The Album of Perfect Moments

I wanted...

It had been a whole week since the last time I saw him. And if he had appeared now, I would have been able to rip his head off with my bare hands.

"I've never seen you so tired," commented the insufferable man who was walking me to my class that day.

"Well, Alieth has a lot to do with it," I replied with a big yawn.

Christopher gave me a raised eyebrow look, and I found it impossible not to follow his train of thought. Yes, of course, he was very innocent.

"We have a stupid project to present today, and we didn't even prepare it," I explained like I hadn't talked about it a million times so far. I couldn't believe I would show up to Sawyer with nothing to offer him. I had promised he wouldn't be disappointed again, but it was not only that. Alieth had promised to come back and do the project with me, but I was disappointed when he didn't show up. At this point, I should have known I shouldn't expect anything from him, but I did. I couldn't help it. What's more, I let that affect me to the point my anxiety didn't allow me to do the project myself. It seemed that having him in my life only caused me to struggle with mine.

Even now, the only thing I could think of was that he wasn't supposed to screw it up this time. I hoped we could do something together. As I had predicted, nothing good could come of us joining together. And instead of preparing the project, I concentrated on other activities to keep my mind occupied.

"Oh, so that's why he gave me this." I stopped when the insufferable number three did the same to reach into his pants pocket for a flash drive.

"Wait a minute," I said with a frown. "I've been asking this whole group all week if you knew anything about him, and you treated me like a mad, desperate person because of that. Do you know how frustrating it feels?"

Christopher ignored me, as was the custom for them when they didn't want to answer uncomfortable questions or give away information that could reveal something about their inner circle. And I understood it, I would have done the same, but it still felt like the worst thing. Especially since I'd thought I'd formed a bond with them that couldn't be defined as friendship but couldn't be defined as cold indifference either. It was a middle ground, something more cordial. I deserved to know at least if I could trust Alieth with the project.

"Stop worrying." He handed me the flash drive. "Here is the presentation for history class."

"It doesn't matter, it won't do any good if he's not with me when it's time to present it," I rejected him.

"Come on, Grant. We both know you're not like that. Review the presentation; it won't hurt you."

He opened my hand, placed the memory in my palm, and closed it again. He looked me in the eye and smiled at me before leaving. At least this time, Christopher was gone before we got to my class. The entire week one of them had accompanied me to at least one of my classes. It had become clear to me that it was an order from Alieth because there was no way they did it willingly or because they wanted to have a good time with me when they never had before. Even Elena did it for gymnastics class, though it wasn't the best idea to put us together. She tried to annoy me, and I almost fell into her trap, thinking about pushing her downstairs. Anyway, she's still alive.

The only thing I was missing now was the reason for Alieth to keep them by my side. It wasn't like I could give away information to harm him because, yeah, I felt watched. However, I knew that there was a logical reason behind it. Alieth was not one to do things just because. In that sense, he was quite similar to me. He did everything for a specific reason, but he liked to play and spin until he reached his goal. Instead, I preferred everything to happen directly sans unexpected problems, if possible.