A World Of Treason and Tides

Chapter 4: No chocolate for you

"Have you read today's paper?"

"No, why?" I asked my best friend who was clearly excited by something that was published on the paper.

"See for yourself."

I wished to drown. It was a picture of me with Ryan. An intimate one, I must say. I could not believe I was the in the center of gossip. Well, maybe not center — there were other people's pictures too (celebrities and such), but mine was also there on one side of the page.

"You with a man so gorgeous. I believe there is a first time for everything. Right?" Emma was practically bouncing.

"Wrong. He simply asked me to dance and I said yes, which I can see was a bad decision. I don't even know if we will meet again."

"Bollocks," she said. "Bad decision or not, it was time you danced with someone other than your father. Or some son of one of your father's acquaintances, who clearly not used to be interested in you."

"As if I was interested in them. I'm not even interested in talking about them. Or," I added, "About Ryan."

"So his name is Ryan?"

"I'm going to class. Bye. See you at lunch. Share your food with me." I smiled at her.

"Of course," I heard her mumble before heading towards my classroom.

***

It was Mrs. Smith's calculus class—she was one of the strictest teachers of our school. Every student would have to pay attention in her class, whether that student understood what she was teaching or not. It was an unsaid rule. Though I usually understood almost everything, that day I felt distracted. Almost everyone, even the ones I had never spoken to had asked me about Ryan. I hated those interrogations, I just wanted to go somewhere alone.

I was trying to focus on a question while a note fell on my copy from over my shoulder. "How did he dance? ;p" was written on it. I looked over my shoulder and Ben Parks winked at me. I had known him since childhood. He was one of my good friends and he was gay, though that information was known only to some .

I scribbled on the back of the paper, "I did not realize dancing with a guy could be this torturous," and passed it over to Ben.

A few seconds later another note fell on my copy saying, "You forgot to mention gorgeous guy, handsome guy etc. ;) ;) ;)" It made me chuckle.

"Ms. Hill, perhaps you would want to share with us the reason you are smiling." I heard Mrs. Smith's voice. Muttering profanity at Ben under my breath, I started thinking about a reasonable excuse.

"I'm not going to wait forever. You can tell us the reason behind your sweet laugh or you can get out of the class."

"Um...it's nothing actually, Mrs. Smith. I...um...I finally understood the method by which this problem I've been trying to solve since morning could be solved. I'm sorry, I got a little excited," I said what came in my mind first.

Narrowing her eyes, Mrs. Smith looked at me for a few seconds. Then, she nodded and went back to teaching. I felt like a block had been uplifted from my chest.

***

"Found solution to a problem? Seriously? I would've taken the opportunity to go out of the class." Ben was at my desk as soon as Mrs. Smith's class ended.

"No you wouldn't have." I needed to find Emma and so I excused myself.

"Wait, Venus. I'm coming too," Ben said. As I gave a confused expression, he explained that we three had not eaten lunch together since forever. That was true, we used to hang out almost every day in middle school.