As she droned on, I let my mind wander. For some reason, it meandered straight down a path that led to the guy I’d seen at the field the day before. I could picture his face with perfect clarity, as I’d done countless times since yesterday. There was just something about those eyes.
Just then, as if a light tap had sounded on the inside of my skull, I looked up. There, standing in front of the lockers outside my classroom, was the object of my ruminations. He had obviously been walking somewhere. He had stopped, mid-stride, right in front of my Home Room door. He just stood there, staring at me with those hauntingly dark pools of chocolate.
I was immediately captivated. Looking into his eyes was like standing at the edge of a deep pond and gazing down into swirling, hypnotic waters, becoming mesmerized by them, trapped in them. I felt as if I couldn’t look away, not even if I had wanted to.
I have no idea how long we stared at each other that way, but when the bell rang, I jumped, blinking and looking around guiltily. When I looked back out into the hall, I was deflated to see only a row of gray lockers. There was no intriguing stranger standing in front of them anymore. He was gone.
I hopped up out of my desk and hurried to the hall, hoping to catch another glimpse of him, but I wasn’t fast enough. Floods of bustling bodies were already pouring out of all the classrooms. I scanned the sea of faces, but among them, I didn’t see the pale face for which I was searching.
Inordinately disappointed, I slowly made my way down the hall to my locker. I couldn’t help but ask myself why I was so interested in him, why it mattered where he went, why I cared.
With no answers rising to the surface, I put my duffel away and put books into my messenger bag to carry to class. I tried to convince myself that it was just curiosity that made him so noteworthy—normal, healthy curiosity—but in the back of my mind, I kept seeing his eyes. There was just something about those eyes.
The rest of the morning was nothing short of excruciating. The minutes of each class seemed to tick by at a snail’s pace. I caught myself watching the hallways more than the teacher and, between classes, watching every face that I passed, looking for a pair of compelling black-brown eyes. I never did find them, though, and the whole hide-and-seek thing just left me frustrated to the point of a headache.
Lunch was something of a reprieve, thank goodness, but only because I was surrounded by people who required an incredible amount of focus and attentiveness from everyone else around them. They were like solar panels and attention was like the sun. They absorbed it, absorbed us, and trust me, it’s not easy being the sun.
At our table on the covered concrete patio just outside the cafeteria, Drew sat on one side of me and Summer sat on the other.
I saw Trinity lean around Summer to address me. “Are you and Drew going to Caster’s party this weekend?”
The way she was eyeing me said she’d had to repeat herself, something Trinity found intolerable. There were few things that got under her skin more quickly than being ignored. I didn’t do it on purpose, of course. I was just preoccupied. But I knew that in a thousand years, Trinity would never understand how anything could be more interesting than our group discussions at lunchtime. She didn’t ask what I was thinking about and I didn’t volunteer.
“Caster’s party,” she snapped.
“Oh, sorry,” I said.
Trinity always gave the final say on social events, like what the group was doing, when we were doing it and who we were doing it with. She was like the popularity godmother. When she tapped her wand on a particular person or activity, it took on a life of its own. With her approval, the sky was the limit, a reputation could soar into the limelight. But with her disapproval, she could squash a person’s spirit under her heel like it was nothing more than a bothersome ant.
If I weren’t the captain of the cheer squad who happened to be dating the quarterback of the football team, she wouldn’t have given my input a second thought. But I was both of those coveted things, and it was my status—and my status alone— that prompted her to care what my plans were. Besides, she knew that my plans would likely include Drew, which in turn would likely include Devon.
One more year, one more year, one more year, I reminded myself, sick to death of all the high school games and drama.
“I don’t know,” I answered, turning to Drew. “Drew?”
“What?” He hadn’t been paying us the least bit of attention.
“Caster’s party. Wanna go?”
“Maybe,” he shrugged.
I turned back to Trinity. “Maybe.”
Her expression showed frustration and I knew she was reaching her patience threshold.
“How am I supposed to make plans if you two won’t make up your mind?”
“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.”