I pleaded with my mom last night. I begged her to allow me to never go back to the place called high school. I promised her that I would do all my work without complaint if I was allowed to be homeschooled again.
She doesn’t budge on her new opinion regarding me and public education.
*
At 10:50 AM, I find myself walking into my chemistry class just as the bell rings, having made a few loops around the building before locating the correct room. Connor attempted to explain the layout of the school over dinner last night, and it helped a little, but I still manage to get lost. I rush to my seat from the previous day; while the other seat at the table was empty yesterday, today it is occupied.
While I refused to stoop to the level of sprinting through the halls of Cane Fitzgerald High, I did walk at a brisk, brisk pace in order to make it to this class on time. This has left me lacking a bit of oxygen and I spend the first few minutes of class quietly breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. After ten minutes pass without a word spoken between the two of us, the silence begins to feel awkward. However, I can’t be the one to end the quiet; the shy new girl is not allowed to be the one to speak first, especially not to a guy who, from quick glances at the side of his face, appears to be quite attractive.
I can feel his occasional glances at me, but I force myself to continue staring at my paper. I don’t want to risk any chance of awkward eye contact if he catches me looking at him. The rest of the room is full of chatter from the other table partners talking to each other while as they complete a worksheet. I don’t know why he doesn’t say anything to me but his motive doesn’t matter; now that we have ignored each other for 40 minutes, it will be very hard to break the silence.
Despite my opinion on being the first to talk, I, eventually, am the first to talk. When the bell rings I stand up quickly, desperate to get away from this weird, freaky acute silence thing we have going on. Of course, with my luck, in my hurry I accidentally step on his foot in my hurry. When I hear him say “ouch,” and I realize what I’ve just done, I jump back.
“Sorry!” I exclaim, now looking at his face to gauge his reaction and determine if I have permanently crippled him or not. He stands up and appears to still have use of all his limbs. This is good. “I’m sorry,” I repeat, once more, so that he knows that I am not someone who makes a habit of stepping on strangers’ feet for fun.
He looks at me and I find myself lost in the sea of his deep, dark brown eyes. I am distracted by the slight twitch of his lip as he says “still clumsy Cara, huh?” and I almost don’t realize what he is saying.
But then I do. And I am confused.
“What?” I ask, the enchanted spell between his eyes and mine lost broken by the strange comment he has just made.
“You are still as clumsy as ever.”
I pause. How does he know that I used to be clumsy? It’s true, I was forever tripping over my own feet… but how does he know? And how did he know my name? We didn’t speak today, much less introduce ourselves.
“Do I know you?” I ask tentatively. I suppose it’s possible that I knew him at one point.
He stares at me, as if my words have shocked him into disbelief. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I’m James.”
And then he picks up his books and walks away.
YOU ARE READING
Once Again
Teen FictionI have always been defined in terms of my twin sister. For thirteen years, I was known as Allison’s lookalike. For the past three years, I have been the twin that survived. I am forever the twin that did not die. ---- When she was 13 years old, Cara...
