It Just Had to Be You

Chapter 6

Scott

My phone beeps in my hands, but it takes me a minute to get my eyes off her so I can read the message that just came through. I always used to tell myself that my eyes were glued to her because I was waiting for a moment. I wanted to see her at her breaking point, but I haven't said or done anything in these last two weeks that would get her remotely close to breaking point, yet I still can't stop looking at her.

I glance at my screen. Beth sent a pic of herself topless and that should be enough to divert my attention, but my eyes spring back up. She's sitting at the opposite end of the dining table, copying my math notes. A little wrinkle creases her forehead and I don't know if that's confusion or concentration. I force myself to look at my phone again, though it barely keeps me distracted for more than a few seconds.

I'm starting to get angry with myself. I have a half-naked Beth on my screen, this girl Melania, who I banged last weekend, sexting non-stop, and Amanda, the gorgeous blonde in my AP English class, asking me how I feel about handcuffs and body chocolate. All that is happening on my phone right now and somehow this...this is what has my full, undivided attention. This girl with her messy bun and her cheap, faded clothes. She's dressed like a hobo, but yeah, she's the one who's trumping all the hotties on my phone at this moment. What is wrong with me?

Looking at her now, I realize her dress sense bothers me a little. See, she sports a tomboy sort of look. She wears these sweatpants with elasticated waistbands and elasticated cuffs, and sometimes she pulls one side up to mid-calf. Throw in some sneakers and a cap now and then, and it's definitely the look of a tomboy, but the problem is none of that stuff looks boyish on her. She's short, so her curves are condensed into this incredibly toned five-foot-two little package and not even sweatpants can hide that fact. A pastel-colored oversized top usually completes the outfit, but oversized doesn't mean that she's completely covered. No, no. I wouldn't get so lucky. She somehow manages to always reveal just the right amount of skin, a small sliver of intrigue.

The weird T-shirts she wears tend to leave at least one shoulder exposed. Sometimes, like today, she ties a knot at the side, and it shows off her stomach in the most unintentionally provocative way. I catch a glimpse of more skin every time she raises her arm to brush her hair off her face. Not a single item of her clothing is a brand name or designer label, which means that her overall look is hip-hop dancer at best and hobo at absolute worst. It makes no sense why I find all of it so fucking appealing. She's just this...sexy, hot mess. I take it back. It bothers me a lot.

"The person who invented trigonometry should get kicked in the dick," she says irritably.

I chuckle silently as I watch her. She has a bit of a feisty side, which is something I didn't expect. And even though it's that feistiness that led to me getting slapped yesterday, I'm more than a little taken in by it. She idly taps her pencil against her mouth and my eyes are drawn there, assessing its elasticity each time the pencil bounces off.

This gawking is becoming a tad obsessive. And even if these random body parts of hers weren't enough to get me hooked, the thong I found in the laundry two days ago has me constantly wondering what she has on underneath all those rags. She didn't strike me as a black, lace kind of girl, but the horrified look on her face that day confirmed it was hers. I always thought she was quiet, timid. And again, she surprised me because quiet, timid girls don't wear panties like that, do they?

Holy shit! Am I really thinking about her panties right now? What is wrong with me? These arbitrary thoughts about her used to be fleeting, but now they're constantly nagging me. She's on my mind every waking moment. It's getting worse by the day.

"That can't be right," she mumbles to herself, flipping back and forth between the pages in my book.

And voila!