C Y N O S U R E

[ chapter 1 ]

Shameless. That's all that she is. Right?

I'm staring at her writing poems all over her History book as Mr. Herald lectures her about writing poems all over her History book. Her eyes are fixed on him, and she furiously writes even more lines. Mr. Herald points a warning finger at her, and she just raises an eyebrow. She reaches for her bag and pulls out a cigarette. She lights it and takes a puff. Our teacher nods slightly and points his finger to the door.

Still looking at him, she grabs her backpack and stuffs her book, her pens, her papers in. She stands up too fast, and her chair topples over. She doesn't mind it and storms out the door without a word. Mr. Herald sits down at his desk, rubbing his temples.

For fifteen minutes, he just flips through his book, muttering angry words. We drum our pens on our desks, trying not to make a peep. I look at my classmates. They're not even breathing. To get Mr. Herald this mad, you need guts. And that she had.

Once the bell rings, we all shuffle out quietly. I see her by her locker, her legs poking out under the locker door. I walk over to her, and see that she is sneaking vodka into her water bottle. She takes a huge gulp and faces me. Her hands shut the locker door, hiding any evidence of her stash. "Yes?"

I try to get air back in my lungs as I reply, "Uh...what you did there. It was..."

"Stupid. At the very least." She grinds her cigarette on the lid of the trash can before throwing it in. She slings her backpack over her shoulder and places the vodka back in her locker.

"Don't say that," I tell her, my voice coming out in a nervous squeak. My fingers are twisting the extenders of my backpack straps, wrapping them around and around until I know that my fingers are blue.

She laughs. "It's mostly true, anyway." She steps away and walks toward her next class. I awkwardly follow her, dragging my feet on the faded linoleum.

Her face is showing some semblance of confusion when she sees me walking with her to a class that I am not even in, but she just shakes her head and keeps walking. She sips from her bottle, being careful not to take enough to make her drunk.

I casually bump my shoulder with hers every few paces, and she pushes me back, the edges of her mouth turned up a little in a smile. At one point, she tells me to stop it, since her sober state is deteriorating and she can't even walk straight, much less take the force of a shoulder bump. I keep bumping my shoulder into hers. She gets irritated and slams her body sideways into mine, and I topple over and drop my books. She starts laughing, along with about half the people in the corridor. I feel my cheeks flush, so I try to push myself up to run away from the shame. My knees give out, and I fall back onto the hard floor. She offers a hand, and I slap it away.

"Come on," she urges, thrusting her hand closer to my face. I clutch onto it and let her pull me up. She picks up my books before I can even tell her that I could do it myself. She hands them to me, and I feel even more embarrassed.

"Sorry," she offers. I look away and start to briskly march away. I hear her run up to me, then I feel a hand grip my shoulder and twist me around. She immediately places both hands on my shoulders, digging her nails into them. She forces me to look her in the eyes, so I do. Mistake. They're a deep brown, almost as dark as her hair, so powerful and endless. I get sucked into their depths for a long minute before I realize she's talking to me.

"Look, I am apologizing," she practically yells at me. "And when I am doing something like that, you cannot just walk away from me. Nobody walks away from me. Do you understand that?"

I nod numbly. "Okay," I say. I wince at how much her grip is tightening. She doesn't do anything for a moment, just stares at me with an intensity that I'm afraid she'll slap me or punch me or something. She finally lets go, and strolls to her class.

I look down on my shoes as I go to my class. I ignore everything else, all the whispers, all the gazes directed at me. Forcing my legs to walk steadily to the class is all that consumes my mind right now. Walk. Just walk.

Once I get to class, I slam my books down my chair and sit down sullenly. The few who are already here stare at me, but I don't mind them. I flip through my Biology book angrily, until I notice a few words scribbled on a page about photosynthesis.

In hurried, slim handwriting, she wrote I like bumping into you followed by a smiley. I flip through the other pages, a little more carefully this time, trying desperately to find other writings. There are none, so I give up on it and watch the rest of the class file in.

After classes, I go to my locker to leave most of my books behind. The lock is broken, and the door is swinging open. A note is taped to the inside of my locker, saying left a code in more orderly letters followed by that same smiley.

I search my entire locker for where she could have hidden it, and I probably looked like a madman, scanning all my books and all my stuff for the code. When it wasn't there, I threw the object to the ground. Then I found it. It was scrawled out on my Modern Literature book, numbers, letters, characters arranged randomly. Inside the book are the instruction to decipher to code. I hurriedly shove the book into my bag, then start cramming all my other stuff back into the locker. I can't lock it, so I get some duct tape that I used for a project in the Woodworks class and tape it shut.

Right after getting home, I run to my room and start decoding the set of characters written in red sharpie all over the cover of my book. I takes hours to decipher it, and once I do, I realize exactly what it is.

Her phone number, her username on a socialsite, and what time she'll be online and free to call. Eight-thirty, it read. It's well past eight now, and I go online immediately. She's already there, so I chat her up.

Hey, I typed.

She responds instantly. Heyyyy :) good of you to decode that thing.

Well, wouldn't miss a chance to talk to you :) I replied.

She doesn't type anything out for a few minutes, and I nervously drum my fingers on the wood of my desk.

Finally, she replies.

You're really that desperate, aren't you?

And the thing is, I think I am.