Outside The Lines

Outside The Lines Chapter Twelve

After saturday night and my 'incident' with Ben, I was in no mood to do anything for the rest of the weekend. Sunday consisted of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, contemplating whether I should call Will. I couldn't even think about my study date with Ethan.

When Monday morning came around, I was feeling slightly better. Mom was back home, which meant I had someone to talk to over breakfast.

"Morning, sweetie." She leaned over the counter to give me a kiss on the cheek. "So how was your weekend?"

"It was okay. I watched 7 straight hours of Gossip Girl and ate almost a whole litre of ice-cream. Actually, scratch that. It was great."

"Did you even leave the house once?"

"Mom, where do you think I got the ice-cream? I had to walk outside to get into the freezer in the garage. So yes, I left the house."

"Oh, Syd. At least you enjoyed yourself." She left me in the kitchen with a slightly confused look on her face. I guess it was hard for her to grasp the idea that her 17 year old daughter had absolutely no social life. I tried to fake a smile so she wouldn't find out what really happened in the weekend, but I was good at that, so she didn't realise.

As I made my way to school I was regretting it already. I was in no mood to talk to anyone. I knew I would see Will, which made me depressed, knowing that I had lost my best friend over a guy. I would also most likely see Ben, which would be mega awkward for the both of us, and then there was Ethan.

Usually it would be the only thing to get me through my day, but since I hadn't heard anything from him since we made our plans, or he didn't even acknowledge my existence, I was beginning to worry.

Surely he hadn't forgotten about me already? But then again, he was the most popular guy in school who had had more girlfriends than Lady GaGa had outfits.

I walked through the school on my way to Biology, trying to keep my eyes glued to the ground as usual. But me being Sydney, I ran into someone.

I didn't bother to look up, and tried to keep walking. I say tried, because I ended up doing that awkward side step thing where you're practically dancing with the other person.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." I muttered as I looked up to try and get away from the situation,

"Sydney?"

"Oh. Hi Ethan."

"Uh, are you okay? You seem kinda tense."

"Oh, no I'm fine, just late to class."

"The bell hasn't rung yet.."

Shit. He was right. Even though we had spent at least an hour together studying AND he had put a kiss on one of his texts, I still felt uncomfortable around Ethan. Not only did my face almost burst into flames, my whole body heated up. I wanted to rip my sweater off, not for the reasons I usually would around him.

'I gotta go." I was trying to play hard to get around him, but for some reason it came more naturally than I thought it would. I was having a terrible day, and because I thought he had been ignoring me there was no way I wanted to stand there talking to him.

"Wait, Sydney, are we still on for Wednesday?"

"Oh, yeah. I mean, if you still want to."

"Of course I do, i'll give you a text."

He left with a wink, and I felt my heart flutter underneath my burning chest.

I stumbled to my next class, clearly under his spell. I had gone from hating him, back to loving him again. It was amazing how this one person had such an influence on my mood, and now I couldn't wait for Wednesday.