Relying On Ben and Jerry (Waltham #1)

Chapter Nineteen: Rules of Attraction

Have you ever had that feeling where the moment you see someone, you want to burst into full-on, sucking-air tears?

Yeah, that’s me right now.

“Lena, you have to open your eyes,” Kline told me impatiently, starting to sound annoyed. “You can’t walk around with your eyes closed forever.”

“I can try,” I replied, my hands partially muffling my words from where they were firmly clamped over my face. “People can live blind. I’ll get a dog and I’ll learn to read Braille and I’ll be set for life.”

“Why are you so pathetic?” she demanded, and although I couldn’t see her I was pretty sure that she had thrown her hands up dramatically. “Lena, seriously, I can’t take this anymore. You have to face him like a man.”

“Tomatoes ain’t a guy,” a familiar voice protested. “And not to be changin’ the subject, by why’s she hidin’ her face in shame?”

“You get three guesses,” she told him.

He laughed, but it kind of sounded like he didn’t think it was funny at all. “Oh, right, this all ’cause she was kissin’ Lancaster.”

I moaned in horror. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Have you gone and looked at yourself in the mirror at all this mornin’?” Colonel demanded. “’Cause I ain’t a fashion wiz, but I’m thinkin’ that shirt is on backwards.”

I looked down and squinted. He was right.

“You shouldn’t be ashamed,” Norma assured me, and I jumped, not even having realized that she was there. I shook my head at her general direction.

“I’m going to pretend like nothing happened,” I explained. “It’s for the best.”

“It’s lookin’ like somethin’ happened,” Colonel argued. “Somethin’ like you gettin’ your face pecked off by a whole bunch of birds.”

“Oh, don’t exaggerate,” I mumbled through me hand-wall of shame and despair.

“So you’re not just going to go over and talk to him like a normal person?” Kline demanded, her eyebrows probably going up to touch her hairline. I nodded dutifully, waiting patiently for her to finish her rant.

Instead of speaking, she just pushed me down the stairs.

Okay, fine, so we had been standing in front of the school, and the stairs were somewhere between a flight and a stoop, but I still think that it was fully understandable that I screamed like pure ax murder all the same.

The worse was that I bowled someone down with me.

We sprawled onto the concrete and I winced as my skin scraped painfully on my arms and legs, my whole body feeling numb after colliding with the part-ice, part-concrete landing pad. I jumped up off of the warm body like I was being electrocuted as my face flamed oh-so attractively, my expression probably just as horrified as I felt with the twisting of my stomach.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” I gasped, reaching up and covering my mouth in a very le gasp way.

“It’s alright,” they assured me, sounding like they were hiding their pain, but my adrenaline-fueled brain figured that one out almost immediately. My eyes widened and I wished I could have told myself that I was dreaming and that I hadn’t just fallen down the stairs and taken Quinton Lancaster with me.

“Quinton, I am so sorry!” I exclaimed, still sitting on the ground helplessly staring at him as he tried to get to his feet, wincing. “Kline just pushed me and I guess I lost my balance and I didn’t even notice you were there and I am so, so, so sorry; are you sure that you are alright?”