Sagas

{9} The game ~ P

My head was down as students flocked into the classroom, I listened and watched as they passed, not minding me. It wasn't until I heard the teacher's voice asking the class to settle down quickly, that I sat up.

There were still a lot of vacant seats but most of my classmates were present. Everyone sat in pairs and busied themselves opening notebooks and textbooks. I caught Peculiar's eyes from where she sat at the front seat of the fifth row and she smiled at me, I returned her smile, but I couldn't help but notice I didn't have a seatmate, they didn't avoid sitting with me intentionally, no one even realized I was the occupant of the seat till I raised my head from my desk. It seemed as if the spot was being reserved for someone else.

My questions about who my seatmate could be were narrowed down when I looked behind me from the corners of my eyes to see Lawrence, he was seated with a girl I had never spoken to and ruling lines in his notebook, his mathematical set open before him.

It was the first time I was paying close attention to him and noticed his right wrist was covered in more traditional beads than I could count, while a gold watch occupied his left wrist. My eyes wandered to the single red traditional bead on his neck with what looked like tiny gold dots intersecting to separate each bead. When I got to his face I noticed he did look like a prince in every word, his chiselled jawline and masculine features making him undeniably handsome.

If he was aware I was looking at him, he did not show, he continued ruling the lines in his textbook, probably marking out some important points.

"First you take my seat, now you stare at me for free," he said, his attention on what he was doing.

At first, I thought he was talking to the girl next to him, but as soon as he dropped the ruler and sat up, he fixed his gaze on me, making it clear that he was addressing me.

"Sit somewhere else next time," he said and turned his attention to the board, knowing I had heard him even if I pretended not to. He didn't sound rude or upset, but there was no note of friendliness in his tone either, it was just a simple message that told me I was sitting in his position and he didn't like it.

That was what gave me the first hint as to who my seatmate could be, the second hint came when I found Becky glaring at me from where she sat. I added the pieces together and figured out to my utter dismay that my seatmate was no other person than Drake. I looked at the empty seats in the hall and wondered if I should change seats. It wasn't too late to sit somewhere else, but though I was anxious about sitting next to him, I was also excited.

I hadn't seen him since last night and tried though I had to keep my mind off him, it had been an impossible task, as my thoughts kept straying back to him.

I made up my mind to remain there, my eyes fixed on the door, waiting for him to come through it at any moment, and every second that ticked by without him coming in, my anxiety and excitement grew, the teaching going on became a distant sound I couldn't absorb or make sense of despite my efforts to concentrate.

My old habit kicked in and I began to write down thoughtless scribbles in the code Fabian and I created all those years ago, it was a set of symbols that replaced all the English alphabets, we used it to pass secret messages we didn't want anyone else to find out about, we were the only ones that understood it, and after he left, I became the only person that with an understanding of these symbols.

The door opened eventually and he came in. My heart sped up the moment I saw him, pounding violently against my chest. My pen began to work faster, trying hard to keep up with my racing thoughts, my eyes fixed on the words appearing on the paper before me, locking my head in place and keeping it from turning to him.