Ever since homecoming, I found that Parker was spending less and less time with me in classes. Usually he would sit by me and we would talk the whole time, but instead he sat by Lily and talked with her.
I was feeling a bit alone, but what was worse was lunch. It turned out that Lily was not only apparently friends with Parker, she was also friends with Grayson. So, she joined us at our lunch table.
"Hey, Lily," Grayson said when she sat in my seat, AKA the seat between Grayson and Parker.
The bitch.
I sat next to Rebecca, who raised an eyebrow at me. "Trouble in paradise?" She asked. "The drama that everyone was expecting would come? Something that might put my petition at risk? Oh, speaking of the petition..."
She pulled out the piece of paper from a folder she had. "I drew some lines so you know who signed for who, and it's also gone onto the back..."
"What the hell!" I shrieked, grabbing the paper from her. "Even my teachers have signed it! What the absolute hell!"
"Grayson, Parker," I said, grabbing their attention from Barbie Doll. "Look at this. The petition has gotten a lot of signatures."
Grayson took it and his eyebrows furrowed as he read over it. "How many signatures is this?"
"One hundred seventy-seven," Rebecca said quickly. "Most of them are from our grade, but I got some teachers and people in other grades who knew you to sign it."
"A piece of paper will not make me date one of them," I told her, "so I don't know why you're trying."
Rebecca shrugged. "It doesn't hurt to try. And I'm dedicated. I want you to be with one of them."
I frowned. "Just because you want me with one of them doesn't mean that I want me with one of them."
Rebecca smirked. "I beg to differ," she said, glancing at Parker and Lily laughing together.
"Eff off," I said, standing up from my chair and throwing away my lunch. I wasn't hungry anyways.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Mrs. Green frowned when she saw me walk into the classroom ten minutes early. "Thalia, why are you here right now? Not that I don't like you here or anything, but you always come in late with Parker. What's up?"
I shrugged. "Lunch wasn't that good today, so I figured I'd get a head start today."
Mrs. Green raised an eyebrow. "I know what that means. Parker and Grayson were talking to someone else, and you don't have very many friends besides them so you decided you'd leave instead of sitting awkwardly with them. Or you hated the fact that they were talking to someone else because you like one of them."
I scowled. "I don't like either of them like that. I don't know why everyone is so insistent that I like them or they like me."
Mrs. Green sat at the desk in front of me. "Maybe it's been a long time since I was a teenager," she said, "but I work with them everyday, and I know what it looks like when someone is interested in someone else. At least one of them likes you, and I think you're stuck between the two of them."
"No, I'm not," I argued. "I just met Parker this year, and Grayson had always been like a brother to me."
"Things change," Mrs. Green said. "Sometimes someone who always looked one way suddenly looks different. Sometimes a new person gets into your heart fast. It just takes a bit to realize it."
I frowned. "Does that mean you signed the petition?"
Mrs. Green blushed. "Maybe. But that's not important. What's important is that you settle out your feelings before you start to lose focus in everything else."
"But I have no feelings," I protested.
"That's where you're wrong," she said. "You think you have no feelings because that's what you've told yourself over and over again because you're terrified that you'll get hurt. So you've been lying to yourself so much that you've finally started to believe it. So now that people know what you feel, you're freaking out because you don't even know what you want. As soon as you realize that you have feelings for one of these boys, or maybe even both, you can finally be happy. You can face your feelings or you can try to get over them. Keeping them bottled up will do absolutely nothing for you."
The bell marking the end of lunch rang, and Mrs. Green went back to her desk. "I should get papers ready," she muttered to herself as if she did not just have a massive heart to heart with me.
"Hey, Thaly-ly!" Parker said, throwing an arm over my shoulders. "Where did you go at lunch? Grayson and I missed you!"
"Oh, just here," I said nonchalantly. "I had a few questions to ask her about the test coming up."
Meanwhile, I was considering Mrs. Green's words.
Maybe I really did like one of those idiots.
