You don't even want me

6.

[Camille]

I was sitting in class like a zombie, the lack of sleep I'd had that night hitting me like a baseball bat. I attended the lessons feeling quite numb, mostly looking at the clock to count the seconds. When the bell rang for the first short break, I gathered my stuff and got up, walking out of the room as I didn't want to be there for another second.

I put on my blue denim jacket with wool on the inside and waited for Jasmine in the hallway. We walked outside together and joined Grace, Tim, Matthew and Stan on the playground. We were standing in a cirkle and everyone was talking to each other, but I wasn't really listening. I'd noticed that James's friends were standing in a cirkle as well, not too far away from us, but James himself wasn't with them, so I decided not to care.

"Oh, look" Grace suddenly said to Jasmine, pointing at something behind me with her haid. Or in fact, someone. "James is there" Grace mumbled, trying not to speak too loud, and my heart skipped a beat. I hated myself for that, it was aboslutely ridiculous that my mind would freak out just by hearing his name.

"Where?" Jasmine asked, her eyes immediately scanning the playground to search for him.

I sent Tim a little glance because of her reaction, and he looked at me as well, causing us both to chuckle. I acted like I didn't care that James was there, but I did. I was highly aware of his presence, I always was, but now that he had come to stand just a few feet away from our cirkle made my heart pound faster and the atmosphere out there change. I tried to look everywhere but in his direction, and it was hard; I desperately wanted to look at him.

I tried to listen to the conversation my friends were having but the fact that he was standing close to me always came to my mind, no matter how many times I pushed the annoying thought away.

"The weather is really weird today" Tim suddenly said, bringing me back to reality. He was standing next to me and he'd mumbled it quietly so only I could hear. I looked at him for a few seconds and then turned my head towards the sky, processing his words.

It was a very clear sky, with little clowds and the sun was shining brightly, even though it wasn't that hot. Suddenly, my attention was drawn by a beautiful butterfly flying past me. Its bright orange colour immediately stood out and the black lines made pretty patterns on its wings, a little smile appearing on my face.

My eyes followed the little insect interested and I enjoyed it, until I looked straight into James's brown eyes.

The second I realised he was looking at me, I felt my heart skip a few beats. His chestnut eyes were staring right into my grey ones, his face holding a relaxed but serious expression. I felt my heart pound against my chest and my lips were slightly parted; for me, it was like time had frozen. I couldn't look away and for the first time, he didn't either. I wondered if I should smile, because it was probably weird to just look at someone, but my lips didn't move, and neither did his. My breathing had slowed down and I didn't even feel butterflies in my stomach until I realised we were really having eye contact.

I felt like it lasted forever, but he suddenly broke our eye contact when Max hit his arm, trying to catch his attention. Once he'd looked away it wasn't hard to do the same, and I looked at the ground, feeling my cheeks turn red while I tucked a loose curl behind my ear.

The bell rang and everyone walked back into the building for the last period of the week, a big smile present on my face at the thought he'd looked at me. It was normal to look at someone, but because he normally didn't I got the feeling he didn't think I was worth looking at; and he'd just proven the opposite.

I decided not to think about it too much though as I'd probably make a much bigger deal out of it than it actually was.

Our last lesson was PE and Jasmine and I made our way to the dressing rooms in the basement, where the sports hall was as well. Boys and girls had seperate PE lessons and I was quite glad about it because I didn't think I looked very flattering in black leggings. All the girls quickly got changed and in the sports hall, we waited patiently for our teacher to explain today's lesson.