The Wallflower of Parkview High

Chapter Twenty Six

All night and all of the next morning, I thought about Zander and the sketchbook he had given me. Mostly, why had he even gone out of his way to get a new one for me? It all seemed innocent in my mind until the things he's done surfaced back into my mind. If he was so nice to give me a new sketchbook, then why had he laughed at me when I was busy being humiliated by his friends? Okay, he hadn't laughed, but I still remembered that amused smile on his face. Then we had the whole incident the day before that with him, Will, the tennis ball and the puddle of water. Hadn't they at least implied that they wouldn't throw stuff around me after what happened last time? There was a possibility that they had been somewhere else and the ball just happened to land in the puddle. Then again, I'll never know if they were standing anywhere close to us since I was too busy talking to Alicia.

I must've looked like some sort of zombie thinking about it at breakfast this morning, because I heard Charlotte speak.

"Noah, are you okay?" she asked, looking at me with a concerned expression.

I nodded since I didn't feel like talking to anybody right now.

"Are you sure?"

I nodded again.

"You don't look okay."

"I'm okay, Charlotte." I forced myself to say.

"Are you thinking about Zander again?"

¨No!" I exclaimed, quickly turning around to look at her.

"Yes you are, Noah and I'm honestly not surprised. You seem to be thinking about him a lot these days."

"How do you know?!"

"These past two days, you've seemed kind of...off in your own world."

"But how does that mean I'm thinking about Zander?"

"Well, I just so happened to come across the little note he gave to you." she said with a smirk. My eyes widened.

"How do you know about that?!"

"Yesterday you were doing your homework at the kitchen table and you forgot it when you went to take a shower, so I decided to put the paper back in your room so you wouldn't get in trouble. When I went to put it on your desk, it just so happened that the note he sent you was laying smack dab in the middle, on top of that sketchbook he gave you like it was some important document."

"Oh god, I'm so stupid!" I groaned, burying my face in my hands.

"If you didn't stop talking about him right now, then I would've thought you had some type of crush on him." Charlotte told me.

"Charlotte!" I gasped, "I do not have a crush on him!"

"Rightttt..." Charlotte said, smiling and rolling her eyes.

~~~~

Later, as soon as I got to school, I made my way over to my usual spot on the bench near the library. Once I sat down, I unzipped my backpack and took out the sketchbook that Zander got for me. I spent a good five or so minutes just staring at the cover and running my fingers over the material, marveling at the high quality of it. Then I flipped it open and began to feel the blank pages between my fingers, which were nice and thick, an equal amount of quality as the cover. Why Zander had decided to get me such an amazing sketchbook rather than pick up any cheap spiral one that probably cost $10 or less, I might never know. The sheer thought of it just amazed me.

I spent a lot of time just flipping through the sketchbook, my happiness level going up with each new thing I found. It turns out that there were two strings attached to the top spine which acted as bookmarks that I would probably use to mark my favorite drawings. There was also a small pocket attached to the inside back cover, which I really appreciated since it meant I could store some extra drawings in it. Flipping through the sketchbook, I started to wonder if I would ever want to draw in it at all, to save the cleaness and pureness of it.