Of Literature & Kisses (Forbidden Romance)

Chapter 7 - First Time

They kept looking at me. Even as the day reached the middle, I couldn't walk along the hallway from class to class without being stared at, and it was making me edgy. I kept bumping into objects and people without meaning to, losing myself in self-conscious thought whenever Phoenix or Riley tried talking to me about anything at all. Even now I was walking like a zombie, trying to look ahead when I could feel the stares and the whispers on my back.

I never noticed how much I loved invisibility until I had actually lost it.

"Cece," Phoenix started. She was putting a book into her locker. "Did you notice?"

"Everyone looking at me and talking about me? Yes."

She rolled her eyes and shut the locker, but she still hadn't started walking toward the classrooms.

"No, not that. The cameras. They must have installed them overnight."

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Cameras?" Sure enough I looked up and at the corner of the wall to find a small white camera overlooking us. "Do you think it's because of me?"

"Not you alone. I don't think so. They just finally admitted that we need cameras, and yesterday must have opened the administration's eyes."

"But the school barely has any funds. The paint job hasn't been retouched our whole time here and the textbooks are like editions from the nineties. There's no way."

Phoenix gave a careless shrug. "Hey, I'm not complaining. High school is full of creeps, jerks, and plain trouble. I think it's a good thing."

"Well, yes," I said, losing myself in thought once again as we walked.

***

Lunch time came, only to find that I wasn't the least bit hungry. I was too stretched out on anxiety and dread, ever since yesterday's incident. I had only seen Dean once today, and once had been enough. His defiant smirk stung me from the other end of the hallway, and I had looked away as casually as I possibly could before going into the bathroom to calm myself.

I didn't want to go to that loud, crowded cafeteria to be stared at some more, talked about carelessly, and to have to pretend like I was paying attention to more than two seconds of conversation with anyone. And more than anything I didn't want to see that smug face for the remainder of the day.

I needed a break from it all, and I knew where I would find it.

The library was empty save for the librarian that stood behind her desk, writing. I wrote my time of entry into the log and went for the computers, resolved to finally put some action to the idea that had been stemming in my brain for all of junior year. It was hardly an original idea, but it was a good one nonetheless that I knew some students would benefit from.

A book club, which we still didn't have. One that I had already spoken to the office about and received a simple, convenient answer. I could set up the club as long as I had seven signatures and an acting sponsor.

I drafted a flyer as best as I could with what I was given and printed twenty-five copies, which I would hopefully be given permission to distribute in the last period of the day. Mr. Gallagher's.

It didn't take long before I was walking to his classroom by myself, before the end-of-lunch bell had rung so that I could walk alone. The classroom was either empty, or inhabited by just one man.

Slowly I started to walk back and forth, rehearsing in my mind how I would ask him if I could pass out the flyers, something which was probably much simpler than I was making it out to be. The door flung open, making me jump in my track.