Love, Kat

Cock-Blocked Your Opportunities

"Hey! You're actually eating lunch today!" Jenny comes up behind me and squeezes my hips. I wince, the memory of getting hit with three dodge balls fresh in my mind.

"Yeah, I guess I am." Luke trails behind me in lunch stacking up on every fat food available in this hell hole; Jell-o, French bread, pizza, pasta-the boy is a human vacuum but never gains weight.

"That can't be all you're eating!" She points to the lone banana and muffin sitting on my lunch tray. Grabbing a cup of yogurt, I place on the plate next to them to ease her mother-goose mind.

Luke butts in. "I hate to break up this weight watchers meeting, but you're holding up the line. Jen, let he pay."

Luke is always the scale to balance out Jenny and I's bickering, and if he wasn't there I don't think I would be able to handle being Jenny's bitch.

Jen moves out of the way to let me pay for my small lunch and together we wait for Luke to finish his before looking for a place to sit.

Unlike most high school kids, we don't have a place to sit. You see, Luke, Jen, and I never and I mean never eat in the cafeteria, not even on the first day of freshman year. It's always been fast food on the campus lawn since the first day of high school. Even if we get our lunch here-which is really rare since our school gets food from Bom.com-we always end up taking it outside to eat. So because of this, all the groups and cliques in this school practically have owner ship of every table (with the exception of the two seater by the garbage).

"Why are we eating in here again?" I ask as we stand off to the side searching for somewhere to sit.

"Probably because it's raining cats and dogs." On days that rain, we usually sit in the library but the librarians having a sick day.

"Er, we can sit over there?" Luke points to the far table by the entrance that hasn't yet been occupied. Just one step in that direction and a group of freshies slide in with their sacked lunchies. "Damn."

"We could..." Jen nods over to the center table, where-like royalty, my brother and his pack sits as the center of everyone's lunch, everyone's attention.

"No, we cannot." I snap at Jenny. I can only imagine the stares we would get if we even walk within five inches of that table. Unfortunately there are literally, three open chairs calling our asses.

Luke sighs. "Kat, I'm starving and there's only ten minutes left before sixth period. Either we stand and eat, take the garbage table-never mind that was just taken, so either stand or sit by your brother who isn't going to deny the presence of his angle sister."

So Luke's got this twitch in his eye when he's getting a little annoyed, and you don't really want to push him cause when he get's mad you feel like shit. Even the nicest guys get tired of shit. Anyway, right about now, that twitch is starting to form.

"Fine." I give in and make a move over there. Not ten feet away and I can feel the weight of everyone's stares pushing my confidence lower and lower. Farah, who occupies the seat beside Noah, whose back is turned to us, is the first person to look up as we approach. Her eyes have this crazy bitch look when she looks at us like she's optically warning us to back the hell up. I glance at Jenny's who's keeping her calm despite my uneasiness.

By now the cafeteria's hushed down quite a bit, as we stop behind Noah. I swallow and shift my eyes down to my brother sitting with his eyebrows weighed.

"Um, can we take these seats? Are these seats open? If you don't want us-"

"Shut up and sit down sister." Kai gestures to the seat next to Noah and the extra open seats. Noah glances up and slides the chair out for me to awkwardly slide into. Since this morning's ride, I've gained about five percent more comfortable around Noah; five more than I've ever had.

Soon the cafeteria returns to it's normal craziness. My brother has about five other people at the table, three of whom I haven't been introduced to before. An African American boy sits at Kai's side talking about some football play, he's cute, softer and nicer features than I've seen in a long time; not more handsome than Noah, but still, cute. Between him and Jenny, a girl with ligit red hair sits, her eyes strained on the screen of her cell phone. And next to Luke and Kai a small Filipino girl, with neatly done make up, chills, her hand naturally sitting on the crook of Kai's elbow.

"Oh yea Kat this is, Michael," he points to the cute black boy, "Lindsey (red head) and Chloe."

They all turn to me saying their 'nice to meet yous' while I can only sheepishly smile. Everyone returns to eating as I quietly unwrap my muffin, peeling the paper away slowly. I nibble and watch everyone interact.

I watch as Michael talk statics, and Lindsey stare at her phone and Chloe and Kai listen to Michael. I watch Luke tear into his food like a dinosaur and Jenny talking to Farah about something she clearly doesn't care about. Lastly, I feel Noah's leg naturally touch mine and not move; resting there like it's all it knows.

And I decide that this isn't as bad as I expected.

"I like your shirt Kat?" Chloe smiles from beside me, and gestures to my Mortal Instruments v-neck.

I smile back. "Thank you."

I'm not quite sure if I should compliment her back, but I hope she knows her make up looks really good. She goes back to listening to Michael talk.

"Kat is it true you've never had a boyfriend?" From no where, Farah speaks up causing the table to hush down and wait for me to answer. My cheeks redden as I look for a way to answer this without feeling embarrassed. From across the table Luke glares at the side of her face.

"No, I-"

"Why?"

"I'm not sure actua-"

"Sitting in your room every Friday night reading crappy books didn't get anyone's attention? That's shocking!" She laughs like it was supposed to be funny, but inside I feel like a hammer just smashed every feeling I have. Without a way to respond, I just sit there quietly staring at my lunch tray wishing for Kai, Michael, Noah and everyone else to stop staring at me.

I can feel my bottom lip start to shake and my eyes start to burn, but I force back any tear that threatens to fall. In no way, will I cry in front of them. From beside me, Noah stills as I scrape my chair back, grab my tray and stand up.

"I'm going to get ready for P.E., I'll see you whenever." By now everyone keeps their eyes set on their own food, except for Kai who can't help but shoot daggers at Farah.

With my plate still untouched, and my heart on the floor, I walk away hoping no one watches me.

"Farah, get out." I hear my brother say before two chairs scrape back.

And I decide this was exactly how I expected it to be, horrible.

 When the routine of Kai taking me took school be came a permanent job, my parents gave me the spare to his car just incase he lost his. Although, since Kai's hummer was his life, that key always stayed glued to his hand, no matter what.  Fortunately, I always kept the key in the pit of my backpack just for safety, and here I am. Sitting in the front seat of Kai's car crying my eyes out like I've never felt pain before.

I knew it was a mistake going over to that table. I knew it and I still did. And for the exact reason why I didn't want to, I was humiliated.