Abomination (Ryden)

Chapter 22

To be honest, I don't expect to hear from Ryan for a while, at least a day or so. So, when he pulls me over on my way to math, I'm a little more than surprised to say the least. People are staring at us again, but this time, Ryan doesn't seem to notice. Or maybe, just maybe, he doesn't care. Except... no, because I don't think that's even like, possible.

"Ryan! Hi!" I beam, a little too over-enthused. But hey, give me a break, because I'm really surprised I'm not dumped here.

Wait, unless, that's what he's about to do right now. Right here in the middle of the hallway. Oh God, please no. Please don't let Ryan break up with me. I'll read the bible every night, and I won't lie, or steal, or talk back to my parents. I'll even be nice to Spencer Smith! I'll do everything the bible says, well, um, yeah, except for the gay part. But besides that, everything!

"Hey, um," he starts, uneasy. He tosses some hair out of his eyes, and gnaws on his bottom lip, and shit, he's nervous. He's so totally going to dump me. "I was just wondering, when like, your parents got home from like, work and stuff." He coughs awkwardly, and fiddles with his ear.

"Oh, um, well, my mom gets home at like, five, five-thirty and my dad, like, six or something," I reply, and I swear I can hear my heart pounding a million miles against my chest. I figure he probably can too. Scratch that, I bet the whole school can. "Um, why?"

"Oh, I just - " He wraps his arms around his middle, and takes a quick look down the thinning hallway, "I was just wondering if you know, I could like, come over after school for um, a bit, if that was okay."

"Oh, um, yeah, of course," I say, and I don't know if I should be happy or scared for my life.

"Okay, yeah, cool." He forces a cough again, and looks down at his converse.

"Um, yeah..."

We stand there for a few more seconds, not saying anything and just like, slowly dying in the awkwardness. I take this as a bad sign, because I mean, really, this bad of an awkward silence cannot be good. In like, any way.

The warning bell rings and I think we're both a little (okay, more like a lot) relieved that we both have a reason to slowly run away.

"Okay, well, I better get to class..." Ryan says, looking up from his feet.

"Yeah, right. Yeah."

He gives me a small, little half smile, then a short, just as awkward wave before he turns and starts off down the hall, backpack slung over shoulder.

"So, I guess I'll meet you in like, the washroom then?" I call after him.

He turns around, twitches his face together. "What?" he asks, confused. "Oh, right," he says after a second of thought, then shakes his head. "Um, no, that's um, no that's okay. I'll just meet you at your locker."

Before I can answer back, he disappears around the corner.

- - -

Lunch is pretty horrifically torturing too. I am tempted on numerous occasions, to get up and go sit beside Ran Rui Yi, the foreign exchange student from some country that I cannot pronounce (let alone even begin to try and spell), who has been living here since I was like, a freshman and still can't speak a word of English.

Spencer just sits there the whole time across from me, beside Jon, like always, and doesn't say a single thing to me the whole fifty-five minutes. I don't even think he looks at me. I mean, not like I want him to or anything, but seriously. He just has to make it so dramatically obvious too, because he just sits there with his classic bitchface on, and his whole body turned away from me. I even hear him mutter slut under his breath when I first sit down, and Jon kicks him under the table.