another side

chapter four

The next English lesson Carmen and I worked wordlessly on separate parts of the assignment. She outlined a power point on a file page whilst I started to plan the essay. She kept beating her pen off the desk like a drum. That combined with Fry's routine sighing and sniffing near drove me to insanity.

"Do you wanna stop that?" I snapped. Carmen looked up at me, eyes twinkling with malicious innocence.

"Stop what?" she muttered, continuing to tap, tap, tap. I think she was doing it even more frequently just to piss me off.

"Stop tapping your damn pen." I growled. She dropped it on the desk.

"Would you rather I just didn't do the work?" she hissed.

"What part of tapping a pen on the desk is doing the work?" I retorted.

"I was thinking."

I didn't dare say anything else. I could see that she was really pissed. I reminded myself that just because she was sort of nice to me for one day that didn't mean she wouldn't cut me into pieces if she felt like it. After another moment passed, I decided I'd address something that had been consuming my thoughts the last night.

"What's with you anyway?" I questioned. Wow, nice going. That's so specific, Sylvia.

"Huh?" Carmen slammed down her pen again, making a point of turning dramatically to look at me so I would know the extent to which I had inconvenienced her.

"You were being all nice to me in class yesterday..." I muttered. "Then suddenly you're with your friends and you just let them be nasty to me."

"Just because I'm being nice to make sure we get this project done doesn't mean I like you." She huffed. "And it sure as hell doesn't make me your baby sitter." There was silence again. "I don't help people." She added when I didn't reply.

"Yes you do."

"How do I?"

"You helped my sister."

She was completely consumed by frustration. I didn't blame her. I was dragging her through an interrogation session she didn't sign up for. Why should I even have expected an answer?

"Your sister's just a kid." Carmen shrugged. "And Cara's an asshole. There's not much more to it than that."

"Why do you hang out with her if she's an asshole?" I asked.

"You know what?" Carmen snapped, slamming her file block shut and turning fully to face me. "I'm tired of being scrutinised. Why don't I get a turn to ask you a few questions?"

I hesitated for a moment. "Fine." I croaked.

"Why do you suddenly care if I'm nice to you?" came her first inquiry.

"I don't."

"You could have fooled me." She rolled her eyes. "Well, whatever. You're dating Nate Berkley."

"Yes..." I eyed her suspiciously. "And? That's not a question?"

"What's that like?"

A thousand possible answers flowed into my mind. Awkward. Weird. Kind of suffocating. It's kind of like when you think of someone as a brother and then they start hitting on you. It's always wanting to tell him no but feeling too guilty to say it.

My actual answer was much less honest and much less profound.

"Fine."

"Fine?" Carmen scoffed. "You're dating possibly the hottest guy in school and the best you can come up with is 'fine'?"