Sour Sweet Love

Chapter Four

                "YOU know it's not going to work out if you keep acting this way, right?" Declan muttered, trailing behind me. I was giving him his tour with bitter apathy. I could barely look at him as we breezed through the corridors; I could understand if it was mutual and that he never wanted to see me again.

Pointing towards the cafeteria, I spoke up. "That is the cafeteria. We like to call it the cafe. You go in there every fifth period. It, obviously, has benches, and you eat food there."

Declan provided an incredulous glance. "You're seriously doing this," he deadpanned.

Ignoring him, I walked towards the auditorium, reactivating my robotic voice. "That is the auditorium. You sit there in assemblies. Sometimes you watch movies in there, give speeches, or if the principal has something important to say, he'll invite everyone in there."

"Just take me to English, Ave," he said with a sigh. "That's probably way better than this."

I released a sigh of relief. Then I escorted him to this class that we both shared. Ms. Jensen, our teacher, acknowledged us with a smile. "Ooh, and who is this?"

"New kid," I provided vaguely.

Ms. Jensen chuckled as I brushed past her on the brisk journey to my desk. "Why don't you introduce yourself...Declan?" she suggested, glancing at the attendance sheet atop her clipboard.

He nodded, accepting his several minutes of fame. This is it, I thought. This was the time for him to reveal everything that he wanted us to know about him. This was what he would expose about himself in a room full of strangers. Then the disappointment came:

"Hello. I'm Declan Andrews, and I believe that people are conquests," he began, then his eyes briefly met mine. "I suffer from boredom and the belief that human beings are mediocre as hell. Maybe that explains why I got expelled from my last school for placing a guy in a coma."

I released a startled gasp.

Declan chuckled, rolling his eyes. "Can't take a joke?" he retorted, but his eyes were on me, laced with a telepathic challenge. 

Mrs. Jensen let out a nervous  chuckle. "Okay then. Off to your seat, darling!"

The class then passed by in a blur. For the remainder of the day, I heard small-talk in hallways and in locker rooms about a new boy who had the eyes of ice. There was the occasional, "Shit, the new kid is like totally hot!" and the "I'd fuck him hard" from the girls in cheerleading. 

If fate was hearing his name everywhere I went, I had fallen a victim to destiny.