Shadows of Yesterday

Chapter 24: Just Melt Me Into This Curb, Please

A/N: I don't usually put author's notes at the beginning of chapters, but I unexpectedly finished a portrait of how I envision Declan and thought I should tell you that's what the picture attached to the banner is lol. Enjoy the chapter!

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True to his word--and much to my chagrin--I did indeed see Liam the next day. If it had been a Tuesday or Thursday, I could have avoided him while I got my head on straight and finished forgetting our weird moment in his car last night, but since it was a Wednesday, I had to face him as soon as school started. And now that I had been so close to doing... well, I wasn't sure what, I couldn't stop noticing him. 

Every time he looked my way, my heart did weird things inside my chest, and every time our gazes met across the classroom, he would shoot me this little smile, and I would lose the ability to think for a second. It was infuriating. I was beginning to think I had medical problems only a lobotomy could solve.

Why couldn't he have been absent just this one day?

It didn't help that when lunchtime came around, the only open seat left happened to be the one right next to him. 

I sat down as normally as I could--if there was even a normal way to sit down--my face burning just as hot as it had last night. I had the distinct urge to either drown it in a bowl of ice water or dig a hole for myself under the table so he couldn't see me. Even though I knew telepathy wasn't possible, I found myself mentally begging Liam not to attack an issue straight on for once in his stupidly empathetic life. 

Grayson turned to me just as I started to stuff my face with lunch food as a distraction. "So," he said, his grin as mischievous as ever, "What do you think about it?"

I blinked, suddenly realizing that a conversation had been going on around me. Panic filled me as I tried to figure out what everyone had been talking about so I wouldn't look like an idiot. I swallowed my bite of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich before unsurely responding, "Um..."

He rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "About Cheez-Itz?"

"They're... good. I guess. Why?" I slowly took another bite, incredibly confused and slightly relieved that they hadn't been talking about something Liam-related.

"No!" He slapped the table. "Cheez-Its. Are they crackers or not?"

"Obviously, yeah. What else could they be?"

He groaned and buried his face in his hands. Mat laughed and pointed his finger at him, and Kat just facepalmed at the both of them and turned her eyes heavenward, as if she was asking the universe why she had to be stuck here of all places. "See! I told you, Gray!" Mat exclaimed proudly.

"You're wrong. You're both so wrong. They're obviously chips. They're crispy, clearly designed to end up in my stomach a dozen at a time, and they come in flavors a cracker would never come in. They have way more in common with a Pringle than any cracker." Grayson reached into his bag of Cheez-Itz and pulled one out to illustrate his point.

"Which are also not chips!" Mat protested. 

I squinted at the cracker in Grayson's hand, trying to figure out how he could have possibly come to the conclusion that it was a chip. It was a nice distraction from the other, more dangerous line of thinking I had been going down earlier, too, so I concentrated extra hard. To add to the argument, of course. No other reason.

The blond boy groaned in dismay and popped the Cheez-It in his mouth. "Ugh, don't even get me started on Pringles, man. They're obviously chips. I mean, come on. What else could they be?"