He Was A Ten

Important Information: He's Not Happy

Even though he had been pretty nice, I had gone back to avoiding Marcus. He seemed nice enough, and for the first day or so, he tried to talk to me, but every time I saw the 10 hanging above his head, I freaked out and ended up running off. So, he started avoiding me too. By now, we had come to a mutual understanding; he didn't bother me, I didn't bother him. Whenever we did run into each other though, he always had smart remark to make. I usually just glared at him and walked away. I wasn't going to be any closer to him than I had too.

Alice, however, remained blissfully oblivious to how dangerous her crush was. It made me anxious and a little sick every time I heard her talking about how much she loved Marcus and how cute she thought he was. But, he ignored her just like he ignored me, so I figured it was fine.

I was walking over to my locker a little later than usual because our bus was a bit late. I quickly opened my locker and pretended not to notice that Marcus was standing at his locker, right next to mine, glaring at me. I shoved my backpack in my locker and was about to close it when Marcus grabbed the door and slammed it shut for me. 

His hand briefly brushed mine and I jumped back. He smirked as I yelped, "Keep your hands to yourself!"

"Sure thing Precious," he retorted. "As long as you stay away from me, I'll leave you alone. Deal?"

I just rolled my eyes and raced off to science, trying to pretend that I wasn't stuck sitting next to him for a whole period. Why did the universe hate me? 

I flopped into my seat with a sigh. Hattie rolled her eyes at my drama. "Jeez, someone's having the time of their lives right now."

"I can't believe you don't want to sit next to Marcus," Alice sighed dreamily. "He's so perfect. His dark brown, almost black, hair, his emerald eyes, his-"

"Annoying smirk, his irritating insults, his sickening presence?" I finished sarcastically. "Yeah, he's a real charmer."

"Aw, how sweet," a voice teased. I turned around to glare at Marcus. "I didn't know you felt that way about me Precious."

"Yeah well," I shot back, before glancing up at his number, my insult slowly dying in my throat. "Shut up."

"As you wish, Precious," Marcus mocked, giving me a mock bow just to add to my annoyance. I really hated that guy.

"Since when did he call you Precious?" Alice whispered yelled at me. I ignored the smirk that was spreading across Marcus' face. "Are you sure this whole 'We hate each other's guts out', isn't just a trick to disguise your love for each other?"

I face palmed, while Marcus burst out laughing behind me.

"What do you say Precious?" Marcus choked out between laughs. "Shall we tell them of our hidden love for one another?"

I scoffed and glared at him. "You wish."

The teacher came in at that point and I stopped talking to Marcus after that. Not like I needed an excuse to stop talking to him anyway. I hid my left hand under my desk the whole lesson to make sure Marcus didn't see it shaking. How that boy managed to piss me off and scare the shit out of me at the same time is beyond me.

The rest of the morning, I continued to ignore Marcus as usual. I mean, sure, we had the same morning schedule, which made it hard to ignore him at times, but he never made any attempt to go anywhere closer to me than necessary, which definitely helped.

So by the time I got to lunch, I was really sick of Marcus.

Naturally, the universe decided now would be a good time for Alice to start blathering on and on about how amazing Marcus was and how obsessed she was with him.

"I mean, ugh, he is just so hot and I wish he would actually notice me for once, so he could ask me to the dance-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's a dance?" I asked. "What dance? Since when?"

Alice gave me a look. "Um, only the back to school dance I've been talking about for the last, oh I don't know, week! Seriously, do you even pay attention to me?"

"To be honest, I stop listening when you start talking about Marcus," I admitted.

Alice laughed. "Well at least I know you're not into him. Otherwise, I wouldn't stand a chance."

"Oh really," I asked. "And why is that?"

"Well, duh," Alice laughed. "He's totally into you."

"WHAT?!?"

"Well, yeah," Alice went on. "That's probably why he calls you his Precious and follows you around all the time."

"H-he doesn't follow me around all the time," my anxiety quickly resurfacing. "Does he?"

"How have you not noticed that he follows you to every class in the morning?" Alice asked.

I relaxed. "Alice, he has the same morning schedule as me. He's not 'following me', he's just trying to get to class."

"Huh," Alice mummured. "Well then, I guess he isn't that into you."

I rolled my eyes. "Please, I doubt he's into me at all. Unless of course, by into, you mean into plotting my death."

"Paige!" Alice scolded playfully. "My Marcus isn't like that."

"And here we go again," I sighed, tuning Alice out as she droned on about Marcus and talked to Hattie instead.

At one point, when Hattie went to throw away her tray, I felt a pair of eyes watching me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Marcus glaring in my direction.

A flood of relief rushed through me until I realized what he was glaring at.

He was watching Chase Tucker, the school bully, and his goons pushing a girl out of the cafeteria door, unnoticed by any of the teachers who were supposed to be watching us.

And that girl, was Hattie.