For Your Eyes Only

14

I slump at my desk as I wait for the first bell to ring. I really want to go to the nurse and claim sick but I have a calculus test and I can't afford to miss it. My stomach is hurting at the thought of seeing Nate again. That is if he even shows up to class. But with what knowledge I have of him, I know he would never skip a class.

After last night--and now this morning--what I really want to do is talk Mr. Faunt into giving me a new lab partner. We haven't even started on our project so I didn't see the big deal in doing so.

But a little piece of my mind knew that if I did that, then I wouldn't see the caramel eyed boy and I don't think I can stand that. Sure, he's in a few more classes of mine but we don't get to talk like we do in this one. It's strange how you can become obsessed with someone even after such a short amount of time.

Because that's what I am: obsessed.

But I am also stubborn. Which means that I'm not going to aid to Nate's ego. He didn't like me the way I liked him back, that's fine. He didn't want my help, that's okay. But that meant that he gets none of me. Not my attention, not my help, nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

I sat in the back of the room once I walked into Faunt's class even though I know that we are going to be called to sit with our partners anyway. Mr. Faunt had emailed us that today was going to be the only day we get to work on our group project in class. Of course. I guess I just wanted to show that I still had some freewill left in me.

It feels strange sitting back here after a month of sitting up front with Nate.

"Where's that partner of yours?" Ryan asks beside me once he walked into the room. He smiles at me as he sits down. Clearly he didn't see the show in the hallway minutes ago.

"Does it look like a know?" I snap. "It's not like I keep tabs on him."

"Yikes. Who pissed in your cereal this morning, Kelly?" Ryan laughs but I can see him regarding me strangely out of the corning of my eye. I also see Mariah take a seat next to him. She was there to see me break up with Danny, clearly, by the hesitant look on her face. I'm sure she will fill him in.

I push my long hair out of my eyes with a sigh. My hands hook around my neck and I gently massage the tense muscle there until Mr. Faunt calls for us to pair up with our partners and start researching.

I drag my eyes to the front of the classroom and see that Nate had managed to sneak in without me noticing him doing so. From the back, his hair seems to be tousled, little spikes of hair shifted out of place, and I long to walk up to him and smooth it down. But I don't because my equilibrium is back on track after this obnoxious morning.

Instead, I stand and toss myself into the desk next to him. He jumps and for a second I feel guilty. Even though my crappy mood is mostly because of him, I know I shouldn't be acting this way. But I keep chanting in my head that I should act this way so he understands that I'm leaving him alone from here on out. I am removing myself out of his life once this stupid project is in the books.

We were only minutes into silently flipping through pages of our one hundred pound textbooks, our classmates' voices filling the mindless void, their eyes curiously shifting to Nate and me up in the front of the classroom, when Nate clears his throat.

I close my eyes as if to block out the stares and wishing to block out his words. I've about had it and it wasn't even nine o'clock yet.

"Thanks for what you did in the hallway." His voice comes out shaky and unstable as if he really wished he didn't have to be so polite. But this is Nate we're talking about. Polite is his middle name. "I'm sure your friends will be mad about it but... Thanks."