Into the Realm

Chapter two: The Coffee Incident (part two)

"Tessa, are you alright?"

It would have sounded sweet if it wasn't for the smirk that played upon his lips. His eyes locked with hers and she felt her blood begin to broil. There was a moment of tense silence where the two glared at each other and his friend, Archie, pointed and laughed as he walked off to class. The traffic in the hallway died down and the few stragglers ran to class. The bell rang and the hallway was suddenly empty. It was just the two of them in the quiet.

"Screw you, Brown," Tessa muttered. She started to start to pick up the papers and sighed as she shook the coffee off of them; her five page hand-written homework assignment for math was now ruined thanks to the idiot in front of her. She found that her right hand tinged with pain when she used it. She must have sprained it when she used it to break her fall. She gingerly tried to wiggle her fingers and bit back a gasp of pain.

The boy, Ronan Brown, was her least favorite person ever to exist on the planet. He loved to brag about himself to anyone who would listen and, unfortunately, a lot of girls had the guts to stomach him thanks to his admittedly good looks. Not that Tessa would ever say it out loud, but she sometimes silently admired his bright green eyes and his intellectual mindset. But his other qualities were what threw her off; his ability to talk about himself for what seemed like an infinite amount of time would be impressive to a fellow Narcissist, but to Tessa it was undesirable. He was annoying and rude and unable to view Tessa as something other than a child even though they were the same age of seventeen. Their birthdays were a week apart, Brown was older, and it was something he never let her forget when the month of October came around. He was as obnoxious as a small child without a filter.

She knew that it was wrong to hate someone but it was hard not to when she was around him. Brown always brought out the worst qualities in her: they were both in all-honors classes with a few AP classes mixed in and they competed for the top grade in every class. He was an ass to every girl he "dated", if it would be even called that. He would take them out on two dates and then dump them (he did it to Robin back in ninth grade) and then ignore the poor girl even when she tried her best to talk to him. Brown knew how to push Tessa's buttons and he rubbed her in the wrong way every day. They were like total opposites.

The boy frowned and started to help her pick up the papers. "No, I really am sorry. I should have been paying attention to where I was going. It was my fault and now your homework is ruined and your coffee stained your sweater and—was that June's sweater?"

His tone, arrogant and sarcastic at first, suddenly sounded softer, like he knew that the sweater meant a lot to Tessa. Tessa cast a sideline glance at him and nodded. He swore under his breath. "Sorry, Tess. Didn't mean too."

Tessa stood up with soggy worksheets in her arms and a scowl on her face. She glanced down at the ugly brown stain on her white sweater. The whipped cream would be a bitch to try and get out and get it to not smell like rotten milk.

"Save it, Brown." Tessa scowled. "I know that you were too busy bragging about hooking up with other girls to pay attention to where your clumsy feet where going. Do you know how hard it is to get coffee out of wool? Particularly white wool?" She glared at him and he took an involuntary step back. "And don't call me Tess."

Brown frowned and he stood with sticky papers. "Tessa, I'm just trying to help." He tossed them to her. "And maybe next time you shouldn't listen in on my conversations because you would know that I didn't do anything with that girl." There was an awkward silence for a moment. Tessa glanced down and noticed that his fists were clenched like he was trying to contain himself and his breathing quickened. She knew that she made him mad (and vice versa) on a daily basis but he never touched her, ever, but she felt like he was scarily close to losing his temper one day.