Rejection Causes Love?

Chapter 2: Another Side of Him

The rest of the school day was the same as usual. Chris would use every chance he got to humiliate me. I hated it, but I couldn't hate him. It was impossible. When the day was finally over, I sat next to Isabella on the bus, and she knew something was wrong. Usually I didn't let Chris get to me, but today, his words stung deeper than they normally did. I think it was because my feelings for him were growing. Why couldn't I like someone who liked me back? Or why couldn't I at least like a person that I actually had a chance with? There was no chance with Chris, because he absolutely hated me. A tear escaped my eye as I stared down at my lap. 

"Is everything okay?" Isabella asked in a concerned tone. I glanced up at her and shrugged. I had never told anyone about my feelings for Chris. No one would understand. They would think I was crazy. Maybe I was crazy. 

"Madison, what's wrong?" she asked when I didn't respond. 

"I just...Chris has been getting to me lately." I said. 

"Him again? When are you going to learn that you need to stop worrying about him? No one else teases you, because there's nothing to tease you about! You're not ugly, you dress nicely, you get good grades, and you have a lot of friends!" Isabella said, trying to cheer me up. 

"Yeah, I know." I replied. I knew her words were right, and they would make perfect sense, but she didn't know the whole story, because she didn't know how I felt about him. I yearned to tell someone, but I just couldn't. It was hopeless. 

***

Over the weekend, I went through a struggle to finish all my homework, but I finally found the book I was looking for on the internet. It was a pain, since my computer was outdated and it crashed a lot, but at least it was working...kind of. 

When I finished with everything, I just laid back on my bed and thought about my stupid life. I just imagined that Chris wasn't mean to me, and maybe the first time I met him, instead of laughing at me when I fell, he would have helped me up. The first time I had ever seen him in the ninth grade, it was the first day of school. It was a crowded hallway, and I was trying to navigate through it by looking at the map in my hands. I hadn't been paying attention, and I had stumbled and fell over something. The first person to notice was a tall boy with light skin, black hair, and stunning brown eyes. I just stared at him like an idiot, amazed at how attractive he was. He had looked at me with concern for a brief second, and then he smiled and started laughing in a cruel way. I had gotten up, my face red in embarrassment, but by that time everyone had seen. Chris had continued to bother me from that day on, and I never understood, which made me even more upset. 

After I fantasized about Chris being nice, I began to think about factual things. For instance, Maya's party next weekend. I had never seen Chris outside of school, and there weren't many rules in public. Would he be even worse, or would he be the same? I almost thought about lying and telling Maya I couldn't make it, but I didn't want to take the cowardly way out. I wanted to face him. I had to, or he would know exactly why I had chickened out, and I REALLY didn't want to give him another reason to tease me. 

As Saturday passed, and then Sunday, I found my heart betraying me again. I should be happy that I got a break from Chris, but instead, I just missed him. Even if he was hurtful in school, at least I got to see him. It was so stupid for me to feel like this. I didn't understand what was going on, or why he had to be him. Out of all the people, why him? 

***

On Monday when I went back to school, I noticed that Chris started taking extra time to make sure he made my life as miserable as possible. It felt like it was getting worse. He teased me more, he tripped me more, and he embarrassed me more. But it seemed like the meaner he was, the more my feelings grew. By Thursday afternoon, I even found myself daydreaming about him in Geography! It made me furious, and when I shook my head and pushed the dream out of my mind, my eyes immediately wandered over to Chris' seat a couple rows away. I could only see the back of him, but the way his shoulderblades stretched his shirt as he bent over his paper just made me want to run my hands over his back, and then his chest... there I go, daydreaming again. I clenched my hand into a fist and my pencil shook as I fought to stay calm. I looked down at the essay I was supposed to be writing, and then I looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes left, and I still hadn't written a thing. But my mind was blank. The only thing I could think about was...Chris. My head snapped up when I saw Chris get out of his seat. He walked past me with his paper in his hand, and he gave it to Mr. Wilson. Then he turned around and made his way back to his seat. As he passed my desk, he saw my paper and rolled his eyes.