Song of the chapter - One Way Or Another by One Direction

After sort of meeting the boy of my daydreams, TJ or Tyler or whatever he told people to call him, we didn't say anything else to each other. I was basically completely freaking out. I mean, when does that even happen? It was weird, like something out of a movie or a dumb book, right?

So my tongue was out of commission, even talking with Robin and Bella. I was down to one word or nonsense answers like, yeah, or sure. I even said something like 'wumph' at some point. My brain was fuzzy with confusion and my heart was racing. My mouth went completely dry so that I had trouble swallowing. Basically I was a mess. I decided to stay away from TJ/Tyler to avoid making a fool of myself.

He stayed on the boys side of the bonfire and never attempted to talk with me again. But I could feel him looking at me, like a burning sensation on the side of my face. I did give in to temptation and glance over at him. I mean, I'm only human right? And he was really good looking, I could hardly believe how good looking he was. I kept thinking, why is he even looking at me? I figured he was trying to see if he could make me nervous. Yeah, he won that little game. Guilty as charged.

But when I looked at him, our eyes locked. Staring contest. A really weird staring contest. He didn't smile or look away, and he had a look on his face that I couldn't figure out. My mail-reading skills were so weak at that point. Finally, I couldn't take it any more, so I looked away. If he had smiled or something, or at least nodded his head, I don't know. Anything. But no, I got nothing from him. Zero vibes. It was really unnerving.

He ended up leaving before most of us, saying he had to get back and finish packing for his big move. I wondered where he was moving, and how far away it was. Then right away I shook those thoughts off, like it mattered right? Robin and Bella didn't say much about it while we were at the beach. But later, on the drive home, Robin said something that made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight.

"I think TJ liked you."

Great. Thanks for putting that thought in my mind. And there was no way for me to get in contact with him even if I wanted to. Which I didn't. Because he freaked me out.

It was like a cruel joke, and the universe seriously had it out for me. Here, Mallory. Here's the boy you created, the perfect boy for you. But now he's gone because you can't have him.

I kept telling myself that there were just a few coincidences. I mean looks and a name weren't that big of a deal. I'm sure there were lots of people named Tyler that looked like him and played soccer. I hardly talked with him at all and didn't know anything else about him. He could be a complete jackhole for all I knew.

The rest of the weekend was spent trying to put thoughts of TJ out of my mind. With little success. I had decided to just refer to him as TJ because calling him Tyler at that point seemed beyond weird. Bordering stalker or something. Even though that was completely ridiculous because I couldn't help it that he was exactly like the fictitious guy I had made up in my head. Like that was even my fault, right?

Anyway, at least I was able to avoid Seth for the most part. He was practically locked in his room and I was free to roam about. Ironically I still spent most of the time in my room studying. I believe I have already stated that homework was my life. At least it was pretty reliable, unlike the humans I encountered on a daily basis.

By Monday, I felt a little better. I was not as freaked out which was a good thing. Robin would have noticed and asked a million questions. And I so could not deal with that, I would have cracked under pressure and told her everything. No thanks. I would have liked to keep the facade of being more normal than I really was. So I went about my day in automatic pilot mode with my normal looking smile and typical classroom conversation.

The steaming pile of bad karma seemed to have disappeared because my locker was Mr and ex-Mrs. Sally free, Gina was absent and Luke never mentioned Lillian. Even if Luke had started telling me how in love with Lillian he was, I'm not sure it would have done much damage to me at that point. I was listening in class and doing what I needed to do but the back of my mind was going over every detail of the beach trip and TJ. Luke was just background noise.

The rest of the week passed in a blur. We had mid-year exams so every class was test, test, test. My brain was practically fried from all of the information I had to process, explain and elaborate on. By Friday, I was exhausted and ready for the three day break between semesters.

Sadly, I had to get through that Friday before the break could begin.

Remember the last Friday of school, the one before the beach? The one straight out of my worst nightmares? Yeah, this one was it's cousin. Not quite as awful but pretty close.

I slept through my alarm again and had to rush. Seth was back to glaring at me. I had a small suspicion it was because his grounding had just ended. He was back in action and probably spent the entire time locked in his room planning my demise. I kept trying to swallow the lump of nerves and NOT think about what he could possibly be planning.

First period was fine, which it always was. No one in that class had anything against me, thankfully. But Dylan was back to his locker tricks during passing period.

"Hey Sally, what's up?" dumb Dylan said as I approached MY locker.

"Nothing. Do you need something or do you just like leaning against my locker for no reason." I really needed him to get the heck away from me. I wasn't interested in another run-in with Mia.

"Nah, I'm just killing time." he responded nonchalantly.

"Oh, well, if you don't mind, could you move out of the way? I need to get my books for second period." And I didn't want to be late.

"Sure, sure," he said as he slid slightly to the left of my locker. He was now leaning with his head on the next locker, watching me as I opened mine.

"Did you need something?" I asked while crinkling my eyebrows. This dude was giving me some weird vibes and I didn't like it.

"So I heard something about you," he said as if it was no big deal.

Crap. What now?

"Let me guess, you're gonna tell me what you heard, right?" I hoped he was gonna tell me. I really didn't have the patience for twenty questions.

"If you want." Now he was smirking.

Double crap. This didn't look good for me.

"Just spill. Get it over with." Please, please just get it over with. I had half a mind to turn and run in the opposite direction. If you ignore it, it'll go away, right?

"Well, someone might have mentioned that you had a crush on someone." His eyebrows went up.

Like that was news. Who didn't have a crush on someone. I highly doubted that he had any idea who I really had a crush on. The only people who did were my girls, and they wouldn't tell anyone. Ride or die, remember?

I didn't answer him or give him any reaction, just looked right at him with as much strength as I could muster up. And most of that was fake because despite knowing that he couldn't know about Tyler or Luke, my heart was racing and I was starting to break out into a cold sweat.

"Actually, there are a few names floating out there."

Uh oh.

Again, no reaction from me, just a blank stare. I should take up poker.

"First, there's that guy, Luke." He had a big smile. And I just felt my stomach lurch into my throat. How the hell did he know that? Which friend ratted me out?

Keep calm, Mallory. Don't give anything away.

"Looks like I hit the nail on the head," he said.

Crap, so much for not giving anything away. Now he was just toying with me.

"Then there was that guy last year, on the water polo team, Bryan." He was tapping his chin as if he was trying to remember the enormous list of boys I had crushes on. And dang it if he wasn't hitting every one. Did he know about Jason, too? This was just getting worse by the second. I should have listened to my instincts and run when I had the chance.

"And then, just the other day, I heard there was someone new."

I was waiting for the most mortifying name to pass his lips. I swear if he said Tyler that there was something super strange going on. NO ONE KNEW ABOUT HIM!

Without waiting for me to say anything, as I hadn't said a word since his monologue began, he uttered a person I wasn't expecting him to say at all.

"Me!" He threw his arms out as if saying 'ta-da.' Jerk.

At least that one was way off base. I decided in that millisecond that to give him any other reaction than I had already been giving him would have told him more than I wanted him to know. So rather than laugh hysterically, like I wanted to, I just continued to blankly stare at him.

That seemed to work, I guess.

"Well, don't you have anything to say?" He looked disappointed.

Good.

"Just one question. Who told you all of that crap?" Maybe if I sounded like it wasn't true, he would believe me.

"Oh, it's just floating around. The last day or so actually. I'm not sure who said it." But his face told a different story. He knew who started that rumor.

So this time I gave him the 'you're full of crap' look. I must say, I was pretty good at that one.

He cracked faster than you could say "Mr. Sally."

"Seth," was his only reply.

Of course. Seth had looked like the cat who ate the canary for the last day or so. How he knew about all of my high school crushes was a little mystery to me. The only thing I could think of was he hacked into my phone or something. I don't remember what was still saved in my texts but it's possible those names had been used.

"Thanks, Dylan. A word of advice. Don't listen to rumors started by vengeful younger and dumber brothers. It just makes you look stupid."

Like I said, Seth and I had declared war after grated-cheesegate. I just needed to form a battle plan because this needed a quick and equivalent response or he would think he could just walk all over me.

Dylan got the message and took off. I grabbed my books and headed to second period. Seriously, I knew that one of those days I was going to be late and Senora Gomez would send me to Opportunity. That was where you went when a teacher kicked you out of class. It was supposed to be your "opportunity" to learn the error of your ways and start making positive choices. I had never been there, but it was common knowledge that the kids who did get sent there used it as a legal way to ditch class and could care less about making positive choices.

Thankfully, I made it to class on time and Senora Gomez didn't have to wield her magic Opportunity wand. Gina was back and still ignoring me. She didn't look good and I couldn't tell if she was still sick or if it was something else. Maybe she had as strange of a week as I had just had. I felt bad for her, but any attempt I could make to try to help her out would most definitely be rejected.

Exams were over for all of our classes at that point, and some of the teachers had already started to pass them back. I did well in math and Spanish. As I made it into English Lit. I saw that Mrs. Thurber had our stack of essays to pass back. I was really curious how Luke did on Gulliver's Travels. I really hoped that he took my advice and didn't use the Jack Black movie as his subject.

Mrs. Thurber passed them back while the class sat quietly. I'm not sure this class had ever been that quiet. I guess everyone was worried about their grades. I figured what's done was done, it wouldn't help to worry anymore.

I got my essay on Jane Eyre and was happy to see I scored an A. Not surprising because I was a pretty good writer. I glanced over at Luke to see if he was giving away any clues about his score. His face was blank, just looking over his paper. I kept watching to see if he would glance back at me.

He finally did, and got a small smile on his face. Turning his paper for me to see, his smile became a huge grin.

B. I smiled back at him, glad that he did well. He was mostly a C student in that class, so a B was great for him.

We didn't really talk much after that. Class ended and the day dragged on. Lunch with my girls, however, was more than interesting because apparently the gossip train was carrying my name that day, as we witnessed with Dylan earlier.

"Mallory, you'll never guess what I heard about you today!" Stacy gushed.

"Let me guess, I have crushes on half of the school," I replied drolly.

"Well, not exactly. More like just three guys. And two of them were right on," she said with less enthusiasm.

"Yeah, Dylan cornered me at my locker. Told me all about it, and how he thought I had a crush on him too."

"What?" Judy shouted. She was normally pretty quiet so the fact that she shouted proved how unreal the whole situation was.

"I know, right?" I half laughed while shaking my head.

"The question is," Robin interjected, "how did he know about the other two."

"The answer is..." I paused for dramatic effect, "Seth." My girls all looked at me with their jaws dropped.

Yeah, he's a douche and once again, he's going down. By the look on their faces, my girls were all in.

^^^^^

Shouldn't she love Fridays?!?! Oh well.

Tap that star ⭐️ if you liked it! Please comment and I will respond 😊

So here's what's up...I may not be updating as often as I have been. Now that the school year has started (I'm a teacher) I don't have as much time to write as I did.

I don't want to write boring chapters. And I'm really not into fillers, all of my chapters are plot driven.

To summarize, I will update at least twice a month until I get into a better groove. Sorry to disappoint you! I ❤️❤️ you guys! Thanks for sticking with me. 😊

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