Through His Eyes

Through His Eyes [26]

{{Dedicated to @Whimsical for her insightful comments}}

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

For the next week, Rhea ignored Caleb to the best of her abilities. She was more hurt than angry and she didn't know how else to deal with those emotions other than to pour them all into her attitude towards Caleb. She wasn't mean to him per se, she just made sure he knew she was still upset with him subtly—with the way she faced away from him slightly during classes for instance, even though he sat on the isle side where the class took place or the way she shoved her things into her backpack with a little more force than necessary after each class.

Caleb didn't make being ignored very hard on her. It wasn't that he was giving her the cold shoulder—no, that was all her—, he just didn't attempt to talk to her again after that day on the porch. Rhea didn't want to decipher if it was relief she felt at his distance or crushing disappointment. She did catch his stares from the seat next to her or from across the hallways and he never tried to hide the fact that he was staring, he never looked away before she did. His gaze was always strong and direct and sometimes there was apology behind it and sometimes something completely different—something she was too afraid to dub as longing.

As the week droned on with little to no interaction with each other, Rhea's attitude became less and less about being upset with him and a lot more about keeping a safe distance. She was adamant about him being the one to make the next move because all this time it felt like it was her that took all the leaps towards him.

The next Monday, Caleb talked to her in class for the first time.

Right before the lecture started, he tapped on her arm lightly. Rhea closed her eyes briefly at the contact, not trusting herself to keep a straight face when she turned to face him. A moment later, she let out the breath she'd been holding and turned in her seat to face him with an indifferent expression.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I was wondering if you had a pencil I could borrow." Whatever she'd been expecting to come out of Caleb's mouth, this wasn't it and she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that their first interaction in over a week was about something as trivial. She'd secretly hoped it'd be something grand and meaningful—something that'd solve their issues and bring them their happy ending. How very cheesy of her. When she failed to reply he added, "Caroline was going through my stuff last night and apparently she didn't think to put them back where she found them."

She didn't think his words required an answer so instead she wordlessly reached into her bag and retrieved a spare pencil, making sure their fingers didn't brush as she handed it to him.

"Thanks," he said. Even though she could feel his eyes searching for hers, she kept her gaze trained on the blackboard and nodded her acknowledgment of his words.

Simply because of their brief interaction, the tension between them was even thicker than last week. She sat up way too straight in her seat, wound up too tight to pay attention to a single word coming out of Mr. Martin's mouth.

That is until he said something that drew the attention of every single person in the entire room and that included even Rhea.

"Remember," he said, his voice carrying through the classroom, "your assignments are due Wednesday. It'll count as thirty percent of your grade so you better turn them in."

"Crap," Rhea hissed under her breath, apparently a little bit too loudly because a couple of the students around her snickered at the same time Mr. Martin looked up from the papers in his hands and at her.