Stars Collide

Chapter Four: Nade

I finished locking the padlock on my bike and pulled the hairtie out of my hair. I shook my hair back into place.
A group of girls were huddled by the side door I usually entered through, totally in my way, and probably the type to snitch on me. I pulled my headphones off, prepared to say something to hurt their feelings and make them run crying. Instead, I picked up on their conversation:
"God, you're so fat!"
"Were you born that ugly, or did your mom drop you a few times?"
"Your pores are so huge, it's absolutely disgusting."
It wasn't really any of my business, and it wasn't very characteristic of me to care about any human besides myself, but they were definitely in my way.
Trying to think of a plan, I planted my hands on my hips and scanned the environment. I saw a pair of geckos basking on a rock, and was quick to seize each of them. I strolled up to the crowd of girls and waved the geckos in their faces.
They screamed and I threw the geckos at them. Each one of them scurried away like the rats they were, including the victims.
I sighed and let myself into the side door, using the key card I had stolen two years ago. I rubbed my ears, trying to get the sound of their shrieks out of my head.
"WAH!!"
I jumped at the sound, prepared to run right back out the door.
Neith was standing right in front of the door, and he hadn't expected anyone to come through it. As a result, he screamed and snorted his grape soda out of his nose and all over his track jersey. When he realised the situation he started laughing, and he laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach.
I just gave him the usual disgusted scowl and moved right along.
"Hey, aren't you gonna say sorry??" Neith galloped to catch up with me.
I groaned. Now he was going to follow me all day. "Why would I apologize? You're the one that made a fool of yourself."
"Ouch! So cold!" He conjured a pout, probably expecting me to react.
"Yep." I quickened my pace, but he easily caught up.
"Why so cold all of a sudden?" He cut in front of me and walked backwards so that we were both moving forward while he was facing me.
"News flash, I'm always this cold," I scoffed, and turned up the volume on my ipod.
Being the determined annoyance that he was, he flapped his jaws at me all the way to my locker, not picking up on the fact that I literally wasn't even listening at all.
He pulled on my headphones.
"Helloooooo!" He leaned on the locker next to mine.
I jumped back. "Hands to yourself!"
"Oof, is that any way to treat a friend?" He shook his finger at me teasingly.
I pulled my headphones down and paused to glare straight into his eyes. "Can you like...not talk to me outside of study sessions? We aren't friends."
"Sure we are," He smirked.
"Thanks for letting me hang out at your place yesterday, but I don't plan on doing it again."
This was supposed to be the part where he was hurt and sulked away. Instead, he shrugged. "Well, you're always welcome. Just let me know."
I scoffed and spun my locker combination. "Are you deaf?"
"Nope, just stubborn." He reached for me, which made me flinch, but he just ruffled my hair on his way past me.
"See you next period!" He flashed a genuine smile and a farewell salute before he turned his back to me.
That guy was definitely annoying. I hated that I didn't mind too much.
Also, he looked totally ridiculous with a purple stain on his white jersey. Was he just going to walk around like that today? I covered my mouth to hide the smile that threatened to come.
Thankfully, he left me alone for the next few periods. He was preoccupied with his big slew of friends, and they were doing their usual joking and pestering each other. That was a huge relief to me. I preferred the invisible life.
I was prepared to zone out with my latest equation, until someone's face entered my line of vision. It was two of the three girls that had been bullying the other girl this morning. I chomped my lower lip, anger rising. It hadn't bothered me in the slightest this morning, but now that they were in front of me, whispering about a guy they liked, I was pissed. I fucking hated people.
One of them raised her hand and asked to use the restroom. Naturally, three minutes later the other girl did the same thing. That was a perfect opportunity for me. I grabbed the brown and red paint and rapidly mixed them. Since it was work time, everyone was either talking, or hyper focused on their paintings—and that worked to my advantage, in addition to my established status of invisibility.
I snuck over and scraped an equal amount of brownish-red paint onto the girls' chairs. The chairs were dirty enough that they wouldn't notice before they sat down.
Satisfied with my deed, I went back to my seat. I continued working on my shitty black and white landscape painting, running numbers through my mind.
"Hellooo..." Neith waved a hand in front of my painting and I jolted.
"Earth to Nade? Are you there?"
I shook my head, feeling like I was waking from a dream.
"What do you want?" I snapped. I threw a paintbrush at him.
He collapsed on the floor as a reaction.
"I HAVE BEEN SLAIN!" He cried in fake despair. He writhed on the floor.
I rolled my eyes and continued my painting, ignoring him. Life was a lot better when people acted like I didn't exist.
After a while of annoying antics, he got up a onto his knees and folded his arms over the table, staring up at my painting.
"Where's all the color?"
I smirked. "It's quite colorful, actually."
"Right. Black is mixed from red, blue and yellow. I get it."
I paused a moment to stare at him. I was so ready to hit him with that know-it-all fact and make him feel like an idiot. He beat me to it. That was...new.
I sighed and continued painting my diseased-looking pine trees.
"Is black your favorite color?" He said after a moment or two.
"No." I squinted at my painting. I really needed a thinner brush, but I was making do with what I had.
"What is it?"
"Guess," I smugly stated, refusing to look at him.
"Blue?"
That was enough to peel my eyes off my painting.
"I'm right, aren't I?" He grinned, revealing his perfect, white teeth.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to my painting. I actually hated painting, and I wasn't enjoying myself in the slightest, but I was sure appreciative of the fact that I could use it as an excuse to ignore him.
"You're not gonna ask how I figured it out?"
"Leave me alone. You could literally be talking to anyone else right now, and you choose to talk to me, the one person on this planet that doesn't want to talk to you."
"Exactly, that's why I want to talk to you," He laughed. He picked up a tube of blue paint sitting next to my table-top easel. "For your info, I figured it out because you have three shades of blue ready but you haven't used them. Your bike is blue, your shoes are blue, and your headphones are blue. You picked the blue character yesterday..."
"I didn't ask," I groaned.
"You know you were curious, though."
I hesitated. "No I wasn't."
"You hesitated..."
"Leave me alone before I complain," I growled.
"Alright, guys, you can put your canvases on the rack over there," The teacher spoke up. I looked up at the clock, and realized it was 5 minutes til the bell. "I want everything picked up before you leave. Wash the brushes out in the sink...." and blah, blah, blah.
I really wanted to toss my painting in the garbage, but I needed it for the grade. It wasn't impressive, but I had properly implemented the concepts so far.
"Aw, don't make a face like that at it."
"Don't you have something to pick up?" I sighed.
"I did that already. Mine is doooone." He clicked his tongue and pointed to his, which was already lying on the rack. His painting was bright and warm-toned. It looked like a professional's.
"Good for you."  I heard some giggles coming from the other side of the room. Some girls were pointing to my victims, who were currently unaware of their situation.
"Huh? What are you looking at?" Neith curiously tilted his head in that direction.
"Can't you mind your own damn business?" I snapped, neatly arranging the paint brushes into the sink.
Neith saw the blood-like stains on the back of one of the girls' pants. His first reaction was horror, but then he snickered and had to cover his mouth.
"Did you do that?" He whispered.
I stacked the paints in their respectable bins.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing myself, and knitted my brow as tightly as I could, so as to not give myself away.
"You did!" He gasped.
"Did what?" I neatly aligned my painting on the drying rack.
"Oh, they sure fucking deserve it though," he snickered. "That's paint, isn't it?"
"What is?" I did my best to act completely oblivious as I packed my folders into my bag.
The bell sounded, making me flinch.
"Oh, just give up the act, you're really bad at this."
I zipped my bag in one frustrating yank. "I'm not a bad liar. You're just highly observant and intuitive. It's pissing me the fuck off."
"I don't know If i should apologize, or take that as a compliment and thank you," Neith chuckled.
"Um, take is as a 'stay the fuck away from me.' How about that?"
"Oof. Feisty today."
I put the strap of my bag over my head and sighed sharply in exasperation. "What's it gonna take for me to get you to leave me alone?"
He followed me into the hallway. Surprisingly, he was actually quiet for a few delightful seconds. Unfortunately, that was short lived.
"You can listen to my music."
I scoffed.  "What??"
"Do you have a CD player?"
"...I can play CD's in my laptop...why??"
He reached into his blue backpack, which was littered with snarky pins, and pulled out a CD case with an intense-looking cover. I reluctantly took it from him. It was an AC/DC album.
"Just listen to this, and tell me your favorite song on here."
I pointed to a random track on the back. "That one." I shoved it back at him. "Leave me alone now?"
He laughed, "Noooo, you're not getting off that easy, buster."
"...buster?" I snorted. How old was he?
He handed the CD back to me. "You gotta tell me tomorrow at this time what your favorite song is and why it's your favorite."
"I thought I was the tutor," I scoffed, reluctantly taking it and shoving it in my bag. "So you'll leave me alone now?"
"For now," He winked and raced ahead of me to the classroom, leaving me in the dust.
"Weird," I scoffed. Hopefully, he would hold to his word. I hated games.