How I Learned to Cope

He was twiriling his hair with his finger. He always did that. It was cute. Starring at him this much was probably dangerous because I sat right next to him. I was bound to be obvious about it. Well, maybe not. I sighed silently to myself and turned back to my notes, upon seeing that there was nothing left to copy down I pulled out my cellphone and decided it was best to text my boyfriend at this moment. Yes, that would take my mind off of the boy sitting next to me. Talking to James, cuz I loved him, I only the liked the other boy. No comparison, and no competition.

Of course I knew that was a lie, I didn't love the other boy, who's name was Alex, but deep down I knew he was more of an upstanding guy than James was. I was just a masochist. Which is why I didnt just tell Alex that I liked him, dump James and try to start a relationship with him. Well that and he had a girlfriend, who kind of hated me.

It may have just been my biased opinon but I thought he deserved far better than her. Her name was Elizabeth. She was short, and looked depressed all the time. She hated me because she thought that at one time I had called her a bitch, which was not true. I had simply said she was acting like one. You can act like a bitch without being one. I did it on occasion myself.

I felt my phone buzz and looked at the text James had sent me. I smiled at it. He had simply said he loved me. My plan had worked, my mind, for the time being at least, was not on Alex anymore, but rather where it should have been: My boyfriend.

"Hey Sierra, can I borrow a pen?" Alex asked me. Well at least the plan worked for a little while.

"Yea." I replied, although I didn't think I had a pen, I really wanted to hold his attention for more than one second.

What made this whole situation worse was that Alex was a friend of mine. A close friend. Not my best one, but we were some-what close. We had gone to summer school together, and done a history project in tenth grade together, (Which is where we had first officially met). And we had a few mutual friends. Not that he saw any of those anymore because of Elizabeth, but they still existed none the less.

I saw a pen buried in the bottom of my bag, but I ignored it and kept digging. I shot him an apologetic glance, hoping he didn't see through it. He was looking over the book I was currently reading. Something inside of me shot butterflys into my stomach. He was taking interest in something I was interested in. Or, at least he was curious.

"This seems interesting." He said, as if he was reading my mind.

I supresses a smile, and continued to look for a pen.

I had been crushing on him since Tenth grade, since that first history project, and everything just got so much worse when I saw him in Summer School, everything might have been fine, but we spent two weeks together in a hell hole that was made so much better by his presence. Just seeing him walking towards me would bring a huge smile to my face, one that needed to be quelled instantly so that he didn't see it. But that was okay, I was very good at hiding my emotions, I was a pro at it.

Finally I was forced to concede defeat and hand him the Pen I had found a few minutes earlier.

"Here you go." I handed it too him, hoping he wouldnt see my hand shaking.

"Thank you very much." He replied, smiling.

He smiled at me. I closed my eyes and told my butterflys to sit down and shut up. It didnt work so well. So I decided the only thing to do was to ask how Elizabeth doing. That would kill those pesky Flutterbys.

"How are you and Elizabeth?" I asked him.

He shrugged.

"Pretty good I guess. She's been moody lately, but I've learned to deal with that. She's moody a lot of the time. How's James?"