was totally stalking you.”
“No one’s stalking me, Summer,” I snapped. The look of shock on every face in my line of sight had me instantly regretting my impulsive display of emotion. “You watch too much Gossip Girl,” I added with a carefree laugh.
Faces relaxed somewhat, but I knew it wasn’t quite enough.
“So who else is going to Caster’s party?” I asked, knowing that was the only thing more interesting than me having a stalker. If I didn’t nip it in the bud, something like that would be fodder for the gossip mongers for weeks, maybe months.
Everyone but Trinity and Drew fell right into party talk, just as I’d hoped they would. Trinity was too sharp for that, though. She’s got a nose for deception. She can smell evasiveness at fifty paces. And Drew, he was a naturally jealous guy, so they were both a little harder to throw off the scent than the others. Finally, though, after a few tense seconds, my casualness won the day and they took the bait. Much to my relief, they pitched in with everyone else on the subject change.
Mentally, I sighed and tried to put lingering obsidian orbs out of my head—tried being the operative word.
********
Chemistry: the last class of the day and by far the most boring. You’d think Chemistry would be one of the most interesting subjects and, really, it should’ve been. In this instance, the problem was the teacher. We had a mind-numbingly boring one named Mr. Dole. I pondered the incongruity of it on the way to class; anything to keep my mind off of him.
