It sucked.
Why he felt this way about me still remained a mystery. Yeah, I was a loner and everything. I had no friends. I was quiet. Not to mention the violet shade of my eyes was beyond startling. But I just couldn’t see any of these reasons being the cause behind his dislike for me. Even Kelsey Merritt had never pierced me with such withering looks.
The only reason I could come up with, as to why Alex hated me so much, was that maybe he blamed me for the fact that every time he sat down at our table in astronomy, the electric sensation sparked up. But I still wasn’t even sure if he could feel the electricity.
So where did this leave me? Nowhere basically. For the time being, my brain had taken up temporary residency in the Land of Confusion.
Regardless of my problems, life still moved on. School moved on. Mr. Sterling started pushing more and more for group participation, like he could tell Alex and I were having issues and wanted to force us to work them out with each other. But how was I supposed to work out my issues with Alex when I wasn’t sure what the issues were?
It didn’t matter, though, because Alex wasn’t having any part of it. He refused to work on any of the assignments as a group, crossing his arms like a two-year-old and not doing anything.
It was Friday when things finally took a shift in a different direction. Mr. Sterling had passed out a deck of cards with the constellations printed on them in gold ink. Now, as a group, we were supposed to be holding the cards up for one another and trying to identify them, but doing so would have required all three of us to work together. Instead, Alex had half of the cards and was identifying them to himself. He looked exceptionally good today, dressed in a dark grey Henley and faded jeans, his hair scattered messily just like always. But I was trying my best not to focus on how good he looked. And, let me tell you, it was working out real well for me too, because how good he looked was all I could focus on.
Across the table, Ailsin sat, texting away on her cell phone, her pale pink manicured nails hammering away at the buttons as she disregarded the assignment entirely. Over the last few days, I’d caught on that this blasé attitude seemed to be a trend for her, like she didn’t care at all about her grades.
The rest of the cards were on the table beside my elbow. I’d been doodling an inartistic rose on the cover of my notebook, daydreaming for the last fifteen minutes about what it would be like to be normal, while the electricity flowed lightly across my skin; a continuous reminder that normal was something I’d never be.
It was amazing how unfocused I was today. Normally, I’d have been all over the assignment, probably already halfway through the deck of cards. Lately though, my concentration had taken a drastic turn down Inattentiveness Lane.
Somehow I needed to get my concentration back.
As I added the thorns to the stem of my rose, Mr. Sterling appeared by our table, holding a pink slip of paper in his hand. Startled by his sudden appearance—and the fact that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to—I dropped my pen. It rolled off the table and landed on the floor as I scrambled to grab a card and pretend I’d been working on the assignment the whole time.
He frowned disapprovingly at me and set the pink slip down on the table in front of Aislin. “This came from the office for you.”
She snapped her cell phone shut and flashed him an innocent smile as she gathered up the slip of paper.
“No more texting,” Mr. Sterling mumbled, adjusting his tie as walked away.
Aislin read the paper over and then announced, “I have to go to the counselor’s office.”
Alex dropped the card he was holding and it floated to the floor like a feather. “What for?” His voice came out loud, his words rushed, causing a few people to shoot curious glances at us. Alex leaned closer to Aislin and lowered his voice. “Why do you have to go?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged and handed him the slip. “It doesn’t say why. It just says I have to.”
Alex skimmed the paper over, then crumbled it into a ball and tossed it on the floor. It brushed down Nina Monroe’s long, blonde hair during the downfall, and she turned around, her eyebrows furrowed as she ran her fingers through her hair.
Aislin flashed an apologetic look at her and scooped up the crumpled ball of paper from off of the floor. “Jeez Alex,” she said, smoothing out the creases. “You really need to stop freaking out about the tiniest things.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “And you need to stop butting into my business.”
Aislin pointed her finger at him as she got to her feet. “Be nice while I’m gone. I mean it.” She grabbed her phone and trotted down the stairs, the curls of her golden blonde hair swinging across her back.
And just like that, a tension filled bubble formed around Alex and I. Electric sparks danced all over my skin. My heart was like a jackhammer in my chest, feeding my already growing concern of how much more my heart could take before it would explode.
I needed to concentrate on something else.
I plucked a card from the deck and tried to center all of my attention on the gold patterned dots forming the constellation. Right away, I knew it was Andromeda but still flipped the card over to check the answer. Yep, Andromeda printed in bold black letters on the back. I slipped it underneath the bottom of the deck, took another card from the top, and stared at the set of gold dots. This one was a little bit trickier, which was a good thing because figuring out the answer took more of my attention. I could feel my heart rate slowing down and my body gradually relaxing. But then Alex began tapping his pen on the table over and over and over again. I don’t know if he was doing it just because, or if he was attempting to get under my skin.