Love Is Timeless

Chapter Two: The Awkward Glance

After a long and tiresome spring break, I was going to see Michael again. I woke up terrified. I rushed out of bed, awake before the alarm. I entered the bathroom, whose door made a screech sound as it opened and a thud as I closed it.  

I sleepily squinted at my face in the bathroom mirror. I always had an angry, exhausted look on my face. My eyes were narrowed because of the light in the bathroom. Under my eyes were dark gray cirlces, and on my forehead and chin were irritated pimples - imperfections that not even the most perfect guy would find beautiful. My hair was a tangled disaster, so I knew I didn't sleep very soundly last night. 

I decided to jump into the shower where I washed all of the oil in my hair and skin away. I felt refreshed, other than that the bathroom got so steamed up that you could probably call it a hot spring. The fan in my bathroom had been broken for as long as I lived, it seemed. I made sure to shave the hair away from my armpits and legs. It was supposed to be hot this week. 

When I finally turned the water off, I looked across to the counter where I would put my towel. It wasn't there. "Really?" I thought to myself, "You forgot again?" I soon tiptoed down the hall without making a sound. It would've been dark if it wasn't for the light shining beneath the bathroom door, which I was thankful for. Water constantaly dripped from my back, but mostly my hair, leaving puddles trailing across the wooden floor. I made it to my room. 

I instantly grabbed my towel and fluffed my hair with it till it stopped dripping. Then, I dried off my shivering body. I searched through my drawers and found a lavender shirt. In the pants drawer I took out a pair of blue skinny jeans. When I put them on, they were still a bit loose around my calves. My purple plain shirt was too big around my waist too. I was always pretty skinny. I guess girls might be jealous, but with a digestive system like mine? No thank you. I had to go through some pretty gross stuff to be able to be this thin. 

In the bathroom I blow dried and brushed out my medium length brown hair that had hints of blonde leftover from when I was young. I put on makeup to cover my blemishes and dark under-eye circles, which took a lot of work. Then, mascara so I looked like I actually had eyelashes compared to the rest of the girls who wore a ton of black around their eyes. 

I quickly left the room and soon the house without saying a word to my family. I got in my car, and started driving to school. For the first time since I woke up, I checked the clock. "Damnit," I thought to myself, "By this time, I'm gonna be at school twenty minutes early."

And I was. I parked in the back parking lot where about only eight cars were parked. I got my backpack from the trunk and slammed the trunk shut. I looked down and noticed how badly I was parked. I was between the outside lines of the parking space. That was fine, right? I decided, just in case someone would tell me to repark, to walk away quickly as if it hadn't happened.

Entering the school, a few students were sitting at the inside lunch tables a ways away. Some others were quietly talking or taking books in and out of their lockers. No one I knew was around. 

I walked unaturally fast to my locker with my head down. I collected the books I needed for the next two classes and exchanged them for the ones already in my bag from homework over the break. When I checked my phone, it was still fifteen minutes before the first class. I decided to arrange the books in my locker for no reason besides trying to look like I was busy. I felt my hands go warm and clammy. I noticed I was breathing unusually. Michael was going to be here soon. What was he going to do when he saw me? I stopped doing what I was doing and began looking straight into my locker, doing nothing. Nothing but thinking and worrying about it endlessly, that is. I spaced out of everything in life and l don't even know what my face looked like at that moment. 

"Are you okay?" A voice broke me out of my panicking thoughts. It was Emily, a friend who was a lot like myself. She looked like me so much that everyone called us twins and even confused us sometimes. She was slightly shorter than me and had her side bangs to the opposite side of mine. Her eyes were hazel and mine were blue-green. Other than that, we were pretty much the same. We both loved to read and write. But somehow, she was much kinder and open to others. She was also very cute, where I usually stayed quiet in the corner until someone spoke to me, in which I usually ended up being unable to say anything that wasn't weird, or anything at all. 

I wasn't sure if she was asking me concerning the facial expression I just had, or because she knew about the breakup. "Yeah I'm fine," I lied. I was going insane. "How are you?" 

"I'm good. I don't really want to be back at school, though," Emily laughed. 

I nodded, but then faded out into thought, only to jump back and say, "Me neither," with an unconvincing smile. 

I think she noticed my blunder, and decided to change the subject, "Did you write anything over break?" 

"No, I couldn't think of anything. Did you?" 

"Oh, you know, little bits and pieces of things. Nothing major." 

"Yeah," I smiled, "I know what you mean." 

The bell rang. Five minutes till first period. 

"Well, see you around," she smiled and waved at me as she walked away. 

"See you," I said, turning the opposite direction toward my first period class. 

At the inside lunch tables, I saw Michael sitting on a table holding his Nintendo 3DS and pointing at it, chatting with his friends. He was smiling and laughing without a care in the world. I felt my heart sink as if it was lead being dropped into the ocean. I filled with anxiety and I began to breathe unevenly. I stared in his direction but neither him nor his friends noticed. Stopped in the middle of the school, I couldn't do anything but watch in horror. His friends parted and headed in two different directions for their classes. He tucked his DS in a side pocket of his backpack and laid on the table, looking up at the ceiling and then closing his eyes. 

Without any direction of my mind, I quickly looked down. My face tensed up out of remorse. I closed my eyes. Tears gathered beneath my eyelids, but I refused to cry. 

Just a few seconds before the bell rang, the always late teacher opened the door, which echoed through the school halls which were completely vacated besides our class. He walked in and all of us began to follow him. 

Then, I realized just as I was walking in to the room, that I was walking beside Michael. I slowed down and he sped up, stepping in front of me in avoidance almost rudely. I took my seat next to him that I chose at the beginning of the school year. What a bad decision! 

The teacher read the school's daily bulliten: when club meetings were for the week or which sports teams got out of school early for their games. 

Just then, as I glanced up at the clock, I saw Michael looking at me. I froze. My eyes slid down and met his deep blue eyes. He had no expression. I wonder what I looked like. He turned away, facing the front of the classroom. I did too. 

For the rest of the class, I couldn't do anything but just think about what just happened and what he could be thinking.