Chasing Souls

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

            Okay, so this whole thing about forgetting about Seth is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. He’s always in my mind, whether I’m sitting in class and staring disinterested at the board, or I close my eyes and his face pops up behind my eyelids. Some people may not see this as a problem, considering that he is undeniably gorgeous, but it just makes it that much more difficult. I am in desperate need of a distraction.

            I huffed and looked down at my paper, inwardly groaning when I saw that Seth’s name was written all over my paper. I crumpled it into a ball and threw it into a trashcan before anyone could see it.

            By the time I got to lunch, I was about to crack. Well, I would have, until I saw Seth with Katie Harpine sitting on his lap, practically eating each other’s faces. As much as I didn’t want to acknowledge it, pain fluttered around in my chest. Sure, it was dumb considering that it was just a tiny crush, but if Seth kissed me twice, does it mean anything? Is he interested in me at all, or were both of them mistakes?

            I sat down at my lunch table beside Cole. This time I was determined to not pat any attention to Seth. “Hey Cole.”

            Cole looked up and gave me a blinding smile. “Hey Lindsay.”

            It is times like this when I question my mental health. Why did I have to start liking Seth when his perfectly nice, non-player brother, who actually liked me, was sitting right in front of me.

            Of course, there are plenty of reasons why I’m attracted to Seth, like how he is the exact opposite of me. Now, that may not seem like a good reason, but that is everything to me. We balance each other out perfectly, and although we get into these weird harmless debates, which is exactly what they are: harmless. Since I’ve met Seth, I’ve loosened up; I started joking around and having fun. However, I know that some people may ask me this: Is all of that worth the heartache?

            Honestly, I have no idea. I’m only seventeen; I’m still young. I’m not saying that I’m in love with Seth, because I’m not. All I’m saying is that I have feelings towards him. To what degree? No idea, but that isn’t going to stop me from attempting to get over him.

            When the bell rang, I said goodbye to Cole and headed back to my third period class. I sat down and listened to the teacher drone on and on about statistics while I started at the clock above his head, begging for time to speed up. The bell finally rang and I grabbed my books and headed to my locker before walking down the hall to chemistry.

            I sat down and copied down the objective and did the warm-up and waited for Mr. Jay to start class.

            “Okay guys,” Mr. Jay spoke up, standing in the middle of the room and clapping his hands together. “Now, you are going to be starting a project. Before you start groaning, it’s not that bad. You will be paired up in partners, which I have chosen, and will create a game related to chemistry. It must be school appropriate,” some of the guys groaned, “and is due in a week. You will have the entire class period all week to work on these, but if you need extra time, you will have to take it home. Before you guys start moving around, I will read off your partners.

            “Joe and Meghan. Carter and Sarah. Austin and Carly. Zack and Nicole. Matt and Heather. Paul and Avery. Chris and Courtney. Garrett and Holly. Blake and Chloe. Brian and Hannah. Scott and Christine. Jordan and Peyton. Cole and Lindsay.

            “Now, go start working and I will come around and pass out the rubrics.”

            I stood up and walked over to Cole’s lab table, taking a seat next to him. “So, any ideas?” I took out a piece of paper and a pencil to scribble down any ideas that we come up with.

            “We could just take a game that already exists and change it a little to make it fit the criteria.”

            “Alright, any suggestions?”

            “Uh,” Cole scratched the back of his head. “Maybe Monopoly, Uno, or Chutes and Ladders. Any of those okay?”

            I like chutes and Ladders. I think that Monopoly would take too long and Uno would be too difficult to relate to chemistry.”

            Cole nodded in agreement. “Okay, so what do you want the board to look like?”

            “We could get a poster board and I could draw the periodic table on it. Each element could be one space and we could add in the slides and ladders throughout the board. One of us could bring in Monopoly of Sorry pieces and use those as the game pieces.”

            “Sounds good. What do you want me to bring in?”

            “Can you get a poster board, some dice, and the game pieces? I can bring in markers and index cards to write the questions for the game.”

            Cole nodded. “Sure, no problem. I can drop them off in the morning before classes start.”

            “Sounds good.”

♥♠♣♣♦

            I looked up from the poster board to see Cole focusing on the computer screen. He was looking up questions that we could use for the game, while I was drawing the game board. This was actually a lot harder than I expected. First of all, I was using a ruler and all of the lines that I drew ended up looking diagonal. Secondly, I had to keep extending the board because I made the boxes too wide. Because of this, I had to keep drawing and erasing lines and ask Cole if they were straight.

            When I was done drawing the lines, I started labeling the boxes with the correct element, which took me to the end of class, and I still wasn’t done.

             Few minutes before the bell was going to ring, we started cleaning up. When we were done, Cole walked over to me and smiled. “Hey Lindsay, can I ask you something?”

            I smiled. “Well, you just did, but I’m assuming that there is another question?”

            Cole rubbed the back of his neck and blushed. “Right, well I was wondering, and this is completely up to you, but I was wondering of you would like to go out on a date with me on Friday night.”

            Wow. Did I hear him correctly, because I could have sworn that Cole just asked me out. Before anyone asks, no, I have not forgotten about Seth yet, but Cole has just provided me the perfect distraction.

            I looked up at his nervous brown eyes with my green ones. “I’d love to.”

******Hey guys! I hope that you liked the chapter, especially the Cole lovers. Please vote!

- Jen