the moral of the story

chapter eight: the charity case

to my surprise, i find oliver and diana in the storage room the next day. and the next day. and the one after that. and literally every other day.

it's kinda become a thing, i guess. i eat and do my homework in silence as they pester me with personal questions and run their lines. i'll admit, the company isn't horrible, but god, can they be annoying. maybe it's because they're famous and they think that they can just ask me any questions and i won't be offended or something. okay, maybe their questions aren't too offensive, but i would still just love for them to leave me alone.

and not to mention that i also see diana every saturday for our art class. she's sweet and all, but way too peppy sometimes. especially when it's like nine in the morning and i've stayed up till three watching netflix. she really liked the self portrait i did, and took a lot of pride in the fact that she took the photo that i took reference from. she's always complimenting my art, even if it's a little doodle in my sketchbook or something.

speaking of art, bea seemed to really like that self portrait i did, for some reason. when i brought it up to show her, she just stared it for like a minute straight. i seriously thought she was like having a stroke or something. i almost started to wave a hand in front of her face just to make sure she wasn't having some sort of medical crisis. then she turned to me and hugged me. and you know, i'm not a huge fan of hugging, or just like, touching, in general anymore, so i just kinda stood there like an idiot. but then she pulled away and told me it was one of the best pieces of art she'd ever seen, which like, yeah okay no pressure or anything. that old lady even hung it on her wall with the rest of the great art projects she's in love with.

anyway, i've yet to hear a rumor about me fucking oliver valentine or using diana montgomery for clout, so i don't think anyone has found out about our lunches together. i can't even imagine what the tabloids would print if they found out i'm kinda hanging out with them, sorta. they already have it out for me, they'd eat me alive if they ever discovered the truth.

it's been about two weeks since oliver and diana first popped up in my spot, and like usual, i'm doing homework and avoiding their questions, and they're running lines and still pressing anyway. nothing really out of the ordinary has happened at all today. i had a chem quiz, which i think i did well on. my spanish teacher was two minutes late, but that's really it.

diana is looking down at her script, going on about some inconsistency that she claims she'll have to talk to a writer about. oliver is agreeing with her, nodding his head so a few stray curls fall in his eyes. i didn't even realize i'm staring until he pushes them away and turns to me. i swear, i've never averted my gaze so quickly before.

i've been doing that a lot lately, for some reason. just staring at him and—for some stupid reason—hoping that he looks at me, but when he does, i look literally anywhere else. i mean, i'm not blind, the guy is hot. and person who likes guys and has a working pair of eyes can see that. but i know the feeling i'm having right now. i've felt it before, and i absolutely hate it. feelings like this fucked me up once, and i'll be damned if i let it happen again. i keep trying to will myself into thinking that it's just his hit guy-ness that's having some weird hormonal affect on me, but i don't know.

he's just so pretty and he's nice to me despite me constantly being a raging bitch to him. he knows who i am and what i've done (maybe not the whole truth) and he's still so sweet to me. i guess i thought the whole being a cold and heinous bitch thing would work in driving him away, but like i've said before, the guy's pretty persistent.

but oliver's so different from the character he plays on tv, zack dark. zack is this outgoing, confident, sometimes arrogant guy who thinks of himself as an anti-hero, but i believe him to be more the side of righteousness. he knows in his heart what's right and wrong, and openly chooses to fight the show's main villain for four seasons now, henson. sure, henson wants to exploit zack dark's ability to time travel to prevent the death of his wife and child, but it would result in the deaths of millions of people. it's the whole time travel thing that confuses me the more i think about it, so i try not to.