Being Neighborly

Chapter 4

I freeze in place, the bustling students in the hallway seem to move in slow motion as I hold my gaze with him. There is no emotion on his face, just a blank stare. I pull my eyes away, looking for the source of the voice who called out my name, returning the rest of the school to its original frenzied state.

"Leila! Over here!" I spot the auburn ponytail before the person. I roll my eyes as Katy, the class president who gave me an unsolicited tour, approaches me.

"Hi, it's Katy, right?" I ask, forcing a smile on my face. "Thanks for the tour earlier, but I can't stay to chat. I have to catch my bus." I start to turn away from her when I feel her small hand grab my wrist. Instinctively, I pull my arm away, causing a shocked look on her face.

"Oh, you take the bus?" she looks at me, quizzically. "I can drive you home if you want!"

Just as I was about to respond with a polite no, Nicole appears next to me, linking her arm through mine.

"That's okay, Katy," Nicole says for me. "I can give her a ride home, her house in on my way anyway." I look at her gratefully as we leave a stunned Katy at my locker.

"Nicole, thank you so much, but I should really take the bus," I say to her, my arm still linked with hers as we walk through the crowd to the back lot. As much as I would avoid a bus ride on my strangely empty bus, I'm not ready for people to know where I live, who I live with actually, and start to ask me about the rest of my family.

"Dude, I don't even have a car. And even if I did, I have no idea if you're even on my way home," she says, pushing open the double doors that lead outside. The shining sun warms my skin, a familiar welcome. What am I going to do when it starts to snow here?

"Well, either way, thanks for getting me out of a forced car ride with Miss Preppy," I say. "My bus is over there, I think." I point to one of many identical yellow school busses. I look for my driver since I doubt any other one has bright blue hair.

"I'm in the other direction, but hey," she stops me in the middle of the lot. "Give me your phone so I can put my number in. I can send you my schedule so you know which classes we have together and we can link up for lunch tomorrow." I hand over my phone, waiting while she texts herself from it. "Done! I'll see you later," she sends me a little wave and makes her way over to the other side of the lot to look for her bus.

The roar of multiple engines causes me to move my feet as I realize the busses are going to leave soon. I spot my blue-haired driver, bound up the steps of her bus, and plop myself down in the same seat I took this morning.

It doesn't go unnoticed that a pair of green eyes was watching me the entire time from the back of the bus. What is this guy's problem, not that I'm complaining much that probably the most gorgeous guy at this school has been watching me.

But what if he's watching me because he knows something. He did come to the bus stop after I did. What if he saw which house I came from? What if he knows who my aunt and uncle are? He could be putting the dots together as we speak, or have already done so throughout the day. One Google search would give him all the details of my gruesome past.

Maybe I shouldn't be so enthralled after all.