Downfall [h.s]

↞ Chapter 12 ↠

Ever since Mr. S and I had spoken in the stairwell a few days ago, I caught myself looking at him more often. Though he irritated me to no end, there was something about him that was so enticing. I found it increasingly difficult to pay attention when he was around since I was so caught up in watching him. Thankfully he never noticed, and until he did I would probably continue doing so.

It was strange how much you could learn about a person when they thought no one was looking. For instance, when he was solving a problem that was on the board he would twist the rings on his fingers as he concentrated. When he was bored, he would tap his right foot and move his hands like he was playing the drums. It made me wonder if he played or was only pretending to get him by.

The best thing I noticed though was that when he genuinely smiled, he had deep set dimples. At first, I wondered how I had missed them but then I realized that he rarely ever smiled around me. We more often than not were scowling at each other. But just noticing the minute detail made him a little less of a cold hearted robot and more humane.

Even though I tried to not let it consume me, I couldn't bring myself to stop. Between staring at his sharp jawline and green eyes, I was becoming a little bit obsessed. Whenever he was around, I had to drag my eyes away from him. It was harder to concentrate on pretending to listen while trying not to ogle Mr. S than it was to actually pay attention.

Even though the days crawled by slowly, it was finally the day we were all dreading and excited for at the same time: Friday. Not only did I have to pull off Mack's party in fourth period without her finding out about it, but we were also going out tonight for the mystery activity she had planned.

It started off with Tyler and Asher driving Mack to Dunkin Doughnuts before first period. While they kept her happy with powdery, sugary goodness,  in the  I had made the night before into the culinary fridges. Now we were all sitting at the lunch table in the courtyard, talking about mindless things as we tried to waste time. She made no indication that she knew anything was up, so I was feeling pretty confident that we were going to pull it off. We just had to keep it that way. Halfway through lunch, I announced that I needed to go to the "bathroom". In all reality, I was sneaking back to the culinary room to grab the food I had dropped off to take to the math room.

I grabbed the trays of cupcakes (strawberry chocolate), the bag of decorations and utensils, and the bags of drinks and snacks and tried to balance everything in my arms as I walked to math. I was feeling a little unstable but it wasn't that long of a walk to the room so I just prayed that everything was going to end up okay. But as I approached the door, the boxes began to precariously teeter in my arms. I held my breath as I tried to balance them before they fell, but it was no use, the top most box was about to tumble over.

As if by some miracle, a hand shot out at the last second and steadied the box, preventing what would have been a messy disaster all over the floor and my white t-shirt and overall skirt. I sighed in relief and tried to look around the tower to see who had saved me. As I peered around the boxes, I got an eyeful of curly hair and hard, green eyes. With just my luck it was the last person I wanted to see; I did not need to be distracted right now.