"So are you coming to the bonfire at Andrew's tonight?" I ask Daniel on our walk home from school.
It's been a week since Ben and I had our falling out. I haven't spoken to him since. I saw him around school a few more times, but he chose not to even look in my direction. The only good news is that he doesn't seem to have any new injuries, although he still looks like a ghost of his past self.
"I don't think so," he shrugs. "I'm not really feeling up to it."
"Do you have a lot of homework?" I ask, pulling my jacket tighter around myself.
The air has gotten chillier lately.
"Not much," he shrugs.
I furrow my eyebrows, sensing that there is some hidden reason he doesn't want to go.
"Alright," I answer. "If you change your mind, you can walk with me."
"Andrew won't be picking you up?" He asks, furrowing his eyebrows.
I shake my head, staring down at the ground as we walk.
"It's not like he would say no if I asked him to," I say defensively.
"I don't doubt that," he says, with no real tone to his voice.
"Why are you being so vague and confusing?" I ask. "It's frustrating me!"
"Sexually?" He raises his eyebrows, a smirk taking place on his face and I roll my eyes, smiling anyway.
"Yes Daniel, your distant mood has me all hot and bothered," I say sarcastically.
"I figured you probably had some weird fetish," he laughs. "Who would have known that was it?"
"Why the hell would you think I had a weird fetish?" I ask, digging around in my backpack for my house key.
"Well, you're kind of a loner," he answers.
"So that makes me a likely candidate?" I ask, opening the front door and letting him in. We both kick off our shoes and I pull my jacket off and hang it up on the hook. "And besides, I'm not a loner."
"You kind of are," he disagrees.
I switch on a couple of lights and let Ellie in the back door.
"You like to wander around in the woods by yourself and no matter how many people you surround yourself with, you're still kind of alone," he says.
I realize that Daniel may be a lot more observant of the world around him than he lets on.
The conversation has gotten way more serious than I'd like it to be. I suspect that if I encouraged it, he would say a lot more that he's noticed about me in the short time that we've known each other than I want to hear. I don't want anyone to see through me like that. So of course, I respond sarcastically.
"I'd love to see things from your point of view, but I can't seem to get my head that far up my ass."
He holds his middle finger up and we both laugh.
"So did you do well on your math quiz?" I ask, remembering he told me he had one today.
"Probably not," he shrugs. "I don't understand why it comes so easy to you and I just can't get it."
"It doesn't come easy, I just spent a lot of time figuring it out," I say.
"Would you mind helping me again?" He asks, his cheeks turning a little pink.
"Of course not," I say. "Come on, let's go upstairs."
We both race up the stairs and go in my room. I throw my backpack in my closet.
