Plummet

2

I walk into my second period and glance around at the crowd of people. I sigh as no one stands out to me. What exactly is "my type"?

I take a seat towards the back of the room again and look down at my phone. No new texts.

I feel a weird shift in the room and I immediately look up, just as a boy walks in.

My mouth drapes open without warning. A boy with brown, scraggly, yet hot, hair wearing ripped up jeans, a black tank top with a leather jacket strolls into the room, smiling with a boyish grin as he looks around. His eyes immediately fall on me, and we lock gazes for a second. I feel my face heat up and I quickly avert my eyes from him. Well, if I have a type, he's definitely it. Oh gosh, what am I thinking, I'm supposed to be spying for Courtney. Plus, I have a boyfriend already.

The boy comes and sits right next to me. I tense up, not knowing whether to say something or not. I decide to keep my mouth shut. His presence makes me super nervous for some reason, so I start drawing on my paper, not knowing what else to do to occupy myself.

I can suddenly smell cologne and a shadow falls over me. I look up and see the boy smirking and peering over my shoulder.

"Wow, you're really good at drawing," he says almost sarcastically.

I roll my eyes and judge the drawing myself, "Yeah, ok sure."

"I'm Austin. And you are?" He asks as he sits back down and watches me, waiting for my response.

I want to ignore him but I decide it's best that I don't because I need to talk to him for Courtney and I look back up at him, facing him. Right away, I feel my face heat up again. His ocean blue eyes look at me up and down hungrily.

I raise an eyebrow at him, "My eyes are up here."

His eyes dart back up and meet mine as soon as the words leave my mouth. I can tell he wasn't expecting that from me. I chuckle, "And my name is Shaylynn. Nice to meet you."

As soon as I say my name, a flash of curiosity rushes over his face, "Oh, so you're like friends with that one girl named Courtney, right?"

For some reason, I feel sad that he already knows who she is. She's always been the prettier one out of the two of us. We've been best friends since we were 8 and we used to do everything together. We would always go out and do crazy things together like exploring abandoned houses or trespassing just for the thrill of it. She was always the crazy and pretty one and I was always the one who held her down. She called me her rock. But lately, we've become distant. We even got into a huge argument about it. She blames James, because he's so overprotective of me. He never lets me go out with her anymore and I'm often just stuck at home by myself or I'm with him. It's never been the same between me and Courtney since I started dating James.

I force a smile at Austin, "Yeah, she's my best friend. Why, do you like her or something?"

Austin threw his hands up quickly, "Actually no, not at all! She gives me the creeps. She got my schedule from some lady named Ms. Kim or something to see if she had any classes with me."

I laugh, "Yeah, that's Courtney for ya. She's actually pretty awesome, just give her a chance."

I jot down her number on a piece of paper and pass it to Austin, "Here's her number. Give her a call sometime."

I notice his facial expression change and it's unreadable. Just as he looks like he's about to say something, the teacher starts her lesson. He shakes his head and turns away from me, focusing his attention on the teacher.

Hmm, wonder what that was all about.

...

I text Courtney as I walk to my lunch table, "Well I gave Austin your number."

My phone buzzed right away, "Uh..who's Austin again?"

"The new boy silly. I'll meet u at the table." I click my phone off and I look up at my usual lunch table that I've sat at since freshman year.

I frown, noticing a group of boys sitting at it. One of them, however, is Austin.

He looks up at me and smirks, gesturing for me to come sit with them. I reluctantly walk over, prepared to reclaim my familiar table.

"You know it's not nice to steal other people's spots," I say jokingly to him.

He smiles at me and looks at me up and down, "Wow, you look even better standing up than you did sitting down in the classroom."

I roll my eyes, slightly taken aback by his comment. As I'm about to reply, a familiar male voice speaks up behind me, "She's taken."

I jump and spin around to face the source of the voice, knowing exactly who it was. James doesn't even look at me, he just stares at Austin with his jaw locked and his face cold. I feel uneasy as the tension rises and the lunch room grows quiet. I look back at Austin and his whole face is filled with anger, "And who the hell are you?"

James wraps his arm around my waist, "Someone you really don't want to deal with."

I notice a flash of hurt rush over Austin's face, surprised.

"Yeah ok whatever. I'm talking to her friend anyway," he says as he gets up and trudges away.

His last sentence makes my stomach plummet. I shouldn't be upset about it, but for some reason I am. I look up at James and his expression softens as he looks down at me, though I can tell he's angry with me.

"I didn't know you were coming here," I say softly to him.

"Yeah, me either. But I wanted to make sure you're ok," he studies my face, "Are you ok?"

I pause for a second before responding, "Yeah. I'm fine. You should go though, admin won't be very keen on you being here. Thank you for checking in though."

He gives a quick peck on the lips. "See you after school," he replies coldly, and leaves.

I feel a pang of hurt as I watch him walk out of the lunch room. I scan the room for Courtney and I see her right away, watching me like a hawk. She runs up to me as soon as James is out of sight.

"I think Austin might like you, Shay," I can sense the hurt tone in her voice.

I sigh, "I just won't speak to him. At all. Plus, he did say that he was talking to you."

I try to smile at her, but she just shakes her head, "He was just saying that to protect you. I think he, like everyone else, could tell that James was being way too overprotective. As usual."

I raise an eyebrow at her, "Yeah yeah whatever. Look, it was just James being James. Nothing to worry about there. As for Austin, we don't even know him yet. We don't know what any of that could've meant. For all we know, he could just have that sort of personality," I try to reassure her.

She sighs, "Yeah, I guess. I'm gonna go to class, I'll see you later okay? Tell me if anything else happens with Austin. Or James."

"Okay, cya Court."