Sector City

Chapter 3 ~Julie~

       I hear footsteps and feel the seat next to me move. My eyes flick to the side, and I quickly look back out the window resting my chin on my hand. David is sitting there pulling his back pack up on his lap to dig through it. I try to keep myself occupied on the scenery outside, but he says my name. I try to ignore him. He does it again. I keep my eyes on my reflection in the window staring at my unruly wisps of hair that protrude from the top of my forehead. He taps my arm and says my name again. I jump. I had gotten lost in thought and forgot about ignoring him. I turn my head and look at him.
       "Yeah?" I ask annoyed.
       "I just wanted to say hey, and that I was proud of you back there." He says it almost ashamedly. I notice that his ears get all red and he kind of looks like a calf when you approach it with its feed, not sure whether to advance and trust you, or to turn tail and hide behind its mother. But in this case there is no momma cow for him to hide behind.
         So he advances. "I was wondering..."
        "What?" I stop him before he says anything stupid, "Why would you say you're proud of me? That's a really strange thing to say and you have no reas-"
         He cuts me off and says, "Look if you don't want a friend then fine, but I was just trying to be nice. Now if you'll excuse me I need to study for the test."
"I do have friends. They're just over there." I snap back, point vaguely to Jenny Kay, and start to turn toward the window again.
He turns away from me, and reaching into his bag, he pulls out his biology book. From the corner of my eye I see that he opens it to a page on horses and their anatomy. I look at the names of the different bones and lean closer to him subconsciously. Staring intently at the book I realize that I already know all the parts. Each bone has it's name and I know all the important ones, some of the unimportant ones too.
        He clears his throat. I look up and realize I am leaning over him and almost on his lap. I jerk my head up  and scoot back over to my seat.
        "Sorry, I just got a little carried away with the picture.." I say folding my hands and putting them in my lap, "It, ah, it's very realistic you know."
         "Really?" He asks looking confused, "How do you know?"
      I roll my eyes, "I'm from the Education Sector, remember? Just because my dad was an art teacher there doesn't mean I don't know about other stuff. I mean my mom was a scientist."
     "Wait, I thought they were under the Scientific Sector. Why'd they let them be married?"

       "It's a long story..." I say and brush a stray hair behind my ear.

        "I've got time." He says putting his backpack down.

       "I thought you had to study for the test." I mumble trying to avoid the subject.

       "Well uh, I tried to but, you kinda got in the way..." He says with a grin.

       "I'll leave you to it then." I sigh, and turn back to the window. I watch him in the reflection until he turns back to his books, shaking his head in confusion and denial of our conversation.

        It's about a half hour bus ride to school which is normally long enough for me to lose myself completely into a world of make believe and be back before we get there.
      But this time I wasn't back.