\\Connor//

Junior Year

I've worn the same shirt for six days. It's Friday. The last day of the first week back from break. The second semester of my junior year, and all motivation for success has gone flying clear out of my second story window, decorated nicely with the curtains I've had since I was four years old. An old cartoon character, I can't remember their name. With my motivation to pass my classes went my sense of style. The week before the first day of school, I had acquired an entirely new wardrobe, some things that I regret buying because once I got home I realized that I didn't actually like them. When my mom asks why I haven't worn that neon pink shirt with the word "kisses" on it, I lie and tell her I have and she just didn't see me, so that she doesn't think I'm just wasting her money so that I can get new things. Same goes for those God awful blue leopard print leggings. I'm sixteen years old, and at first glance I still thought those were a good idea to bring home.

My jawbone rests in the palm of my hand as Mr. Donnelly drones on about how the square root of x equals his wife cheating on him with his more successful, but less passionate twin brother, Mr. Donnelly of Donnelly Appliances. It's unfair how his brother who is younger than him by fourteen minutes won't share his wealth, but thinks it's okay to share a woman. Without his brother knowing, of course. Why would a husband need to know about his wife cheating on him? Trick question, he doesn't. You know what he does need to know though? When the know-it-all of the class' parents come home from work so that he can tutor her in peace at her house. In my opinion I think Melody Partridge should run while she can. 

I pull my bottom eyelid down with my pinky finger and roll my eyes to the back of my head so that anyone who looked at me would just see a white globe with protruding red streaks, and leave me alone. With one eye I see a blurry classroom ceiling half blocked by my eyelashes that point downwards for easy access into my iris. With the other eye I see my brain. I see a gross, wet, bloody pile of slimy rope coiled in my skull. No, I just see those little squiggly lines that form on top of the juices in your eyeball, unofficially called Drifters.

A kid in the front of the class snickers. Like a loud, very clear "hm." I close my jaw, that I didn't mean to let hang open, and let loose my eyelids. I look for the kid to see if whatever it was he was laughing at would make me split my seams too. That's what it must've done to him to make him laugh so loud, I could hear from way in the back of the class, and there is absolutely need for me to hear anything the front row kids have to say, or in this case laugh at.

I scan the row, annoyed that I'm even remotely interested, and then I lock eyes with a boy. It's Connor. I know Connor. I knew Connor way too well, and have known him for way too long. He is unpleasant to be around, but not to look at. He was gorgeous. So gorgeous, in fact, that it took seven agonizing seconds of eye contact to realize he was laughing at me. I raised an eyebrow at him and lifted my chin. With his hideously beautiful face, he raised his brows for half a second and made a face. The corners of his perfect lips curled up, and formed dimples right in the center of his cheeks. His perfect face. It screamed at me.

"Oops," it said in sarcastic tone, "I totally didn't mean for you to catch me staring at you. That was, like, so awkward."

Shut up, Connor's face. Just shut yourself up. I sighed and, with pink cheeks, looked down at my phone that was hidden conveniently behind my thick text book. Two minutes and then class is out for lunch.