Breaking Free from Everyday

Chapter 15: Frustration

Chapter 15: Frustration

Parker

The sky was almost blue, but it was starting to turn that grayish white color that it does when it starts to get really cold outside. Blame the fact that it was the first day of December.

I wasn't used to really cold weather, I mean where I used to live a cold day was when I had to wear a sweatshirt at night time. Now my aunt is buying me a winter jacket, she insisted, though I'll probably stick with what I have.

I like my sweatshirts a little bit too much, or my leather jacket that let me pretend I was a badass.

It was always fun to play pretend.

I knew that I should give up, and stop having this irrational need to make things up to Melanie, I mean, it's not like she really deserved it, though I haven't been the best to her. It was weird though, because whenever I tried to convince myself that I didn't need to do anything more for her, I would always end up not going through with it.

I guess I was just too nice for my own good.

I want to say that it's been a good two weeks since I talked to Mel at the diner, and I haven't seen her since then either. I guess when that girl wanted to hide, she could do it better than anyone else.

School was a drag; it's never been a place of comfort for me, even when I had friends there. Well, I guess I have Ben in this place, he makes it slightly bearable. It's funny, I never thought that I would have liked that prick, but after we had that understanding in the mall we can actually stand being in the presence of one another.

I was going to go to the cafeteria today for lunch, but then I remembered I had to finish an essay and I headed towards the library.

I really should have known this was where Melanie was hiding. I was walking through the lines of tables when her head of red hair stopped covering her eyes and we made quick eye contact before she shifted her head back to the work she was doing.

If I was a smart guy, I could just kept walking to find an empty table in a corner, away from her, the girl that broke my heart once before. But I was not an intelligent guy. In fact, I think I was quite stupid, because my legs seemed to move of their own accord as I sat in the chair across from her.

I have a death wish.

I saw her eyes flicker up to meet mine, but once again, she shifts back to what I see now as her math homework. "Need any help with that?"

She looked up for a third time, but sighed heavily, pushing out her cheeks like a fish. "Does it look like I need your help?" She pursed her lips, trying to look mad, but she couldn't pull it off very well at all.

I smirked. "Kind of."

She rolled her eyes and sighed again, pushing the paper over to face me. "Number Seven," was all she said to me. I read the question and knew how to do instantly. Fractional trigonometric functions. I went on a rant as I explained the problem, taking the liberty of grabbing her pencil out of her hand. I wrote out the appropriate work and twisted the paper back to her.

I looked up to see her staring at me, and slid back into my chair, shifting my eyes, desperately trying to not get trapped in her gaze. God knows that's happened too many times already.

She eyed me, finally asking, "Since when were you good at math?"

"Since when did you know my life story?"

She looked taken aback at my sarcasm. Yeah, I fight back. Mel looked back down at her math paper and I realized I still had an essay to write. I took out a pen and started scribbling everything I could remember about the Cold War, I heard a cough, but I ignored it, figuring it was nothing big.