The Transfer Student

The Transfer Student: Chapter Seven

Song: Jaded-Aerosmith

The next few weeks went by rather smoothly. When Adrian and I were at school he was plagued by girls in too-tight clothes, but he seemed indifferent to the attention, and took up hanging out with some of the emo-kids, musicians, and soccer players.

All through this I felt his eyes on me, and more than once I caught him at it. This made him duck his head and look away, and I would roll my eyes with a dry expression.

My friends seemed to think he had a crush on me, which is total bullshit, but whatever. At least he stopped trying to trip me, but neither did he make an effort to talk to me while at school.

After we would get let out of jail-I mean school-I would make him help me cook and feed the horses, he would moan and groan of course but I knew he was only pretending. He liked Tye and Lily, even when Lily licked his hair or wiped horse-snot on his shirt.

The food fights were kept to a minimum cause it was a pain to clean up afterwards but occasionally my mom would find a noodle or a tomato slice stuck to the ceiling.

The general calm couldn't last forever though. It's a sad thing when you don't understand your own emotions but for some reason it really, really pissed me off to see girls flocking around Adrian, they were like piranhas around a piece of Popeye's chicken.

I shouldn't care, I told myself, and for a while I was able to control my anger.

...For a while. Until Adrian was discovered by Michelle Green.

She bothered me the most probably because she was the prettiest; kind of like an evil, man-eating Liv Tyler. Gorgeous and sweet-looking, but in reality she was a bitch on the inside. Not that she'd ever done anything to me personally, but she was one of those people who if you payed enough attention could see the ugly looks she gave people when their backs were turned, not to mention the rumors she spread about her own friends.

On the third week, as soon as Adrian and I walked in the front doors she appeared next to him, he looked down at her and she smiled sickeningly sweet.

"Hey, aren't you the new transfer student?" she blinked at him like a doe.

I swallowed the overwhelming hate that had built up in my throat and stepped away from Adrian, turning to where my friends stood in our corner, having watched us walk in.

"Whore," muttered Whitney, glaring in Michelle's direction. "She's trying to steal your man, girl, and what are you doing just standing here?!"

I dropped my bookbag at my feet with a sulky clunk, "he's not my boyfriend, Whit, give it up already."

Whitney looked past me with Calli, "We shall see about that."

I turned to see what they were looking at. Adrian was walking away with Michelle hanging on his arm and giggling unnecessarily, but he wasn't looking at her. He was staring back at me with a "help me" expression written all over his face.

Pssh, I wasn't going to help him. 

~~~

The next few days were a strange, living hell for me. 

Michelle continued to flirt with Andrian every chance she got, and gave me nasty looks whenever I was anywhere near him. That in itself was ridiculous because I was hardly a threat to her.

At home I avoided Adrian because just looking at him made me want to shake him silly and scold him for letting that whore hang all over him, but it was none of my business to I stayed away. Every day I would drop my bag just inside the door and head straight back out to the barn to ride, and when I had to come back him I didn't talk to him any more than was necessary, otherwise I would say something I knew I would immediately regret.

He watched me with confusion and, oddly enough, a hurt expression. What was I to him anyway? Why should he care if I avoided him?

Calli and Whitney thought I was crazy, and Alex kept saying that my behavior was proof that I liked Adrian. At that comment I promptly punched Alex in the gut, but he just laughed and pronounced himself correct.

The next day was when the wall that I had built up finally came crashing down around me, and I realized what an idiot I was.