The Hot List

Hot Stuff (Ch 3)

The bell blared loudly, startling me out of my stupor. I realized I had been clutching my friend Brian’s arm for quite a while now. I gingerly released his arm, patting it.

“Sorry, Brian,” I winced.

“It’s all good. After all, this is a momentous time in your life,” he said, smiling wryly.

“It’s going to be fine, Kasey. Don’t let stupid guys affect you,” my other friend Chloe chimed in.

“Hey!” Brian protested, faking hurt.

Chloe rolled her eyes at him and turned back to me.

“It’s just a list. You’re the same person you always were, and this isn’t going to change that.” she said confidently.

“Whatever happens, know that you are fabulous!” Paige chimed in, grinning.

Despite her smile and the comforting words coming from her mouth, I was unable to shake the gut feeling that things had definitely changed the moment people saw my name on the top of that list.

I hurried to get to my next class, which was history. I powerwalked walked through the hall, using my long legs to my advantage. I was 5’7; not tall enough to intimidate people, but still tall enough to look down on most of the freshmen. I weaved through the clusters of people, ignoring the whispers that were clearly about me. They’ll forget it in a couple months, I told myself firmly. I wouldn’t let myself believe otherwise. I mean, I was pretty quiet. I’d never been the hottest topic on the rumour mill before. I was friendly with most people (Madison and Brett obviously excluded), but I never did anything scandalous. Getting all these pointed glances was new for me. Speaking of glances, one kid to my right seemed to have forgotten the definition of one. He was just staring straight at me. I think his name was Josh. I stopped dead in the hallway and stared straight back at him, unblinking. He had beautiful hazel eyes, I noted. I raised my eyebrows at him -  the kid still hadn’t dropped his gaze – and tilted my head a bit to the right.

“Lose something in my eyes?” I asked him dryly. I still hadn’t blinked.

“Yeah, my heart. You can keep it if you like, though,” he replied smoothly. He still hadn’t blinked.

Wow, someone’s cocky, I thought to myself. I clapped my hands in front of his face, causing him to blink. I had therefore won our impromptu staring contest.

“You don’t have to clap, I already know I’m good,” he smirked at me.

Ugh. I spun on my heel and walked away, the sound of my blue Keds slapping against the hallway carpet getting lost in the bustle. Josh had never even spoken to me beforeI checked my white leather watch for the time, a gift from my mom for my last birthday; she had complained about me not getting places on time. $hit, I had 45 seconds until class started. I broke into a jog, and managed to get to class in time to take the last seat left. This seat happened to be in the back row, next to Madison f4cking Walker. This was going to be a lovely class.

As soon as our boring teacher, Mr. Smith, began lecturing us, Madison leaned over to me.

“What’s up, hot stuff?” she asked, smirking. Despite the smile on her face, her blue eyes were cold.

Her band of cronies sitting next to her and all around me snickered as if she was the funniest thing since Jerry Seinfeld. Unfortunately, they were all pretty gorgeous for cronies.

“You’re such a cliché, Madison.” I told her offhandedly.

“Oh, and why’s that, hot stuff?” she asked, flipping her hair.

She seemed to be persisting with the stupid nickname, which all her little cheerleader henchmen still seemed to think was the most clever insult ever uttered. Whatever. It’s not like I cared about them.

“First of all, your little friends are pretty much the laughtrack for your attempts to insult me indirectly, which I think were supposed to be clever. Second of all, you just flipped your hair. And third of all, you’re only reinforcing the stereotype of cheerleaders as being bullies, just as they’re portrayed in all the movies.” I informed her, smiling widely.

“Oh, and which movies are those?” she asked me, her smirk still present.

I leaned closer to her, crossing my arms on her desk.

“All of the ones where, in the end, the cheerleader ends up losing.” I replied confidently.

Madison opened her mouth to reply, but she didn’t get a word out before Mr. Smith called our names.

“Kasey Evans, Madison Walker. You both have after school detention today for talking in class.”

Madison shot me a glare with more venom in it than a whole nest of cobras. I shrugged back at her.

My next class was English. None of my friends were in this class, and nobody I really disliked was in it either. However, I loved my teacher, Ms. Tucker. She was fantastic, and she loved her subject, so her class was always a lot of fun.

“Okay everyone, we’ve finished reading Macbeth in the past 3 weeks, and we’re going to write argumentative essays on whether Macbeth’s choices represent human nature. Isn’t that exciting?” she smiled at us, clearly more excited than we were.

“Okay, I’m going to pair you all off, and you guys can start brainstorming. Everyone picks a name out of this hat for their partner!” she said, holding up a baseball cap with scraps of paper in it. She came to me first, and I picked a name out, reading aloud. Sean. I hadn’t spoken to him before. Sean walked over from the other side of the room and took an empty seat next to me. He had a dark shock of hair that fell a bit over his right eye. He had brown eyes, and I noticed that he had really nice cheekbones. He smiled at me in a friendly manner.

“So, what do you think?” he asked.

“Well, I think that there’s the Freudian identities, and I think that Macbeth’s choices represent the id.” I said.

“I agree. I also think that the witches influence his decisions so that they aren’t entirely his own. I don’t think he wouldn’t have killed Duncan if the witches hadn’t told him he would be king after.” Sean replied intelligently.

“Yeah, exactly! And so since his decisions aren’t really his own, and the id is just one part of human nature, his choices don’t truly represent human nature. He does seem like a good guy early in the book. Hold on, I’m going to grab a notebook and write all of this down.” I said happily.

Sean seemed like a really nice, smart guy. And I mean, I wasn’t dating anyone right now. It’s not like I was opposed to the idea of a boyfriend. Secretly, I was hoping Sean would ask me for my number or something. We spent the rest of class having a really good discussion about Macbeth. I loved to read, and had really enjoyed reading Macbeth; I had read it multiple times.

“Okay, class is over in two minutes. I hope you guys were productive, since the essay’s due at the end of the month. Here’s the grading rubric,” Ms. Tucker called as she walked down the rows of desks, passing out sheets of paper.

“Kasey, this might seem a bit upfront of me, but would you maybe like to go out on a date with me this Friday?” he asked.

I blinked at him, shocked. I hadn’t expected him to ask me out! He turned away from my gaze and looked down at his hands.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to, I mean –“

“No! I was just…surprised. I’d really like that,” I said, still slightly unsure of myself.

I wondered for a minute if he’d asked me out just because I was on the list. Could it be that I was seen as some sort of a trophy or something now? No, that was ridiculous. Sean was a nice guy, I told myself, brushing off my doubts.