Philophobia (Anger is Bliss)

chapter 4

Smiling, I nod and look back down at my drawing, ignoring him the best I can. He keeps looking at me. Maybe he expected another answer. Maybe he wanted to keep fighting. But I don't play.

I hate it when men are aware they're attractive. I mean, I don't hate their confidence, but I really do hate their confidence. The way they look down on me and think they're superior because of how they look, the way they think they can get anything they want, the way they think it makes everyone owe them something.

When men are attractive, they can get away with anything and everything. They can do whatever they want.

When men are attractive, they make it everyone's problem.

He doesn't seem to be like that, but he sure sounded like it. He sounded amused, too. Condescending, almost. Maybe sarcastic? Maybe he said that only because I said something first. He called me hotheaded, it's not like he's wrong. Does he know I like his eyes? Is that why he said that? I have no idea. But him being attractive shouldn't make this hard. It never did before. It never does.

Apart from that, from him paying attention to me and turning me into the zoo animal of this class—as if I needed that—class was boring. Not only that, but it was also uncomfortable. I felt the stares of everyone the entire time, including him. Others looked at me up and down with insults tattooed on their faces (as if this situation were my fault in any way), while he was staring at me like he was trying to figure me out.

Honestly? Don't ask me why but it only made me nervous.

But you know what? No matter how uncomfortable it all made me, I didn't cringe nor did I shudder. I shall win this fight alone and enjoy my victory.

And it relieves me when, after forty excruciatingly long minutes, class is over and the bell rings.

I pack my stuff in my bag fast and start walking to the front of the classroom, in direction of the door, when a hand takes my arm—and it's so soft and it makes my skin tingle that his skin is touching mine for the first time—and pulls me suddenly yet delicately, preventing me from moving any further.

His fingers move. He touches me more than is necessary. I could believe he likes it, if he weren't so...so much prettier.

I slowly collide with him (I bet he gives the best hugs), he lifts my head by holding my chin as if checking if I'm okay...like I am fragile.

People look at us and they look at me with disgust. At me?? What a joke.

"Listen...I'm sorry," he says.

Panic. I don't want it to happen again. I won't give them a reason to hate me.

I let out a chuckle, "listen, I don't care, do whatever you want, just don't come near me again, it's really that simple" I reply, "leave me alone."

I free myself from his hold and carry on to the door. Woah. My skin is on fire. I think I need air.

"I can try," I hear him as I get out of the classroom. Try? Was he talking to me or himself? His voice sounded weird. Pretty. A pretty weird.

I feel bad, maybe I shouldn't have done that. But I don't have a choice. I wanted action, now I have it, but I still would like to avoid getting harassed. By any means necessary. Plus, I hate being touched. Shithead.

My next class is English literature, but not with my regular classmates. It's with different people, since it is one of my elective classes, which are mandatory at my school—why do they make us suffer so much?

English is the only subject I never get bad grades in. It's just so easy. I used to be the perfect kid, the one with an incredible memory, the one that didn't have to study to get good grades. All of this changed a while ago, now. Even though I still have a very good memory, I have bad grades in basically everything...except English. That's why I like it so much. I feel like less of a failure, thanks to it.

Heading to the classroom, I see the people I had this class with last year and smile to salute them. We're not exactly friends, just acquaintances. I feel better, more comfortable. In my element.

I can't wait for the tests, I've always been the best in this class and I'd like to keep my crown—and also feel better about myself because I dislike my incompetence so much that this is what I've come to do and be.

We all enter the room and get to our usual places, the same as always. I'm tempted to talk to her. My teacher. I'm really tempted to ask her random questions, to have a useless conversation with her, to make her do or say anything just to remind myself why she is my favorite teacher. But I don't and I walk to my seat.

I'm at the back of the classroom—not the very back, just the farthest from the teacher compared to my classmates, so the seats around me are all available. We aren't many in this class. About fifteen, maybe twenty at most.

The teacher explains what the program has for us this year and what we will work on when a knock on the door cuts her off.

"Come in."

"Hi, I'm really sorry, I'm new and couldn't find the classroom," the young man says.

Him again. There's no way he's in my English literature class, too.

I glare at him in disbelief, he visibly notices. He looks at me and smirks like he just won the lottery.

I'll rip his head off with my own teeth. Words cannot describe how much I dislike him, and for no apparent reason whatsoever. There is just something about him that gets on my nerves as nothing else does.

It's those eyes, I swear.

From across the room, he is standing there, looking at me. I feel nervous again.

Why is there always something to prevent me from living my life serenely? I just want to bear this school year as I can (I know I asked for this okay? Just pretend with me), adding people to hate to the list just makes things harder. Especially him. A guy who is in my regular classes and my English literature class, a guy who touched my arm and made me feel things by just looking into my eyes and for fuck's sake I'm becoming crazy because how can he be so attractive.

But everything he does irritates me and he's so breathtakingly beautiful, how will I be able to just ignore him? And why the hell does it seem so hard in the first place?? Definitely not because he's the prettiest human I've ever seen, by the way.

"Right! I heard a bit about you, you're the American student, right?"