Stalker

Chapter 4- Who?

Maria

"I am so sorry." I said frantically, Mr. Greene looking up at me with a small smile.

He was one of my favorite teachers at this school, wacky yes but kind.

"Don't worry about it. Actually I'd like you to meet our newest student." Mr. Greene said, eyes traveling towards the back of the room.

"Who?"

And then I saw him. Black curls sitting on his head, dark skin, dark eyes, dark clothing.

He's terrifying.

"What about Lauren?" I asked, brows pushed together in confusion as I looked to Mr. Greene. "She's going to be alone."

"No, i'll figure it out. Maybe let a few more kids into the class." He said casually. "But please take a seat and introduce yourself to him."

"Mr. Greene-"

"Maria." Mr. Greene interrupted me, knowing he was seperating me from my best friend. "Halfway through the semester you have the option to switch lab partners."

"Fine." I sighed the word and walked carefully down the row of lab benches, kids chatting amongst themselves despite the bell having rung. I heard a few whispers about 'the new kid' and most of those were followed by 'he looks like he is gonna kill someone'.

The pit in my stomach was growing as I stopped at the new kid's lab bench, his elbows resting on the table as he refused to look at me. I sat down in the seat beside him, sliding my backpack off my shoulders and reminding myself to take deep breaths.

Mr. Greene was quick to silence the class and give us the instructions for the lab we would be doing. He set a stack of papers on the front desks of each of the two rows, telling everyone to take one and pass it back.

When the pile was handed to me, I quickly took two papers and passed the rest to the person behind me, glancing at Aiden while I slid a paper to him.

I wondered if he was going to participate at all, if he knew how to do this kind of stuff, or if he was even going to speak to me.

"Might as well take a picture."

Aiden had turned to look at me, and I realized I was staring at him, his expression unreadable as I tried to figure out what to say.

"Sorry, I zoned out." I laughed a little awkwardly, looking down at the paper. Then I realized I should probably introduce myself. "I'm Maria by the way."

"Aiden." He said, voice low. I looked at his curls, finding them satisfying.

"Is that your natural hair?" Oh my god why would I ask that. Of course it's his natural hair.

Aiden looked at me in confusion for a breif second. "It's a wig, i'm actually bald."

I smiled, leaning down to grab a pencil out of my bag. "Really?"

"Is that your natural hair?" He asked, already scribbling his name down on the paper.

"No, my natural hair is curly too." I wrote down my name is cursive, eyes scanning my paper as I spoke. "But no one ever gets to see that."

"Why?" He asked, already filling in the answers.

So he wasn't dumb.

"It's ugly and a mess, I prefer it this way." I glanced at his paper, having to lean over a little bit as I copied his answers. "How do you know these?"

"Biology is easy." Aiden mumbled, sliding the paper a little closer to me to make it easier for me to read.

"Lucky, I suck at Bio." I laughed a little in embarrassment, looking at Aiden's face to see if he would laugh too.

He didn't, he stared straight ahead and said "mmm."

I guess that was the end of the conversation.

"Where are you from?" I asked, watching him fill in more answers.

"My house." He answered, clearly not interested in starting another conversation.

The second I was done copying Aiden's work he grabbed both our papers and quickly stood, walking them over to Mr. Greene and turning them in.

When he sat back down I opened my mouth to attempt another conversation but he beat me to it.

"Look Maria, I know in your small mind you think everyone wants to talk to you and have fun at school. But we don't, I don't want to be here. And your obnoxious questions are making it that much more challenging." Aiden spoke quickly, and I hardly had time to process his words before he spoke again.

"Keep our conversations academic or you can find a new fucking lab partner."

Oh.