Reputations

Chapter 6

Niall

I still couldn't fully wrap my head around the fact that I had actually spent my afternoon kissing Sam. It wasn't at all how I expected tutoring to go. It all seemed like it happened so fast and unexpectedly. I wasn't even sure why she wanted to kiss me, but I wasn't going to stop her if she tried it again. It almost didn't feel real. I did think in the back of my mind that maybe she was doing it to tell people how bad I was. I thought that maybe she could have somehow been doing it to use it against me. She told me she wasn't going to do that, and I did believe her. I just easily get a bit skeptical of people's intentions since they haven't been so nice to me in the past...or the present. I also knew she wasn't the type of person to do that to me or anyone else. I held onto the smile all night wondering where things would go from here if anywhere.

As I walked to school, I hoped that she wouldn't tell anyone about yesterday. You would think I would want everyone to know I had been kissing her, but I didn't want Troy to know. That meant no one could know. In first period Troy shoved me out of his way without speaking, that wasn't unusual, so I assumed he didn't know. He would have for sure said or done something more to me than a light shove. I went into our math class feeling butterflies in my stomach. I was excited to see her again, but wasn't exactly sure how to act around her after yesterday. I didn't know how she was going to act around me either. Honestly, I never knew how to navigate whatever our friendship was and sometimes it seemed as if she didn't either. She walked in the classroom from talking to her friends outside of the door. When she walked in, she smiled at me, so I politely returned the smile as she sat down. She seemed fairly calm and normal and like nothing had happened between us. "Hey Niall."

"Hey. Umm..." I looked around to make sure no one could hear us. "You aren't telling people about what we did yesterday are you?" Her lips curved into a small secretive smile as she pulled books out of her bag.

"No. Nothing's very exciting about studying together. I thought we weren't telling people you're my tutor?" Her smile stayed on her face as she pulled out her textbook. My lips started to curve into a smile at her pretending to not know what I was talking about.

"Okay." I tapped my pencil on my notebook a few times before scooting closer to my desk. I was still trying to process every interaction between us.

"Have you told anyone?" I shook my head as the teacher started class. I didn't talk to her during class, and I hadn't planned to talk to her after class. I didn't know what to say. I just felt like I had no direction on where to go with our friendship now, so I started walking away without a bye or anything. She stopped me by grabbing my arm as I stood up from my desk. "Hey, do you want to sit with me at lunch? I'm not sitting with Troy and all those people anymore. Trust me, you have nothing to worry about with the people I'm sitting with today." I thought about it, and wanted to say yes more than anything, but I couldn't.

"No. Not today. I mean thank you, but I think I'll just sit where I normally sit."

"Do you want me to sit with you, so you aren't alone?"

"No, I'm fine. You can sit with your friends. It's not that I don't want to sit with you and your friends. I just don't want to cause anymore issues with Troy right now. Maybe one day, but not today. Thank you though." She looked disappointed, but I knew she understood. We had the same class next, and I tried to walk at a different pace than her, so it wouldn't seem like we were walking together. That was something that happened between us often considering we mostly went to the same classes. She was thankfully stopped by one of her friends, and I kept walking to the classroom. I sat across the room from her, but the way the desks were set up we could still see each other very clearly. She kept looking at me throughout class, but I pretended I didn't notice even though I kept looking at her too. It was clear to us that we both desperately wanted to be near the other.