Replay Today

Chapter Nine - A day to forget

Brent Dike.

Never has it felt so distasteful to mention a name as that one. That dirty guy who appeared in our class one day gave a crooked smile as he stood at the front of the classroom.

"This is the transfer student." our teacher said as she pushed her glasses up against her forehead. I'm sure that's the action she does when she feels nervous. It couldn't be our teacher also thought that bastard looked cool, could it?

"Would you like to say a little bit about yourself?" she asked.

"Sure." he said, smirking, "My parents recently moved to this town, so it looks like I'll be in this class from now on. I don't have a girlfriend yet, so if anyone likes what they see, now's your chance."

"Ewww." the girls in our class unanimously rated his speech.

I was glad I wasn't the only one that found it slimy.

"Gross." Matt murmured next to me.

"Yeah, like anyone's going to get caught by a speech like that." I muttered back.

Instinctively I looked over at Annie and suddenly froze.

I don't know how to describe the expression on her face at that moment, but it looked as if her eyes were glued on that creep. I clenched my fists tightly.

No way. There was no way. Surely not her...?

That lunchtime a group of us got together to study for an upcoming English essay. Matt, Greg and I sat opposite Annie, Stacy and Melinda at a table in the library. Although we were supposed to be studying English the subject of Brent inadvertently came up.

"Did you hear that speech Brent gave?" Stacy asked, starting it off, "How gross was that? Even if he's handsome, who's gonna ask him out after a suggestion like that?"

"Some girls might be into it." Melinda shrugged.

"Pff, he's not even handsome." Greg said, sitting back with his arms folded.

"He's not bad," Stacy said, "He's tidy and tall and his face is alright."

"He's dreamy you mean," Melinda giggled, "I love his hair, it looks so sparkly. And his manly chest.."

"You could see his chest?"

"I can imagine, can't I?"

"But his smirk is just so off putting," Greg countered, "Who could possibly sit next to him and not want to vomit?

Matt and I snickered. Out of us three boys Greg already had a girlfriend, so he probably felt the most relaxed to talk about something like this with other girls. As for Matt and I, we just listened silently.

"I think he looks like the Blue Raider." Annie said absentmindedly.

"Blue Raider? What's that?" Stacy asked.

Annie suddenly blushed as she realised she'd said that out loud.

"He's a computer game character." Melinda explained.

"Do you play computer games, Annie?" Matt asked with surprise, "I didn't know that!"

"I do a little." Annie said quietly, looking away.

Melinda snickered and Annie gave her an evil glare. My interest suddenly spiked. What had that interaction been about?

"So is this Blue Raider character hot?" Stacy asked.

"Mm." Annie nodded and looked off into the distance.

I could feel jealousy building up inside.

I quickly turned on my phone and opened up a search engine. Then I typed in 'blue raider' and waited for the results to display.