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Post by Monday on Nov 6, 2010 22:04:59 GMT -5
I am mortified and more than a little angry. But since I’ve never really been a good liar anyways, I can’t think of a reasonable excuse for why my eyes and lips are so unnaturally red. My only defense had been to hope he wouldn’t notice and that was completely shot. “I was reading right before you got here,” I mumble. It sounds pretty lame but it’s still better than him thinking I was crying about Tommy… I’m beginning to think that it might be impossible for us to be in the same room together for more than five minutes without driving each other crazy. As I expected, he gives me a weird look. “A book made you cry?” “It was really sad, alright!” I say defensively. “One of my favorite characters just died.” “You do know that the characters aren’t actually real, right?” he asks me mockingly. “No one actually died.” “Of course I know that,” I snap. “But it’s still sad.” He just chuckles like I never cease to amuse him. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.” We’re still in the foyer and I’m just praying that my mom and dad can’t hear us quipping back and forth to each other. I resist the urge to grab his arm and yank him toward the stairs and out range of my parents’ overly curious ears. For one I didn’t want to get that weird feeling again and for another his arms looked very muscular underneath his t-shirt and I didn’t want to become any more attracted to him by feeling up his biceps. Instead I jerk my head in the right direction and say, “Come on, the study is up here.” I wait till we’re at least half way up the stairs before I ask what he meant when he said he shouldn’t be surprised to my crying while reading a book. He shrugs and says, “You just seem to be kind of a sensitive person.” I feel like there’s more to it than just that but I decide to just press the subject at hand and not worry about him leaving out information. I’m beginning to get used to it. “I’m not sensitive,” I protest as I lead us into our study. It used to be Landon’s room, but they fitted it out to be the home office that my mom has always secretly wanted but could never have about a year after he moved out. Now he had to sleep on the couch when he came home to visit and grumbled about why they couldn’t have just turned his old room into a guest room instead. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he says with a smile. “But weren’t you the one who got all offended when I started talking about The Great Gatsby the other day? I’m sensing a pattern here.” “Fine,” I say defiantly, “I’ll stop being so sensitive if you stop being so closed-off.” We both just stare at each other a moment before me both smile in unison. Alex puts words to our mutual thought. “That is never going to happen.” We laugh awkwardly and then I hear my mom calling my name from downstairs. I glance over my shoulder, and estimate that she’s waiting for me in the kitchen before I turn back to Alex. “I’ll be right back,” I say as I back toward the door, “Did you want anything to drink, we’ve got juice and soda?” “A glass of water would be fine.” I nod and then head down stairs. I walk into the kitchen to see my mom leaning on the counter, waiting for me. I can hear the TV in the living room and assume that my dad’s in there probably watching some kind of sport show or something. Sure enough I hear the telltale dudadu dudadu that means he’s on the ESPN channel and would usually mean that I should steer clear of the room unless I want to watch the disappointment flit across his face when I tell him that no, I’m not really interested in watching a very exciting game of golf. Really putting the words golf and exciting in the same sentence together seems wrong, or any sport for that matter as far as I am concerned. “What’s up?” I ask my mom. She has that look on her face, like I’ve done her some kind of injustice or something. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your little friend?” My mom has the tendency to call everyone I know my ‘little friend’ but I think she might decide to amend that statement if she could see all six foot three of Alex.
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Post by Monday on Nov 7, 2010 0:54:23 GMT -5
“I thought that we might skip the pleasantries for now but I’ll introduce him to you before we leave,” I put in hastily. God forbid she not meet every single friend of mine. “I don’t want y’all to scare him away before we actually get any work done.” My mom rolls her eyes which she must have picked up from watching me do it all the time. “Alright, I guess that’s fine. Just make sure you leave the door open.” Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. It’s nice to know that my parents trust me so much that they still don’t believe me when I say that Alex is not in any way my boyfriend. Or perhaps they just think I’m the type of girl to get up to no good with a guy that’s just a friend when my parents are right down stairs. I know I’m not really being fair and that it’s pretty much their right to over worry as a parent, but I also figure that I’m a teenager and it’s my right to be a little angsty every now and then. I get two glasses of ice water and head back up stairs but when I get to the study Alex isn’t there. I set the cups down with a sinking suspicion that I know where he wandered off too. Sure enough, when I open the slightly ajar door to my room I see him standing over my desk. He turns around but he doesn’t seem to be surprised or embarrassed to see that I’ve caught him. I cross my arms over my chest and ask a little shortly, “Did you get lost?” I’m a little irritated that he has invaded my privacy and doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. I think I would be more upset if I had anything to hide. “What’s with the drawing?” he asks, completely ignoring my question. I didn’t even notice the piece of paper that he was holding until he said this. I sigh, knowing that resistance is futile and I might as well cooperate if I want to get my own questions answered. When I walk over I see that he’s holding a scratch piece of paper that I had been doodling on in my history class while my teacher lectured. It had probably been a mistake to zone out of class but it was better than the alternative which would be falling asleep. I had heard horror stories of students falling asleep in Mr. Thomas’s class and not being woken up when class ended and school was already out. A friend of mine in that’s in band, Jeff, had drifted off once and Thomas took the metal yard stick and dropped in on his desk, causing Jeff to fall right out of his desk to the uproarious laughter of the entire class. I snatch the paper out of his hands and it’s lucky that I don’t rip the paper, not that I really care about the damn drawing. I realize that it’s the same strange symbol that I’d been sketching a lot in the last few weeks and you could probably find it in any one of my notebooks, sketched in the margins or on the cover. But I had always doodled a lot and I didn’t see why this one should be of any interest. It was just this inverted triangle with three spirals coming out of the tips. There were a lot of different variations of it but they were all basically the same thing. I had no idea what they were or if you could even put a name to them, but apparently they were of interest to Alex. I just shrug my shoulders at him. “I don’t know. It’s just some weird thing that I’ve been drawing lately,” I answer honestly enough. If there’s one thing to be said about Alex and I it’s that we don’t lie to each other. “Why?” “I just found it odd that you’d have drawn so many of them. And it’s not ‘just some weird thing’. It’s an ancient symbol of power, generally called a triskelion.” And he always makes it sound like I’m the weird one… How many people just know arbitrary stuff like that especially people our age? I mean, maybe I would have heard of what a triskelion or whatever it’s called is too if I read more books about age old symbols but, really, that would probably never happen under normal circumstances. “You are just full of random facts of knowledge, aren’t you?” I say a tad bit on the mocking side. Still, now he’s piqued my curiosity. “So, what does it mean then, besides power?” He gives me an odd look that I find hard to decipher. I’m starting to wonder if he even heard my question when he finally starts to explain. “There are many different versions of it but when it’s originally translated from Greek it means ‘three-legged’. One of the more famous places that it’s used is the Isle of Man which is between Great Britain and Ireland. It relates back to an old legend about a god who transformed into the three legs to chase away the threatening invaders. It’s still reflected in their motto which roughly translates into ‘Whichever way you throw it, it will stand’. Almost every culture has some form or another of it but yours looks more Celtic than anything else. Even then, its meaning is pretty ambiguous, from representing the three fates, to the holy trinity, or even to the old Celtic philosophy that everything has three levels: the mental, the physical, and the spiritual.” He pauses here and smiles sardonically. “Or maybe the ancient Celts just liked the way it looked and needed something to decorate their swords and jewelry.”
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Post by Monday on Nov 8, 2010 18:32:49 GMT -5
“Wow,” I say simply when I’m sure he’s done. I have to admit, I’m pretty impressed. I had expected just a one sentence description but what I got was enough information to write a thesis with. Not that I didn’t find the information interesting. Quite to the contrary, I was planning on going to the library later in the day to check out a book on ancient Celtic symbols and art work. “Well you did ask,” he says with a smile. “I did. Where did you learn so much information about these triskelions? It’s not exactly information that they typically teach in a public high school or at least not this one.” “You can find pretty much anything on the internet these days.” “But what made you decide to look it up in the first place though?” He sighs and says, “Are you always going to be asking this many questions?” “I don’t know are you always going to avoid answering all of my questions?”That half-smile that he gives me is answer enough to that question. “Alright then, we seem to be at a stale mate,” I say. “Let’s just work on the paper and maybe one of us will admit defeat by the time we’re done.” We work for a solid two hours before we get the paper done, even with both our prior knowledge of The Great Gatsby, mostly because we kept pausing for me to ask a question (Where were you born, What’s your middle name, and How did I know I could trust you) and him giving me as little an explanation as possible if none at all (San Diego, California, his grandfather’s name, Nicholas, and no response but that same half-smile). I was pretty much certain by this point that we were tied for who was the most stubborn person in the room. We trudge downstairs, exhausted with each other and with our labors over the paper since I can be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to school work. I don’t remember till we’re half way to the front door that I promised my mom that I’d introduce her to Alex. “Come on, my mom wants to meet you,” I say, lightly grasping his arm unconsciously to direct him towards the living room. I know she’ll probably be there because she has this habit of watching all the episodes of those ridiculous reality-TV shows that she records on the DVR to watch each Saturday night. I also know that Alex has his doubts that he’ll make a good impression on my parents but that he’s going to try damn hard to convince them that he’s a polite, normal person. Or at least, those are the words that I use to interpret the feelings I’m getting, they don’t actually come out in perfectly scripted words. The sensation is both unfamiliar and at the same time entirely too familiar. It’s the same feeling as last time only somehow more powerful. And also different from last time is that I initiated the contact, however unaware it may have been, and not Alex. Whatever this was, it was coming from me, not him. “Woah,” I say, looking down at my hand on his arm in amazement. There really is nothing better I can think of to describe it then that. It doesn’t matter anyways, if I’m as easy to read as he says I am he would know exactly what I’m thinking just by looking at my face: shock, excitement, joy, fear. The list was endless. I look up at his eyes and see my own emotions reflected in them. Somehow, I don’t think that went according to his plan for the day. He gently tugs my hand away and says quietly without looking at me, “It’s only going to get worse.” “What is?” I say, almost breathless. “The thing you just felt. So maybe we should create some personal boundaries until I can better explain what exactly it is.” What is it? How does he know? Why won’t he just tell me already? What is he waiting for? What gives him the god dammed right to keep it from me? These questions and a thousand others are bouncing around in my head but all I say is, “I just don’t understand.” The fury and anxiety is heavy in my voice and it would take a much stupider person then Alex to miss it. “I know,” he murmurs apologetically. “But you will. Soon.” He looks at me and finally I give in and meet his eyes in consent. “Fine,” I say, “But that doesn’t me I have to like it.” “Didn’t you say you wanted to introduce me to your parents or something?” He must be pretty desperate to try to distract me with something I know he wants to avoid. This alone is enough to put a smile on my face, however bitter it might be. “Yah, come on.” I’m just thankful that they weren’t here to witness this little… incident whatever it was. I exactly would I pass that conversation off as normal? I walk through the kitchen, Alex right behind me, to the living room beyond it. When my mom sees us she turns off the TV, stands up, and pats her hair, all in one flood motion. If there’s anything that can be said about my mother, is that she likes to make a good impression and is well good at it. My dad on the other hand could really care less and he glanced sullenly at the now pitch back screen of the television before standing up beside my mom. I had to hide my smile when I noticed that a few chip crumbs still clung to his t-shirt. “Mom, dad, this is Alex,” I say, deciding to skip to the polite people’s script to introduce him. I wasn’t up for anymore drama today. “He just moved here recently.” He shakes both of their hands and says, “It’s very nice to meet you both. You have a wonderful home.” I resist the urge to role my eyes, but barely. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d say he isn’t nervous at all. But I do know. And apparently somebody did teach Alex the polite people’s script; he just chooses to not use it on me. I can’t decide if I like this or not.
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Post by Monday on Nov 8, 2010 19:01:44 GMT -5
They talk about the house for a couple of minutes then switch to the weather but I’m not really paying attention. Idle chit-chat like this really never interested me. I like to get to the heart of the matter and since that obviously wasn’t going to happen today, I’d like to get some alone time in to just think about things. And I couldn’t do that around other people, trying to act like things were all normal when they were so far from it, at least for me. Finally a manage to pry Alex away from my parents and walk him back to the entrance while my father plops on the couch as if he just ran a marathon and my mother waves goodbye like she’s a freaking senator’s wife or something. Now I know I’m grumpy. I usually think that my parents antics are adorable instead of just annoying. “I think that went well,” he says when we’re out of earshot of my parents. I think he’s talking more to himself then he is to me. “Yes, now all your fears about my big bad parents can be laid to rest.” I sound snarky, even to myself and make a mental note to rein it in a bit. It’s barely even three in the afternoon and I still have dinner with the parentals to sit through and they can smell a bad attitude from about a mile away. He gives me a look, like he’s not too happy with what I said. He knows that that’s the feeling I picked up from him when I touched his arm. “Humph. I’m not sure if I like this.” “Yah well join the club,” I grumble. I watch him just stand there, shifting his weight from one foot or another, like he’s guilty or something. I’m sure as hell not going to touch him and find out for sure, I’ll just have to rely on the power of observation instead of the power of whatever it is that’s in my hands. This whole not even knowing what to call it thing is already getting old. “All I can say is that it’s going to get better. Promise.” He reaches his hand out as if to place a comforting hand on my shoulder, but then remembers at the last second what we discussed earlier and lets it drop back to his side. “Is all of this cryptic talk as exhausting to say as it is to listen to?” He runs his hand through his hair and lets out a long breath. “I think it’s more tiring.” “I doubt it.” “Are you ever going to stop being so stubborn?” “Sure, probably around the time that you stop disagreeing with me.” We just stand there smiling stupidly at each other, like this is already our little inside jokes. How can too people who can’t stop arguing all the time be friends, I wonder? I don’t really know but somehow, it works for us. “See you on Monday, Gatsby.” Then he’s waving good bye to me and I close the front door as he climbs into his car and drives away. I shake my head, but despite it all I’m still smiling.
Chapter 3
I’ve been lying on my bed, staring at the same speckled texture that is my ceiling oh for about two hours now. After Alex left, I decided I wasn’t up to listen to my mom’s analysis of what, exactly, she thought of my new ‘little friend’ Alex Herrera. So I feigned a headache, and trudged up stairs to try to figure out what exactly the meaning of my life in relation to the rest of the world actually was now that I was this whole new, yet-to-be-undefined, something. Somehow, the number 42 just wasn’t cutting it. This task really seemed far too daunting for a mere sixteen year old girl like myself, however, so I just sat down at my desk and opened up a game of solitaire. I really was of the mind that solitaire had therapeutic properties because within about my third cycle through the deck I was feeling substantially more calm then I had about a half an hour ago. I tried to not let my thoughts linger for too long on Alex or anything else that had happened today because then I’d have to start my calming techniques all over again, but eventually I could feel the weight of those still unanswered questions and decided to give analyzing them a bit of a go. In the two or so hours that I had been staring at my ceiling, I had answered only one question and that was this: Am I hungry? After much debate I resolved that yes, I was in fact hungry, probably because I skipped lunch and had had nothing to eat but a bowl of cereal this morning. All of a sudden it felt like basic queries that I should always just know without thinking were being put into questions. I mean really, who was Evelyne Primrose? I had no idea. That’s when it finally hit me that I was being a tad melodramatic. No matter what was going on, and I was sure that there really was something, I knew who I was. At least I knew all the important stuff, like who my parents and friends were, where I went to school, and what city I lived in. I might not know everything, but I never would anyway so what was the point of wasting my time and energy on things that were completely out of my control? I repeated this to myself a few times, like some sort of mantra, and finally sat up out of bed. I felt tons better like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and though amusedly for a second that I might make a good therapist.
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Post by Monday on Nov 8, 2010 20:18:59 GMT -5
I walk downstairs, much more optimistic about life in general then I was just a few hours earlier and my mood is only improved by the delicious smell of dinner permeating the air of the entire downstairs. When I walk into the kitchen I peer into the oven, then the covered pot on the stove. We’re having chicken and rice with asparagus, one of my favorite meals. My mom walks into the room and softly exclaims, “There you are! Are you feeling any better, sweetheart?” She runs the back of her hand across my forehead, then along the side of my face, and I know she’s doing the whole mom examination to make sure I’m not ill. She smiles when she feels that I don’t have a fever and I smile back automatically in reflex. I can remember her doing the same thing all through my childhood, always taking care of me and making sure I’m alright, and like then I instantly feel safe and comforted. I also feel a not so subtle tug of guilt in the pit of my stomach about all the mean thoughts I had about her earlier and I’m glad that I took my own advice and went to calm down before I said something that I would have regretted. I softly reply that ‘I’m feeling much better, thank you’ and set the table and toss the salad without being asked in secret penance for my ungrateful thoughts. We finally sit down to dinner and the food is awesome, like most of my mom’s cooking. I know my mom must be dying for me to bring the subject up and since I’m still feeling guilty, I indulge her. “So, what did y’all think of Alex?” “Well I think he’s a very nice young man,” my mom says, smiling. “Don’t you, Burt?” My dad grumbles something about not trusting any teenage boy, especially ones that probably always gets any girl he wants like Alex and that he’s going to let him know when he comes over again that he’s got a gun and a shovel and that he won’t hesitate to use them if he ever hurts his daughter. I’m blushing furiously but my mom just plays it off like she’s paid Alex some kind of compliment or something. “He is very handsome, honey. And he kept glancing over at you while we were talking.” Probably to make sure I wasn’t going to freak out and spill the beans about our little secret, I think to myself. “Are you sure there’s nothing going on that we should know about?” she asks, going so far as to waggle her eyebrows at me. My blush turns deeper shade of red, if that’s even possible, and I say, “Trust me, there’s nothing going on. We’re just friends.” Thankfully we drop the subject there and I ask if it’s ok for the girls to come over as I’m helping to clear away the dishes. I always ask and they always say yes. It’s a pretty nice arrangement we’ve got going and for a second I wonder if it would continue if I was asking a boyfriend to come over instead of just Macy and Angela. I give them a call and they’re both here within twenty minutes and once again I realize how nice it is to have your two best friends living in the same neighborhood as you. We look through the collection of movies that we have lying around the house before giving up and going to the movie store where they pick up some cheesy romance movie that none of us have seen before and drive back to my house. We go to the smaller living room/library/rec room upstairs and Macy’s presumably about to pop in the DVD before she turns around at the last minute and gives me an accusing look. “Alright, spill.” I just stare at her for a half a beat, confused. “What?” Macy rolls her eyes at Angela and, being the more patient of the two, explains to me what she’s talking about. “What Macy means to say is that we can tell that something is on your mind and that you can talk to us.” “Um, I don’t have anything to talk about,” is my brilliant response. By now Macy’s moved from in front of the TV to the other side of me on the couch, which puts one of them on either side of me. A highly unfair advantage, I think. “Come on,” says Macy. “We’ve known you for like half your life. You can do better than that.” I sigh and concede that Alex is probably right and that my face really is a dead give away to what I’m thinking. Maybe I should ask him for a lesson on how to hide my thoughts better since he seems so hell bent on keeping his guarded. That would be a great skill for times like this. I can’t think of a single decent reply to give them. It’s not like I don’t want to tell them everything, I do. But even if I knew how to say what was going on with the mysterious feelings I kept having or Alex’s cryptic answers to my questions and even if they could accept or even understand what I was talking about, I feel as if it’s not my place to tell them. Whatever it is I know it has nothing to do with them and I don’t want to drag them into this craziness that I’m so reluctantly apart of already. “Really guys, there’s nothing to talk about,” I say lamely. “Wait,” Macy says putting her hands up, palms facing us, like she honestly expected us to get up and leave. She has this almost excited look on her face that worries me. “That Alex guy came over today, didn’t he?” While I haven’t told them a lot about Alex, mostly for the obvious reasons, I have told them that he’s new at our school at that we had to write a paper together for English. When I pointed him out to them in the hallway the other day Angela whistled softly so that only we could hear it in the crowded hallway and Macy shook her head and sighed, “You have all the luck.” I thought she was wrong then and I definitely still did now, but whether I liked it or not, a hesitant friendship was being built between Alex and I and I couldn’t deny that to my friends’ faces.
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Post by Friday on Nov 8, 2010 22:44:23 GMT -5
((Gosh Meghan, post everything all at once will ya XP))
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Post by Monday on Nov 8, 2010 23:16:45 GMT -5
((lol. i've just been posting them as i write them.))
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Post by Monday on Nov 9, 2010 1:45:10 GMT -5
“Um yeah, he came over today,” I say shrugging. “All we did was work on the project,” Mostly, I add in my head. Well it’s not like we did anything that they think we did. “I told y’all, we’re just friends.” “Then why are you just fiddling with the edge of your skirt like you’re feeling guilty or something instead of looking at us, huh, Evelyne?” Macy asks accusingly. My fingers drop the loose string on the edge of my skirt that I had been twisting around my finger and my head snaps up. She’s right, I do feel guilty. But not about what she thinks. “I swear there’s nothing romantic going on between me and Alex.” I blush as the words come out but I hope they can hear that my words are sincere. Macy makes a noise of dissatisfaction somewhere between a snort and a sigh but Angela speaks up in my defense. “We believe you. We just wanted to make sure that you were all right.” “I promise I’m perfectly fine. Nothing to worry about, I’m just a little stressed about this paper due in English.” I give them a reassuring smile and hope I’m not going too overboard with all of this. I do really believe that everything is going to be fine though, and I think that they can tell that much at least. “You at least think he likes you, right?” asks Macy. She’s smiling now, so I know I’m off the hook. “I don’t have much going for me in the boy department right now so I have to live vicariously through you.” I laugh but shake my head. “Are you kidding? We can’t stop arguing every five minutes; he probably can’t stand the site of me by now.” “Well do you like him?” asks Angela. “Like I said, all we do is argue.” Macy gives me a mischievous grin. “That’s not really an answer to the question, Ev. You totally have a crush on the new kid! This is totally going to break Tommy Larson’s heart.” “First of all, Tommy has a girlfriend so he could probably care less who I like or dislike,” I say through gritted teeth. “And second of all, I do not have a crush on Alex! We are just friends, end of story.” “Keep saying what you want,” Macy says, “Whatever helps you sleep at night.” The three of us bicker back and forth but it’s all in good fun and eventually we settle down enough to watch the DVD, some old 80’s movie about two people who can’t stand each other at first, become friends a while later before they eventually fall in love and, I presume, live happily ever after and all of that. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if Macy wouldn’t have kept whispering “that could be you and Alex” or some derivative of the sort throughout the entire movie. The rest of the weekend was composed of me doing homework and studying for class because I’m a nerd, and finishing my increasingly exciting yet still very sad book while pretty much constantly crying some more for the same reason. Monday morning came too early and after Angela stopped by to pick me up, saving me from the dreaded bus ride, we got Macy and headed to school. We typically walked through the band hall each morning to get to the hallway that connected it to the drama and choir department so we had a neutral spot to talk to all of our friends before class started. As we pulled into the parking lot I could just make out a tall, dark, familiar looking figure leaning against the wall next to the entrance of the band hall. Waiting, presumably, for me. Well this was different. I guess our friendship had moved up to the talk-before-class-starts level. If I was hoping that this would go unnoticed by Macy and Angela or that they wouldn’t make a big deal about it, then I would be very, very wrong. “Is that Alex waiting for you by the doors?” asked Macy incredulously, like it was no more shocking then it would be if we say pigs flying by. She had that excited look on her face that I was familiar with that meant she was hungry for some juicy gossip. “He totally likes you.” Luckily we were still far enough away that Alex couldn’t hear us and I tried to make my words not come out completely bitchy. “Do you have to make a big deal out of everything, Macy?” “Oh give me a break,” she pouted, “It’s Monday morning, I could use a little excitement.” When we got a little closer, he pushed off of the wall and headed over to us. “Hey,” he said, smiling at me. “Hi yourself,” I said giving him a wary look but smiling back nonetheless. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Macy and Angela give each other a look that implied many things as they continued to go on ahead of us. “We’ll catch you later Evelyne,” said Angela. “Don’t be late for class,” adds Macy, waggling her eyebrow at me from over her shoulder. Yah, like that’s not embarrassing or anything. I sigh, knowing I that I’m going to have to diffuse that whole situation before they start acting any more ridiculous when Alex is around. Which I’m beginning to feel like is going to be a lot.
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Post by Thursday on Nov 9, 2010 15:43:25 GMT -5
((HA i'm caught up!))
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Post by Monday on Nov 9, 2010 16:48:42 GMT -5
((lol. good. i haven't written hardly anything today and i'm not gonna get out of lab until like 10 tonight... lol. tomorrow might be another 3000+ day...))
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Post by Friday on Nov 9, 2010 16:49:57 GMT -5
((It's going to be one of those days for me! Thursday too! Stupid tests))
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Post by Monday on Nov 10, 2010 17:39:03 GMT -5
Alex gives me a look, his eyebrows raised. “Friends of yours?” he asks with a smile. “Yah, don’t worry about them,” I say rolling my eyes and laughing in an aren’t-they-just-so-funny-those-kidders way. The last thing I want is for Alex to get the wrong impression and mistakenly think that I like him as more than just friends. I just barely decided that I wanted to be his friend at all much less anything else. “They just like to stir up trouble.” “Ah I see.” “So this is kind of unusual,” I say, making a vague gesture to him standing out here waiting for me. “What made you decide to join us nerds who sit in front of the arts department each morning and talk about marching band moves and choir solos.” “How do you know I’m not a nerd?” Just him saying the word ‘nerd’ was ridiculous. I tried hard not to laugh but failed and he didn’t seem to like me laughing at him. “What? Why are you laughing?” he asked, frowning at me but I couldn’t seem to stop laughing. This day was just so weird already. Somebody getting offended because they were laughed at for not being a nerd was both awesome and ludicrous. Finally I got enough control of myself to say, “It’s just the idea of you being a nerd is so hilarious. I mean look at you!” He actually did look down at himself, trying to figure out what I was talking about apparently. Like he wasn’t even aware of how good looking he was. Not to say that nerdy boys couldn’t be good looking also, in fact there were several swoon-worthy guys in the brass section that I’d noticed before. But Alex would still stick out like a sore thumb standing next to them. “How many times a week do you have to go to the gym to get biceps like that? Most nerds don’t work out.” He actually blushes when I say this and I can’t decide if I should feel proud or guilty for embarrassing him but decided on the former. It was about time that he got a taste of his own medicine. “I guess I have to give you points,” I continue, shamelessly, “for knowing the finer points of a great American piece of literature and for knowing the symbolism of some random ancient symbol. But I can count on one hand the number of people I know that probably have washboard abs and I’m sure you’re one of them.” By now his blush has faded and I can see he’s recovered by the mischievous glint that he gets in his eyes. I’m just beginning to think that I might have said something that will backfire against me when he says, “So have you been spending too time thinking about my muscular body, Gatsby, or what? And you should probably stop judging people based just on your looks, it’s not a very attractive quality to have. Besides, if we’re on the subject, you don’t exactly look like the type of girl who spends a lot of time with her nose stuck in a book either.” “But I, uh, I don’t…” I try to form a sentence that actually makes sense, but this is all I can get out before I snap my mouth shut in an audible snap. If my face could get any hotter you’d start seeing steam around it in the cool morning air. Alex is looking very self satisfied with the bell rings and we start heading for class as we’d still been standing outside the band hall the entire time. Then I finally comprehend the last part of his statement and snap my head to look at him as we’re walking. “Wait,” I say in shock, “Did you just give me a compliment?” He raises his eyebrow at me and I say, “You know that part about how I don’t look like the kind of girl who spends a lot of time reading. What did you mean by that?” He rolls his eyes at me. “Like you don’t know. I’m sure Tom boy has used all the usual lines on you by now. Whatever he’s said, he’s right,” he says, frowning slightly as if he doesn’t like the idea to much.
Still, I’m mystified. “OK, could you please just stop with all the riddles and tell me what you’re talking about? I don’t speak in code.” By now we’re standing outside of my Chemistry classroom and I decide that I’m not going to go in without out an answer even if it did make me tardy. Some things were worth the sacrifice, even if that sacrifice was a perfect attendance record; there really was no arguing at this point that I was a nerd. Besides I had to keep my reputation up as being even more stubborn then him. “Evelyne,” he says, looking at me like I’m an idiot, which maybe I am. “Come on. You know you’re beautiful, so don’t give me any of that false modesty bull.” I find this statement to be incredibly ironic considering just a few moments ago I doubted him for not seeing his obvious good looks. However, I’m beginning to see that there’s a world of difference now that the roles were reversed. I’m a teenage girl, so obviously I’ve thought about the way I look and how other people see me, but I guess I never really thought of myself as something special. And it’s one thing to think that you might look ok and another thing entirely to hear someone call you beautiful, especially if that someone was a guy. The fact that he might annoy you almost to the point where you want to slap him sometimes is irrelevant.
((Alright, so here's the deal with this post. As i was writing that last bit i realized that i hadn't actually given a physical description of Evelyne yet and that it would be a lot better if there was one, but when i started to write it in there it felt like it didn't flow right at all. like it's a really randome place to write a description of the main character. lol. so i went back in the story and found a better spot to put it, but i'm to lazy to make the change on the message board, so i'm just going to include that little paragraph here for y'all. so here it is))
My face is almost always clear of blemishes, a trait I gratefully inherited from my mother; my poor brother got my dad’s side of the family’s skin and his entire high school career was plagued by terrible acne. Being tall and skinny is also something that I got from my mother but unfortunately there isn’t an ounce of muscle on my body which can get annoying when people can literally push you around. I have pretty unspectacular wavy dark brown, shoulder length hair that I usually keep up in a pony tail and a pair of grey blue eyes that I had always found to be my best feature. I had just gotten my braces off a few weeks ago which did improve my appearance by a lot. I never wear makeup and some people might think less of me for it but most thought it suited me just fine.
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Post by Monday on Nov 10, 2010 19:28:50 GMT -5
Luckily for me the bell rings right then so I don’t have to make an attempt at a casual reply, like that would even be possible. “I’ll see you later,” he says with a wave as he heads off to whatever class he has and I manage to stumble my way to my chemistry desk. I remember too late that Macy’s in this class as well and I haven’t even began to put a poker face on when I glance over to see a smug look on her face. “I knew it,” is all she says. “What all did you hear?” I’m almost afraid to ask. “Something about you not understanding riddles, oh and him saying that you’re beautiful!” Her voice which starts out as overly casual and then crescendo’s into a high pitched squeal by the end of her sentence. I shush her frantically but no one seems to be listening and even if they were, no one but a close friend would have been able to make out the part where her voice leapt up three octaves. Tommy, I notice, is in a heated discussion about the winner of some football game the night before. I sigh in relief and then turn back to Macy. “He was just being nice,” I tell her. “Oh whatever!” she loudly whispers back. Macy was really never good at talking quietly. “Besides the fact that he’s right, you are beautiful; I know that Angela and I have said this to you before but I can understand why it’d be more impactful coming from a guy, especially one as hunky as Alex.” “OK, I cannot believe that you just called Alex ‘hunky’,” I say making a face, but she just ignores me and continues on with her rant. “I can just tell that he likes you. Why else would he be spending all of this time with you and giving you such nice compliments.” She’s practically swooning at this point and I wish there was a way that I could get her to take it down a notch but there’s no easy way to explain to her that Alex has only been spending this much time with me because he has a secret that he’s waiting to tell me. “And you just have to like him back, I mean come on, have you seen him!” “Yes, Macy.” I’m trying not to lose my patience but she’s making it really hard on me. “I have seen him. Can we please drop the subject now?” “Suit yourself, but don’t come crying to me when you fall for the guy and don’t know what to do about it because you didn’t listen.” She lets out one last heartfelt sigh but then moves on to something else, thank God. The class got going pretty quickly after that and I was forced into another awkward conversation, this time with Tommy. I was really getting tired of this. “So, are you and Herrera like a couple now or something?” He says this just accusingly enough to annoy me and simultaneously put me on the defense. “Why do you ask?” He seems a little miffed that I didn’t just answer his question right out and says, “I saw y’all talking outside the classroom and it looked like a pretty friendly conversation to have with someone that you just met. So are y’all?” “We’re just friends,” I say, my words a little clipped. Yah, so I’m a little pissed off at Tommy right now, something I would have thought to be impossible about a week ago. First of all, it’s not really his business, and second of all he has a girlfriend so what does it matter to him if I’m with anyone? Unfortunately, I say neither of these things out loud since I’ve never really been good at confrontation. That’s one thing I definitely got from my dad who my mom always complains is too passive aggressive. I’m usually the same way, except for when it comes to Alex for some reason. I’m never afraid to let him know how I feel. Tommy’s mood seems to improve immediately. “Good, I wouldn’t want to see a pretty girl like you with a guy like him,” he says smoothly. I can’t help but think of what Alex said earlier, about Tommy using all of the usual lines on me by now. This sounds like one of those lines. “What do you mean, ‘a guy like him’?” Even I can’t resist getting into a little bit of an altercation here. Whether I meant for it to happen or not, Alex had become my friend, and I really don’t like it when people say rude things about my friends. However, Tommy finally seems to catch onto my sour mood and quickly tries to back track. “I didn’t mean to insult him or anything,” he quickly amends. “I just think a girl like you deserves the best, that’s all.” He flashes me that award winning smile and I know that that’s the best apology that I’m going to get.
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Post by Monday on Nov 10, 2010 22:21:59 GMT -5
((this post is a little bit long, but the next one will be a LOT shorter))
I decide that it’s best to keep this conversation to myself since Angela tells Macy everything and Macy can never keep a secret. I don’t even want to think about how Alex would he react. Whether or not he’d be angry at Tommy for what he said about him or if he’d be as embarrassed as I was that he thought we were a couple, it wasn’t worth it to find out. By the time I made it to English, I had pretty much forgotten about his comment from earlier, but neither of us brought it up. We turned in our paper and actually had an entire conversation without either of us arguing or getting embarrassed before class started. When the final bell rang, he followed me out of the classroom and offered to give me a ride home like he had the other day. “That’s a nice offer but Macy probably wouldn’t like it if I left her alone in the band hall to wait for Angela to get out of practice. The band directors don’t like her as much as they do me,” I say with a laugh. “That’s no problem; she can come with us too.” I try to say thank you at his gallant offer but he just waves it off like it’s nothing. We walk to the band locker room where we always wait and sure enough she’s looking pretty nervous and maybe a little annoyed. Until she sees who I’m with, that is. “I was wondering what was taking you so long,” she says, giving me a sly grin, “And now I know.” I give her a warning look. It’s one thing to tease me about Alex when he’s not in the same room but it’s a whole new level of aggravating when she does it while he’s standing right beside me. “Alex was nice enough to offer us a ride home so we don’t have to wait for Angela.” “I bet he was,” she says quickly under her breath, and I’m hoping that I’m the only one that can hear it. She looks up at Alex and smiles. “No thanks, I’m just going to wait for Angela. We still have to work on that one project, you know the one I’m talking about,” she says to me, and I’m surprised she doesn’t wink too. She knows that I know that there is no such project and this is her way of telling me that she’s giving us alone time. Great. “So you two just go on without me, I’ll be fine.” So Alex and I head back the way we came toward where he parked his car and I send Macy a parting grimace over my shoulder to which she only beams too. I make a mental note to remind her later that I don’t appreciate her efforts one bit. “Is she always that subtle?” he finally asks me once we’re in his car and headed toward my home. I laugh and I hope it doesn’t sound too forced. “You caught that, did you?” “It would take someone pretty dense to not catch on.” I risk a look at him and while he seems easy going enough about it I can tell by the set of his shoulders that he’s not giving the subject up anytime soon. I sigh knowing that now I’ll have to put in plain words what I’d hoped to avoid and I vow to kick Macy’s scrawny ass later for putting me through this. “It’s just that I obviously can’t explain it to them,” I begin, “why we’re such fast friends you know. So they just assume…” I trail off. Even I know that was a pretty lame attempt at an explanation. “So why have we become friends this quickly? And what exactly do they assume?” he asks with a roguish smirk. I role my eyes when he glances over at me and say, “Well we’ve become friends so quickly because you have a secret that has something to do with me and I’m determined to figure out what it is.” He nods his head and I have no way of telling what he’s thinking and for once I actually want to use my gift, curse, or whatever it is, to find out. “And since I can’t tell them this they naturally think that you have some sort of crush on me or something.” I’m blushing slightly by the end of this sentence and I’m hoping that he can’t tell. “I keep telling Macy that you don’t, obviously, but she can be as stubborn about these kinds of things as I can be all the time.” “How do you know?” “How do I know she’s stubborn?” I ask, thinking this an odd question. “Because I’ve known her for about ten years now, that’s how.” He just laughs and says, “No, how do you know that I don’t like you as more than a friend?” “What? I, er, well…” “Relax Gatsby,” he says, cutting me off, much to my relief. “I was only messing with you. And don’t worry I don’t mix business with pleasure.” I have to think about this for a moment, to try and figure out what he’s suggesting, but I come up with nothing. “And what exactly does that mean?” “Look, there’s a reason that I know what you can do and I came here with a purpose. I can’t let anything compromise that. I just thought you should know before we get any further into this,” he says gesturing between us, like by ‘this’ he means the two of us. He looks almost angry like I’m the one that’s being the jerk and not him. “Define compromise,” I say a little testily. “I think you know what I mean, Evelyne.” I cross my arms over my chest because I do know what he means and I’m furious that he would imply that he needs to warn me to not get too attached to him. Like that could ever happen. “Well don’t you worry, ‘compromising’ your little mission, whatever it is, is the last thing on my mind.” “Fine, great,” he says tartly. “Fine,” I say right back. Neither one of us speaks the rest of the drive back, both of us fuming in silence. When the car finally pulls up beside my house, I’m tugging on the handle of the door to get out before the car even comes to a full stop. “Evelyne wait,” he says grabbing my forearm just as I’m about to step out, careful to not touch my hand which seems to be the trigger point for my ability. I huff out an impatient breath and turn around in my seat, still indignant and still with my door wide open, although I have pulled both my feet back in. He leans across my seat and shuts the door anyway. “Well?” I ask. He rakes his hand through his hair and he looks like he’d rather be anywhere then here right now. “Can we just forget about that entire conversation?” I let out one short laugh and say, “Not likely.” “I told you before that I can be kind of a jerk sometimes. This was one of those times.” I give him eye contact to know that I’m at least listening now but I’m still haven’t forgiven him. “You’re getting closer, but you’re still going to have to do better than that.” He smiles a little at this. “Alright. I guess I just didn’t like it when you said that your soul reason for be friendly to me was because you wanted answers. Which was pretty incredibly stupid of me, I’m sorry.” I don’t know what to say to this and instead of feeling angry I feel guilty. “That’s not what I meant, when I was telling you why we were friends,” I say softly. When he turns to look at me and our eyes meet it feels completely comfortable and yet for a second it also feels like something more than a look between two friends. I’m the first to break contact, afraid of what might happen if I sat there too long gazing into the deep dark depths of his eyes.
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Post by Monday on Nov 10, 2010 23:19:34 GMT -5
It was amazing to me how quickly Alex became a normal part of my daily life. In a matter of just a couple of weeks it felt like he had always been a part of our groups of friends. The others were a bit hesitant when he started talking with us before class and eating lunch with us (besides Macy, who was ecstatic and added this to her ever growing list of how she knows he loves me) but he had a voice in the conversation and laughed at their jokes so he got along with them just fine, although there was still the distinct impression that he was only there because of me. Or at least this is what Angela told me a couple of days after Alex had started to join us and I had to trust her opinion at least a little more than Macy’s. She had always been pretty observant but I wasn’t willing to interpret what exactly it meant. He also drove me home most days, whenever he didn’t have to go “run some errands” or “take care of something at home” or some derivative of that which would also usually make him miss school. Whenever he said something like this I would just nod my head and try to not ask any questions, though it was denying my nature not too. I knew he couldn’t or didn’t want to tell me what he was really doing and I just assumed it was something to do with all of the other secrets that would be revealed to me in that mysterious date in the future. Mostly, we just avoided the topic completely as we were both tired of going round in circles about it. But on a Thursday night a couple of weeks after our fight in my drive way something happened that kind of forced the issue. Shortly after I have dinner with my dad (my mom was working late on a big case) I answer the door to see Angela who promptly bursts into tears. I hastily try to call Macy to come over too but her parents are really strict about going over to friends’ houses coming on school nights, unlike my parents, so she can’t come. After I direct Angela to go upstairs to my room I grab a box of Kleenex from the downstairs bathroom. “Alight, what’s going on?” I ask her in as soothing a voice as possible and handing her a tissue as I sit next to her on my bed. She’s calmed down a bit by now and starts to explain what’s going on. “It’s about Justin,” she says in a shaky voice. Justin plays the trumpet in the band and is her boyfriend, or at least he was earlier today, now I’m not sure, and they’ve been dating for about six months. However, they’d been arguing more and more lately and Angela explains that they got in a huge fight after they got out of practice today. I reach down to pat her hand and then it happens again, after weeks since the last time, and I’m completely caught off guard. And not only because it’s been a while but because this is the first time that I’ve ever touched someone other than Alex and it’s triggered this whatever it is. I felt how much Angela was hurting but I also knew that by tomorrow they would work things out and that they were good for each other. Not only that but I could tell that they had only been fighting so much lately because they had both fallen for each other but were to insecure to let the other one know. And what’s more, I knew that if she opened up to him by telling him how she really felt was the key to them being truly happy together. It was an awful lot of information to take in all at once and for a second I felt like I was going to hyperventilate but I knew I had to pull it together long enough to get Angela out.
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