Sinner and Saint

(4) Running

The question 'what now?' runs through my mind but other than that, denial seems like the best way to go. I'm pretty good with denial. After a while though, facts aren't easy to ignore.

I don't look at anyone but mr. Krettz's, but I can see from my peripheral that Chelsea keeps glancing at me. I don't acknowledge her or anyone else that looks my way. I'm too busy trying to burn my lit teacher with my glare.

He continues to put partners together however, so I don't think it's working.

After he's done assigning partners, he goes on to talk about seating arrangements and how we need to locate our partner and take a seat next to them where the person that was previously there goes over to another person. People that had they're name called first have to find their partner and sit next to them. Apparently, the partners weren't completely random. Mr. Kretts is kind enough to give us this explanation that I have summarized to basically mean, the further we were from someone, the higher the possibility for us to be partners were.

So Chelsea and I stood no chance.

I don't even look towards her as Krettz instructs us to go ahead and find our new desks.

I actually don't look at anybody, especially my partner. I fear that if I do, my suspicion of him looking at me as I make my way over would be confirmed and I can't risk forgetting how to properly walk in front of all these people.

I try to smoothly slide into the desk chair and nonchalantly rest my bag near my feat, but instead the adjustable strap of my book bag tangles with a loose string on my sweater and I'm still trying to sit but I'm not focusing on it too much because all I'm trying to do is sit but somehow I mess that up too, and I hit my hip against the edge of the desk, hard. My eyes prickle with tears and it's stupid, but for a second I swear I'm shot and this is death.

The worst part isn't that I'm probably going to have a bruise on my side now and my favorite sweater probably needs a break, its that I know that he hasn't stopped looking at me.

I can still feel his stare.

Trying to recover somewhat, I try again and this time I do actually land my behind in the seat and I very gently let my bag go between my ankles.

Heat nips at my neck and I place my cold palm against it to cool. The last thing I wanted was to embarrass myself in front of someone I didn't know, and I just managed to do just that. This will probably- no, definitely- be in the category for most embarrassing things that have ever happened to me in front of a stranger.

It's not a laugh but more of a releasing of air- kind of how you might when watching or reading something funny- that I hear coming from next to me. I shut my eyes to keep from looking at him and try to focus on Mr. Krettz's words, but my mind wanders and I end up lost in my head.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Hey, you good?" Audrey asked as I sat down on the cool bench in the girls locker room.

Today we did laps around the track. Now for normal, somewhat athletic people- such as Audrey- this would be nothing. For me however? Absolute hell. Honestly, running seems pretty overrated. That's probably why I tried to do as little of it as possible. Audrey was great at anything physical, taking any new challenge in stride. She could run our school track and barely break a sweat, me on the other hand could barely jog it without stopping to dry heave.

I nodded weakly at her, sighing as I fanned myself, needing air.

And water.

Water would've been nice.