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10: Coldness

10: Coldness

Connor Rogers

I actually tried to avoid her.

Whenever I see Eleanor at one end of the corridor, I would immediately slip into a classroom or into another hallway. It seemed like my inner ninja had finally awaken; I had never managed to conceal my gigantic body anywhere before.

But Eleanor seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with me. Whenever I tried to escape her, she would appear, approaching me as though she wanted to start a conversation. Once, she even managed to sneak up to me while I was at my locker; I wasted no time to escape by lying about having a lecture next.

I thought she would've listened to Erik and actually avoided me, but that actually wasn't the case. If anything, she seemed to be looking for me more than ever. I couldn't decipher if this was to express her hatred by rebelling against her boyfriend, or she actually wanted to talk to me. I decided to think about the latter.

One day, she finally managed to catch me waiting in the lunch queue.

She came up to me when I was scrolling through my phone and caught me sharply by my forearm.

"We need to talk," she whispered, green eyes zeroing in on mine. I looked up sharply, checking the amount of attention we were getting; not much, but gaining by the second.

But just when I was about to answer, she dragged me out of the cafeteria and into hallway. I frowned at her determination, Aaron's voice resonating in my head.

I have to do my job.

With a single wrench, my arm was out of her hand, and she rounded on me sharply, surprised that I was actually relenting. I didn't want to, actually, but I didn't have a choice; my job was more important right now.

"We have nothing to talk about, Kings," I used her surname purposely, indicating I wanted nothing to do with her, "that time was a flirt, nothing more. I was just messing around."

I didn't wait for her answer. I left her standing there, and made to return to the queue, but since it was a mile long now, I settled on getting a drink and a snack from the vending machine instead. I could tell Eleanor was refusing to back down, so I hurried to my lunch table, where the rest of the team were sitting. Eleanor stopped approaching the second I sat down, and after a few moment, she returned to her table.

The others watched her retreating back, but Leila was the first to ask, "What was that about?"

"She wanted to talk about that dance," I mumbled, sipping my drink and sliding sluggishly down my seat.

Conceal, don't feel, don't let it show. Just like Frozen said.

"See Connor? You were leading her on,” Jason shot, “if you haven’t done that–”

“–It would’ve made the job that much easier,” the entire table finished for him, followed by a collective sigh. Leila was the one who said the next line though, “Will you give it a rest, Jason? Connor just made one tiny mistake, which in case you haven’t noticed, is patched up already.”

“Thanks to me,” he muttered.

“Still, it’s job done,” she returned, “so there’s nothing to worry about. Stop complaining so much. You’re more annoying than a girl on her T.O.M.” I could see that she was holding back from snapping at him.

“See who’s talking,” Jason mumbled under his breath.

There was a slam on the table, and Leila was up on her feet. She was straight out fuming now, and even Jason shrunk a little at her seething look. Her eyes narrowed on the Asian sitting opposite her, before grabbing her stuff and stomping out of the cafeteria.