Because of the fire.

chapter eight

Just as I was panicking, the queen lady made her way to her locker.

"well, well, well if it's not Tracy Collins," she scoffed.

I turned to her with a very serious look on my face, "what Gretchen?"

"who's the new kid to you. For a moment the hair got me and I thought  he's your brother then I remembered that I've known you for the most part of my life. You don't have an older brother, so who's he?"

Earl looks like my brother because we have the same hair color?
I could start explaining everything to Gretchen but I realized that she wasn't worth it.
"it's none of your business what he is to me," I said and stormed off to Calculus.

I was very aware of the stares as I took my place. It took everything in me to stay seated through the rest of the lesson. Trevor who sat beside me, avoided looking at me in the eye when I asked for help with a problem. I wished I had someone to ask what was going on but I had no one.. I was still a loner.
The stares grew even intense in English literature and I had to look down at my classic wondering what was going on. Was this about the fire? Kyle came in as I raised my head and we locked gazes for a while. I couldn't read the expression on his face and he  quickly looked away leaving pangs of disappointment in me. I kept my eyes glued to the first page of Northanger Abbey trying hard not to cry. Kyle was just going to pretend like he didn't know anything and for some reason it hurt me deeply.

"alright class, we have a new student,"  Mrs Hopkins's voice boomed and I looked up.
My heart grew lighter upon seeing Earl. He introduced himself and I could see every girl paying extra attention. For some reason it bored me but the feeling disappeared when he spotted me and smiled. I didn't care if my cheeks flushed, I smiled back at him genuinely.

"so Mr Thornton, we were just starting a new classic and we'd paired everyone for the project. Now I don't know if you'll be comfortable working alone or joining one of the pairs.."

Impulsively my hand shot up.

"yes Tracy?" Mrs Hopkins turned her attention to me.

"we can work with Earl on the project."

There were a number of murmurs and mumbles from the class but I didn't care. If the other girls had wanted him to join their pairs, I'd beaten them. For instance Mya would have loved to flirt with Earl while Oliver did all the work. Yeah, I knew that was what would happen so in a way I was protecting him.

"so Earl Thornton you'll be working with Tracy Collins and Kyle O'Malley," Mrs Hopkins said as she wrote it down in her book.

Earl shot me a grateful look before turning back to look at the board where Mrs Hopkins was writing down something. I couldn't help but feel a little guilty about volunteering to work with Earl before discussing it with Kyle. If I were to be honest with myself, I was avoiding the tension that would be between me and Kyle since he hadn't said anything about the text. As soon as the lesson was over, Earl made his way to my desk.

"thanks for letting me be in your group. I don't know how I would have fared working with strangers," he said.

"don't mention it," I picked up my books. "now we have to find Kyle," I said as we made our way out.

I spotted him in the crowd, "that's Kyle."

"dude with the brown hair, in a denim jacket?"

"yeah, that's him. You know him?"

"yeah I recognize him from Geometry class."

We walked faster so that we caught up with him.

"Kyle!" I called and he turned to look at us.