In which a girl plays a dangerous game with the boy who loves her.
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Raelyn Myers needs help. Who none other than her neighbor, Nathan Alvares, is better to come to the rescue?
As Nathan prepares her (and himself) for what's to come in a regular...
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Wed, January 30, 2019
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when your eyes speak by aodhan
Chapter Two: Nathan
Raelyn balanced pencils on her nose when she was bored in class. I hadn't noticed before, but it was a common occurrence in English. When Mr Fernández digressed from the lesson, she would take a pencil and balance it on her nose, failing constantly.Nobody said anything about it, so I guessed it was normal.
As time passed, I began to notice a group of quirks that tagged along with her. When we read aloud in class, Raelyn would be the first to shoot her hand up in place of anyone who didn't want to. I came to learn that she didn't like the thought of her friends getting anxiety over things like that.
She was a real people person while I was the opposite. I didn't smile over group projects, I didn't giggle at Harrison's jokes, I didn't have friends left and right—I wasn't anything like Raelyn. She was the one who befriended every exchange student, who was favored by every teacher, who was known by every student—Raelyn was a social butterfly.
I didn't know how she kept up with it all. How could she get any time to herself? There was this reoccurring thought in my head that Raelyn secretly despised being in the spotlight, but I dismissed it. She jumped head-first into that glorified situation every time. I decided she wasn't allowed to feel that way.
Maybe once or twice, I thought about what it would be like to be in her position, or to be by her side, maybe even to have her laugh at my jokes, and to just be there as a friend. Did she ever get tired of being a good person? I couldn't stand Raelyn, to be honest. I couldn't stand that she was interesting, to me, at least.
I should've called Mara that day. Maybe then I wouldn't have run in to Raelyn and be caught in her trap. She wouldn't have bugged me week after week, she wouldn't abruptly stop because people couldn't mind their own business, she wouldn't feel hopeless over some guy—I wouldn't have noticed her. And I wouldn't have noticed new things about her from that day forward.
The problem was, that wasn't the reality—I didn't want that reality.
• • •
"My house or yours?"
Raelyn and I were paired up for a US Government project. We kept our distance lately, seeing how the past turn of events rolled out, but it seemed as if God wanted anything but.
"I couldn't care less," I answered.
She took the time to rub her chin and think before responding with, "Let's go with yours. Your sister said she wanted to talk the next time I came over."
