One Thousand Words

Chapter Eight

||Chapter Eight||

The weekend begins to pass by slowly because I keep thinking about what happened on Friday with Eric and James, but mostly James, which is odd. I was always fixated on my one-sided love for Eric and I concluded once I got him to notice me, I'd set off on my plan to win his heart over.

But he did kind of notice me, and I am kind of imagining what it would be like if he asked me out, but then reality sets in and I know that it will never happen. Eric is infamous for his many many many flings, and that's the only thing that kind of made me wary about him. I've always convinced myself that it'd be different if he ever asked me out, because I'm not like those typical airheads he usually dates. Granted, I'm still a slight dumbass, but not as obvious as the rest of them. Even while I go over these possibilities, I know I'm just being ignorantly optimistic.

Then there's James, who gets on my nerves like no one else, who knows how to say all the right things that rub me all the wrong ways, who I realize is harder to figure out than my advanced functions problems.

I skim over all the notes I'd written on my phone about him, his yes and no answers which I've tried to elaborate on by myself. It's kind of hard and impossible when you don't actually know the person you're writing about. I remember back to that argument we had near the nurse's office, the way he glared at me and slammed my mindless assumptions.

Shutting down my laptop, I let out a sigh. I can't assume things, not about him, not when this is his entire future. It was supposed to be easy. He'd gloat about all his achievements and tell me heart whelming anecdotes that'd swoon the readers into accepting him and impress the schools that might want me. Instead, it turned into this hectic mess of me prying even the smallest words out of him.

James Lowell. I keep thinking about him, the way he talks, the way he acts, the front he puts up in front of everyone else. I begin to wonder things about him, genuinely wondering what he likes, which school he wants to go to, even trivial things like his favourite colour and his favourite movies and such.

Suddenly, my phone rings and I see Naomi as the caller ID. I pick it up promptly, holding the phone loosely to my ear. I'd been avoiding phone calls since school ended on Friday, too busy merged within my own thoughts. "Hold on, I'm putting you on threeway with Beth," she tells me and I wait for the click.

"Lisa's so angry at you," Beth laughs hysterically. Sometimes I think she's a sadist because she always laughs at our pain. Specifically, there was that time in tenth grade where I was just casually walking down the hall when all of a sudden, a wild cafeteria door appears and slaps me right across the face and into the walls. I splattered and slowly fell to the ground in pain with bruises but all Beth did was laugh for the next twenty four hours.

"I know," I sigh. "I told her I was sorry after school." I remember that fateful encounter when I met up with Lisa by our locker after school. She gave me the silent treatment, purposely flipped her sharp blonde hair in my eye, mocked my sloth kids, because Lisa can't give silent treatments to save her life, and then left.

"Sorry doesn't do it," I can almost picture Naomi shaking her head in disapproval. "Look, when Lisa's mad, we all suffer. You should know that by now," our eldest and most mature friend scolds us. Naomi is like the mother of the group, the most sane and productive one, and the only one out of all of us who passed parenting class.

"You know what we have to do, right?" Beth cuts in, her voice growing low.

I shiver. "You don't mean," I gasp.

"It's time."

"You can't take me alive!" I scream into my phone, panicking as I look for a route of escape.