Playgirl (discontinued... as of now...)

03 - Watch me play

I came in right on time. Mrs. Fischer entered the classroom moments after I settled on my seat beside Sophie. If not for Riley, I would probably be late.

Thinking about it, he really did me a huge favor driving me to school. He could have left me behind but he didn’t. And despite my outright rejection that I didn’t want to go with him, he talked me off about the consequences if I didn’t do what he said which was very un-Riley like. But I still hate him for beating the crap out of me.

A yellow crumpled paper fell on my desk. Just by looking at it, I knew it was from Sophie. It was from her Winnie the Pooh notepad. Taking the paper, I uncrumpled it and read the note written in her almost illegible handwriting.

Where were you? We thought you called in sick.

I looked up at Mrs. Fischer to make sure her attention wasn’t on me before I wrote down at the back, ‘Something happened. Details later.’

Crumpling the paper as small as possible, I tried to make it fall on top of Sophie’s desk but failed. It fell in front and I hoped she noticed a paper was thrown at her.

Thankfully, she did. She stepped on it and slid her foot closer to her chair before she stooped down to get it. She let her hands under her desk as she read my note.

I caught her spare a glance at me with her you-should-defo-tell-me look and I surreptitiously nodded at that.

When the bell signaling class was over blared across the room, I stood up, grabbed my things and stuffed them in my bag. I took hurried strides toward the cafeteria.

On my five-minute walk, I couldn’t believe how many times I bumped into Riley. If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I would have thought it wasn’t real. I saw him more today than the last month combined, it was so surreal!

Collapsing on my usual seat, Sophie immediately brought up our supposed-to-be subject of discussion. I would bet she was very eager to let it out even when I was a mile away.

“Spill it,” she demanded.

“Can’t I rest first? I’m really going out of my mind right now,” I said, taking Chris’ bottled water and drank from it ‘til the last drop.

They looked at me suspiciously.

“What?”

Chris turned his upper half to me, “Whatever you have in store for us, do tell now. You’re getting weirder by the second.”

I rolled my eyes and laid the bottle down the middle. “I’m exhausted. Can’t we talk about this some other time?”

“You told me you will tell me the details!” Sophie complained, crossing her arms over her chest.

Tanya nodded in agreement to her though she didn’t know anything about it.

“I will, okay? I just have a really strange day and I can’t—” I was cut off mid-sentence when Tanya squealed.

Her eyes passed through me and to the cafeteria doors. Even Sophie, who kept pushing me to talk seconds ago, became giggly. Chris and I looked at each other and turned our heads to see what it was about.

If I could let the floor swallow me now, or my seat, just to avoid that familiar smirk, those emerald orbs and that messy chocolate brown hair I kept seeing just this morning alone, I would. He went straight to his group of jocks on the long table across ours.

It was so unsettling how I bumped into him so much now when I didn’t even see him more than ten times in a month before. And the fact that I have never, as in never, saw him here in the cafeteria in the past made it even more absurd.