Annoying Adam

Surprise!

The next week, a surprise was in for me.

Adam was back in school, his usual cheekiness and casual swagger filling the halls and drowning me. I mean, it's not like I was expecting him to never show up at school. It was more of the fact that he had been at home for a week now, and hadn't shown his face at school yet, so I wasn't sure if he was just going to take the rest of the year off or what.

He had shown up about halfway through the first period in school, I'm guessing, because he hadn't been there when I first came to school and got ready for the first period, but he was there for the break in between periods. In fact, I had been so surprised when I saw him, it was all I could do when I saw his face not to run into the bathroom and start to vomit up what little I had eaten that morning for breakfast. I forced myself to stand still by clutching my locker until the feeling of fear had been washed away, which is when I switched to watching my feet and shuffling papers awkwardly in my hands.

And, by the time it finally washed away, he was surrounded by the school sl*ts and populars; both groups had missed him equally which was interesting. Usually, he wasn't one for too much social interaction- he had to maintain his social standard as bad-boy/player you know- either hate them or do them, no in between. I'm guessing that the populars just wanted the new gossip about where he had really been and what had happened during his absence. Or he awed them so much that they were following him around like love-sick puppies. Doubtful.

While he was talking and laughing to his new-found followers during a break between periods in the hallway, I took the chance to study his profile, a half-muted version of curiosity running through me.

Not much had changed. He was paler than he had been before, but that was probably because of the stay in the hospital. Otherwise, there didn't seem to be anything amiss. I couldn't see any of the scars that I'm sure marked where the fallen debris hit him (probably more on his back and sides than his face). I saw him grin, and his fabulously aligned and blindingly white teeth were all there too. I felt a little twinge of something that had once been more. But since I was recently discovered as useless, I hadn't felt anything like that.

Pulling myself out of my thoughts, I saw his gaze slide over the crowd, scanning as if he was looking for someone in particular. Probably his next one night stand- someone who was worthy enough of him.

But, when his gaze landed on me, it stuck there as if I were glue and he was some unfortunate piece of paper. I felt my eyes widen like a deer's in headlights. I stood petrified. Again. He muttered something to his followers and flashed a dazzling grin to them. 

All I saw was the way his eyes hardened slightly as he started towards me, deepening into a darker hazel.

I saw all of them (including some of the boys) swoon and continue on their merry way from the corner of my eye as I took a shallow, rasping breath, unable to do anything better than that at the moment. I was frozen to the spot where I stood, under some hypnotic spell that I couldn't seem to break.

Adam took one step towards me, and that's when I was a smart little deer and just took off running to my next class, running faster than I ever had before because the weird hypnosis was over. I'm not sure exactly how fast I managed to run, but it was fast enough that Adam couldn't catch me before the bell rang.

I was safe.

For now.

---

During that class period, my brain whirled around the image of Adam taking a step towards me, over-analyzing every look, every small, minute action he had made preceding that. Then, when it figured it was done there, it moved to my actions. Or rather, inaction.