Lingering Among the Shadows of Trust

Anomalous 3

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PART III
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AFTER OUR CLASSES IN THE morning, I sat in one of the long chairs in the lobby, my eyes wandering as I waited for the twelve o'clock bell. I took out my History book and started skimming through the European map. There was a lot of countries to pick from, Germany, France, and the UK were a few of them. Also, ones were Romania, Italy, and the Balkan countries, but I figured most of my classmates would choose those countries. Although considering countries like Andorra, Liechtenstein, and Monaco, even the two small countries inside Italy, I figured they were too tiny on the map. It is possible my classmates would not know about them and rather do something else. I can remember their vivid negative reactions when our teacher gave us this task early on. They may even think I chose a country outside of Europe. Before I could decide, I felt a weird itch. When I looked up, I saw a boy narrowing his eyes at me. He seems to be of medium height, has wavy black hair, and dark eyes, and looks physically fit. He's wearing dark jeans, dark shoes, and a yellow polo shirt with his bag on his back. I thought he was trying to read something, but he approached me, showing a smile.

     "You're Anna, right?" he asked.

     "Should I know you?" I said, raising a brow.

     "I'm Scott. Scott Lee, your fellow classmate. Everyone knows me."

     Entitled much? I was about as ready to say that to his face. "Okay? Do you need something?" my eyes narrowed.

     "Where do you want to go?"

My jaw dropped and my eyes widened. "Excuse me?" I reacted. No one has ever ask me such question. Who is he anyway? Why is he asking me that kind of question? Is he trying to flirt? There's no way in hell I'm going with him. It felt like a creepy crawly was crawling up my nerves.

"Do you want to tour this building first?"

     "No, hold on! What you are trying to do?"

"Ms. Poppy asked me to tour you around."

It does make a lot more sense, if he started with that statement first. "I never agreed to that. In fact, did she say something like that during our class? Are you sure you heard her right?"

"I walked past her by the hallway just now, that's where she told me," he replied, signaling his thumb over his shoulder and pointing at the nearby hallway. But something is not adding up. Should I trust him? I can't shake off the uneasy feeling. I catch myself scrutinizing every move he makes. One part of me knows they're innocent, but the other says otherwise.

"I'm not planning to explore the school. I got better things to do."

     "Why not? This building alone has a bunch of rooms to explore, not to mention we visited the other campuses as well. You're the only one in class who hasn't." He sparked a chuckle.

     "You know? If a grain of sand is the time I have, I'd have none. And also, I don't care if I'm the only one who hasn't explored the campus yet. It's not like I'm going there all the time. Besides, I'm old enough to figure it out on my own."

His eyebrows raised, and his mouth opened, "But... Ms. Poppy said..."

     "She won't know unless you tell her the truth," I continued, cutting off his sentence. "Instead, tell her that you did what she asked you to. It's not that hard, right?" I gazed at my book, pretending to be busy. Doing this to certain people to shoo them off oftentimes worked for me, but he remained in his place. My skin hair rose from his gaze.