「 it's you // lrh 」(complete)

02 \\ ᴛʜᴇɴ

♡ ・・・・・・ ♡

High school is hard for everyone, for teenagers who successfully climbed the social ladder find it appealing to mock those who were left behind. I accepted it, kind of, because I had always believed that that was how things worked—high school was just some sort of twisted-up environment where two types of people coexisted: the ones that mattered and the ones that didn't.

I belonged to the second group, no doubt.

I had never been Regina George material—too many posters in my bedroom's wall and a ton of fanfictions read for that. Plus, I basically killed every chance I could have gotten of being popular when I showed up wearing a backpack with Justin Bieber's face on it during my first year. My classmates never let me live that down: they tagged me as the 'nerd that liked Justin Beiber' and made me their number one target of the pranks they liked to pull.

However, when it comes to the first group ('The Ones That Mattered'), there are people that naturally belong there. They do not need to push it because there is something magnetic-like about them that makes everyone to want to know them, to talk to them—to be like them. You can't quite pinpoint what that is but it certainly feels as if they were a hypnotizing bright light that you just can't help but stare at.

Not quite surprisingly, Luke naturally belonged there. I swear that it was not his Australian accent or the fact that he moved from the country of the kangaroos to our hellhole of a town in the middle of nowhere. It was just him.

As far as I was concerned, I wanted to have nothing to do with him (I actually wanted to have nothing to do with anyone, for that matter, but that's another story). It was going spectacularly, me being a pro at avoiding people: I never cast a glance in his direction. I never daydreamt about the softness of his blonde hair or the deepness of his blue eyes. I never stopped to listen to his husky voice for more than two seconds. Because I was aware of the fact that if I was to do so, there was no going back—and it was something I couldn't afford.

Still and all, fate works in a mysterious way: when two people are predestined to collide, they collide; and there's nothing in this world you can do to avoid that.

I can clearly remember that dreadful yet magical day. It still gives me goosebumps.

Three months and two days into our third year, I (me, my heart, my brain, my hormones, or whichever did that) decided it was the greatest of the ideas to develop a massive crush on Conrad Láska —one of the most known guys at school— after he uttered two words ("excuse me") in my direction.

In my defence —or in defence of my pathetic attempt of a crush—, I have to admit that those were the politest words that someone at my school had ever told me, which was kind of sad.

At any rate, there was something romantic about having a crush on him, like taken straight off a fairytale. Conrad was everything my favourite books and I aimed for: he had top-class grades, top-class vocabulary and top-class behaviour... Well, alright, he also had top-class looks. It was a win-win situation—if only he dared look my way.

On the other hand, my case was slightly different because I couldn't stop staring at him. It was unintentional, of course: No matter where I placed my eyes, he seemed to be there. These situations led me to start to believe that I was hallucinating, so much so that when I saw him approaching me when I was about to head to my Math class, I thought I had finally lost my mind.

"You are Allison, am I correct?" His toothed smile and modulated voice reminded me of a politician. Unfortunately, every politician has something to hide behind their confident and trustworthy façade.