Miss Make-Believe

Chapter 2

“Hey Whitney!” I turned away from the darkness of my locker and looked up at Noel. I smiled up at him innocently and greeted, “Hey Noel! We meet again.” He chuckled charmingly, making my knees almost buckle.

“Indeed! So…”

“So we’re meeting up at six today?” An accustomed voice ate Noel’s words and we both had to gaze in that particular direction. My poor eyes sized May up and I wanted to pounce on her like a wild cat so as to snatch her eyeballs out of those big sockets. Swallowing a lump in my throat at realizing that Noel was nodding and smiling down at her lovingly, I looked away and distracted myself by eying the lustrous floors of the school hallway. A minute later, May kissed him on the cheek, making my blood boil furiously and walked away but not before throwing a deadly glare in my direction. I stuck my tongue out at her while she mouthed a cuss word at me.

Noel hadn’t noticed our bitchy interaction apparently because he was casting me an expectant look. I cleared my throat and spoke up. “So you and May, huh?”

He looked dubious. “Uh…No!”

He didn’t have to lie, you know. “Really?” He nodded his head angelically and I almost gave into his lie. “You don’t have to hide it from me, you know.” I pried nosily, wanting him to unveil something about their secretive relationship.

“We’re not in a relationship.” I nodded, almost convinced until he piped up again. “Even if we were, I wouldn’t want to tell it to the whole school.” What he said piqued my interest suddenly and I stood up straighter than ever. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to degrade my relationship by publicising it in a place like high school. People would never leave us alone.” Even though I was thoroughly agitated by his cryptic answer, a warm feeling crept up in my stomach. It was nice to know that he didn’t feed off of people’s responses and thoughts for his relationships to work. May didn’t deserve a decent guy like him. She didn’t deserve anybody except the son of the devil.

But his reply still didn’t clear my doubts. If anything, I was now surer about the fact that he had feelings for May Sanders.

Thinking that my life was all about hating high school and placing stupid bets on high school affairs, I smiled unnaturally at Noel and bid him farewell dryly.

I walked into the school parking lot unenthusiastically. My shoulders slumped as I reached my car and unlocked it in a tired fashion, as if I had no intentions of coming back to school again. Actually, my intentions were exactly those but I couldn’t exactly fulfil them unfortunately. I slid inside my Beetle, behind the wheel and closed the door. I started the engine and as it flared to life; my vision all at once took in the new guy’s silhouette. He was standing outside the entrance door of the school all by himself and his face was hidden by his bent neck, making his tousled, dark hair come into view. His fingers were medalling with the hem of his plain, red t-shirt and his foot was impatiently tapping on the concrete. Eager, I swerved my car in his direction and applied the brakes right when the car reached next to him.

Manuel didn’t look up considering the car was very close to him. If it had been me, I would’ve looked up for any signs of trouble. Only to hog his attention, I honked the horn of my car and a second later, our eyes met. Manuel’s eyes shone boredom whereas mine were probably occupied with intent.

“Why are you standing here all alone?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything for at least ten seconds and I figured that maybe he wasn’t ready to talk to a stranger yet. I thought that I was right when I had pegged him as the shy type. But then, he voiced his reason for me to know. “My mom has to pick me up.”

Most people would be embarrassed by their mom picking them up from high school. But the idea that he was so frank in expressing the truth to me was commendable and I almost smiled at his honesty.