Wished

Chapter 7 - Detention

"Is eavesdropping a habit of yours or is it something you only do on occasion?" I asked, the words pouring out of my mouth. I can only remember one other time when I lost my filter like this. It was when I had just started high school and I was talking with one of my friends friends and he was making me really uncomfortable so I lost my filter and it stayed like that until he left me alone. Everything that came into my head came out of my mouth. Even if it was hurtful and I'm never hurtful on purpose, only when I'm teasing and you can tell that I am. I was realising what this was now. This was my way of trying to get him to leave me alone.

"We were literally in class together not even an hour ago," Luke said cautiously, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at me. "What happened?" He didn't sound like he cared about my mood or anything, his tone was pure curiosity. In the few conversations I've had with Luke I've found out quite a few things. He likes making me blush and stuck for words and he's a very curious person.  It's like he has this need to know everything.

"Nothing," I told him, shrugging my shoulders quickly and slipping my phone back in my pocket. I made sure to check that it was on silent first. That would be embarrassing. Actually, some of the funniest moment in class are when someone's phone goes off and everyone's face drops because they're all wondering if that was them or not but there's always that one person who goes into panic mode and then it's easy to spot whose phone it was.

"It's obviously not nothing," Luke pressed and nothing could have stopped me rolling my eyes. He really has a problem. I don't even know him, I've only talked to the guy three times already and he's already touched me more than most people I've know for years. It's quite creepy actually. He was persistent I'll give him that much but he really needs to learn to let things go, especially when they don't involve him. I don't involve him.

"Why'd you care?" I asked and inwardly cringed. That came out more rude than it had been in my head. It sounded quite mean actually but maybe it would make him leave me alone. I've never had alcohol or anything of the sort before and I knew for a fact that Luke did things a lot worse that. He had been suspended for it before. I had accidentally overheard the conversation he had with his dad outside the office when I was picking up photocopies for a teacher. It wasn't like I hadn't had the opportunity or anything and I'm not snobby about it. People can do what they want, it's their life, their choices so I can't judge. Smoking and drinking is what killed my grandad. Besides our parents, Adam and I were closest to him so losing him was hard on both of us, especially Adam. He stopped the casual drink that he would sneak with his friends after that.

"I don't Kitten, I'm just bored and I really don't want to go to detention," Luke told me, easily falling into step with me as I started walking towards detention. This was going to be fun. Maybe I could occupy him enough that he wouldn't realise I'm practically walking him to detention. What I would pay to see that face.

"Well then I'm flattered that I'm your source of entertainment. What a privilege." Sarcasm was lacing my words, dripping from my mouth. It's not like I actually minded him talking to me or me being his way of getting over boredom but it's just that he was weird. I don't mind weirdness, it's a side effect of awesomeness and without weirdness, life is boring. It's just that there is a certain level and type of weirdness that I am accustomed to and Luke is not it. He is too touchy-feely and he's too flirty and I can't deal with that.

"You confuse me Kitten. One minute you're shy and embarrassed, the next your sarcastic and sharp and the next you're getting along fine with me," Luke said, his eyes narrowing as if he could figure me out just by looking.

"I confuse me too. I tried to figure out how my brain works once but I ended up even more confused than when I started. So I gave up and have just gone with it ever since," I joked but making sure that I kept a straight face and serious tone. That part was easy, it was keeping a straight face while I watched his face go from amused to confused to constipated and back to confused. "That was a joke."

"You're so weird," Luke commented, shaking his head with a faint smile at the corners of his lips. His eyes smiled before his mouth did, they creased at the side and twinkled just a bit in the light.

"Says you," I muttered, not meaning for him to hear but it escaped my lips before I was able to stop it. I underestimated Luke's hearing.

"And I'm weird too, is that what you're saying?" Luke challenged and help but notice how his head inclined towards me every time he asked a question, like he was unconsciously making sure that he could hear what I was answering.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. You just make me uncomfortable most of the time," I blurted and silently cursed myself for my stupid brain. It was like my common sense withered and died when it came to Luke. It was so embarrassing.

"I'm not making you uncomfortable now," Luke noted, his eyes sweeping down to where our arms were brushing against each other without me even realising that we had walked closer to each other as we had been talking. "Why are we at detention?" Luke asked, his eyebrows furrowing, a small crease forming between the two of them.

"Because I have detention," I stated simply Luke's confused face evened out.

"You got detention?"

"I blame Jordan Taylors. He was the one who had me talking in the first place," I defended myself, raising my hands in surrender. Luke just nodded sharply and walked in ahead of me. His sudden change in attitude was more than confusing but most things about Luke were confusing. Starting with his strange interest in me. It was sudden and unprecedented.

I felt so out of place in detention. You see normally detention was fine, at least that's what  I had heard from Shauna. It was just normal people who hadn't done their homework, just usual things. I was expecting people that were tired out of their minds after a day of school and just wanted to get this over with and go home. However, Shauna was completely mistaken. There were people throwing things across the classroom, paper airplanes flying, people shouting and talking loudly and there was a teacher, asleep, with their head on the desk. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other from the doorway as I tried to find some place to sit and much to my chagrin, the only decent seat available was next to Luke.

Luke. The guy who didn't even acknowledge my presence for the entire hour we were stuck in a room of boisterous teenagers who all looked like they couldn't give a damn about school or the fact they had gotten into trouble. They acted like they got detention every day and now it was just their daily routine.

When it was over, Luke, who still hadn't said anything to me, walked right out of the room without so much as a 'see-ya'. An hour before he had been practically flirting and now he couldn't stand the sight of me?

I was pulled out of my thoughts by a voice shouting my name and I looked up from the ground to see Zach leaning against the hood of his car with his arms crossed across his chest and a grin on his face. He had actually waited for me. I knew that Zach cared, I was like his little sister, much to my twelve-year-old-self's dismay. I just never realised that he would willingly wait an hour for me after school just in case it was raining. That was the most thoughtful thing I could ever remember someone doing for me.

"You actually waited?" I asked him and he pushed himself off the hood of the car, walking towards me. Wrapping an arm around my shoulders, he pulled me to his side to give me a sideways hug that I returned, tightening an arm around his waist.

"Of course I waited  Ellie, I said I would. I wasn't going to leave you just in case it started raining again," Zach explained, looking down at me with a soft smile and a glint in his eyes that I couldn't recognise. Resting my head against his side, I sighed and squeezed my eyes shut. I just needed some sleep. I hadn't been able to get much with all the thoughts bouncing around in my head.

First there was Jordan Taylors talking to me, then there was Luke Masters suddenly taking an interest in me and then there was the random weird behaviour of everyone from Shauna giving me a makeover out of the blue, Adam suddenly going from getting around to being so absorbed with girls that he barely had time for anything else, the new lockers. Everything was just getting weird and my over thinking and I found ourselves absorbed by it.

"Well thank you Zach."

"Anything for you El."