Illusive

Chapter Seven

"Atlas, aren't you so stressed out for exams?" Gigi says while rummaging through papers beside me. The cafeteria rustles busily from across up and kids are in and out by the seconds. 

"Not really," I answer her and from my peripheral she stops and vaguely snaps to face me. 

"What?" She says in a low voice and I turn to face her. 

"Well, maybe you can help me study," She suggests, stammering as she runs over her words, "if you'd like to do that, cause I need to study hardcore," she recovers herself. 

"Yeah that sounds great," I tell her and smile. She breathes a sigh of relief.

"Honestly thank you so much Atlas, I really really need this," She says and wraps her hands around my chest which takes me by sudden surprise. I look up at the passing traffic and plenty of people pass by without a care. 

"It's no biggie," I reassure her as she remains embracing me and my eyes glancing between the passersby and Gigi's blonde hair just below my eyesight. Glares meet the back of Gigi's head and glance to connect with my eyesight from a new walking crowd. 

My eyes meet with dark brown eyes and furrowed bushy eyebrows and I look over the body of the person. A snapback hat folds over the back of his short cut hair and tanned face. A girl hangs off of him and kisses his neck near his sharply cut jawline which clearly is a winner with the ladies. His collarbone intrudes past his baggy white designer t shirt. The blonde girl with straight and dead-looking hair ted up in a ponytail nearly smudges her fake tan on his white designer shirt. My eyes meet back with his eyes as he glares at me while looking between Gigi and I while he walks past. It must be Jake. His cronies beside him turn their attention to me and Gigi after his mouth moves gently below the high-pitched voices of their squealing girls. 

Gigi releases me from her embrace and sits back up, "Gigi, how are you and Jake?"

"We're, uh," Gigi stammers, "interesting right now?" 

"On or off?" I cut to the chase and ask straight out. 

"It's honestly really complicated," Gigi says and sighs. She blows a lock of of her shiny blonde hair away from her face. 

"I don't want to be with him right now or have anything to do with him but he thinks I'm like, his property or something," She trips over her words and inhales dramatically, "Like it's hot in the bedroom but I don't actually mean it!" She chimes.

I contort my face sarcastically, "TMI, Gigi. Way too much."

"Sorry, but it's true! Wait, did you see him?" Her voice turns considerably low. 

"Do you really want to know?" I ask, emphasizing 'really'.

"Um, yeah?" She hesitates and twiddles gently with her thumbs. She glances down at her twiddling thumbs and she appears nervous. It is very rarely I ever see Gigi nervous other than when she is worried about something to do with school work. But I have only see Gigi socially nervous a few times and these were mostly back in middle school. I mean, she's Miss Popularity for sure -- why would she be anxious?

"I just got glares from him and his buddies while they had some orange girls hanging off of them," Gigi lets out a harsh chuckle of disbelief and laughs. I smile at her and hope my joke lightened the mood a little bit. 

"Well, that's not good," Gigi says as her eyes glance towards the ceiling, "Whatever, Jake can stuff it."

She smiles as the loud school bell signals the end of lunch and the warning to start making your way to class. Her animated features all jump at the sound of the bell and she giggles, "That startled me!"