Tap, tap, tap

My pencil seems to be having more fun than I am as Mr. Gurge continues blabbing about world literature I wish I give two fucks about.

The bell rings before Mr. Gurge assigns any homework so I rush out of the classroom and towards my locker so I have an excuse if he asks next class.

"Hello beautiful," a voice I can recognize a thousand miles away says in my ear.

My face immediately heats up because I know exactly who it is.  Ryan moved to Texas for a year since his parents are divorced.  He felt that he wasn't spending enough time with his dad and saved enough money to get a plane ride there.  Oh and not to mention, just a tiny itsy bitsy fact, I liked him since 7th grade.  It was sad and I'll admit it but this year, I vowed that I would be a whole new person.  Ready to try new things like to get over Ryan.

I turn around and hug him as I climb on top of him with a huge grin.  "And you didn't think shooting me a text would be helpful?"

He laughs and I let him go from a tight embrace.

"How was Texas?" I say as we walk towards our lockers.

"It was amazing," he says grinning.  "There were so many hot chicks like with every color hair, one girl had this electric blue hair and was totally into me," I roll my eyes playfully.  "On a more serious note, I got to spend a lot of time with my dad for once."

"That sounds so great, Ryan.  Amanda and I missed you a lot though," I say trying to open my locker, Ryan leaning against the lockers to my left.  He stares off at the lockers across the hall and messes up his hair just enough so it looks like he just woke up but still meant to leave it that way.

"You probably forgot I even existed.  I mean, it has been a whole year," he says holding the door to my locker open for me.

"Only a few times," I joke.

A pained expression flashes across his face.  Immediately I say, "I'm joking, how could I ever forget about you?" I say pinching his cheeks like a child.

He smiles.  "Do you want to get icecream with me?"

I give him a seriously look.  "Oh c'mon Julie," he whines. "It's on me."

Oh how can I ever pass up free food.

"Okay but we aren't ditching school.  Meet me here after last period."

School goes by slowly leaving me to think about life in the middle of class.  I thought about my mom.  I thought about Amanda.  I thought about adventurous things I can be doing instead of sitting in this damn classroom. 

I thought about Ryan.

I now wondered why my stomach never fluttered when he looked at me and how I didn't care about how bad my hair was when I was around him as much as it did a few years ago.

I though about-

Tap, tap, tap

The very familiar sound of pencil tapping floods my thoughts.  I turn to my right and see Ethan, his face containing no emotion.  His fingers tap the pencil at a faster speed than I would normally do. I tell myself to be annoyed at the sound but it did the opposite.  I felt a rush of calmness instead.  He clenches his jaw and I watch as his jawline moves up and down, his eyes staring straight ahead.  How can something so stupid be so beautiful.

He looked almost as miserable as me and I immediately look away just in case he turns around and catches me.

"Okay class," Mrs. Hemlock claps her hands to get everybody's attention. "I decided that instead of an essay due, I would assign a project.  I want everybody to work in a group of two," she says as everyone claps in happiness.

"I will give the rest of the period to get together with whoever you want to work with and talk about what you want to do for your project.  Remember, it has to be on a topic in history that we have learned this past semester."  She waves her hands around and turns to the board to write useless facts that no one ever looks at.  Of course, lucky for me, all of my friends and people I actually give a shit about are all in separate classes leaving me as a loner.

I examine the room to see who I can actually stand and who I can't.

Not.

Not.

Nope.

Never.

Not.

Not ever.

I give up, the whole class is full of 4 cliques that happen to be in the same class.  There are the dumb chicks.  The Pokemon Kids that don't seem to realize that Pokemon stopped being a trend 10 years ago.  The gamers that are half asleep all the time.  And the boys.  I don't know what they are honestly.  Made up of Noah, Ricky, James, and Ethan, they sort of ruled the school.

And then there is me, just a lonely girl sitting quietly in her seat with hands folded infront of her and on the desk looking around curiously.

"Hey," someone says as they sit in the seat next to me.  The seat where Ethan would always sit.  I turn around and see him talking with tge rest of the boys.

"Hi," I replied.

He chuckles.  I said hi and it was probably the lamest thing he has heard from any girl in the school.

"I'm Noah," he says smiling at me.

"Yeah I kn-" I say as my eyes slowly widen.  He probably thinks I am some weird stalker now.  "-ooow," I finish, trying so hard not to make a fool of myself.  "Weren't you the kid that decided to run around floor 3 butt naked because it was a dare?"

"Yup, the one and only," he says smirking at me.

I force a laugh and everything goes silent.

This is the part where I test out my amazing social skills on him but I stay silent looking at the clock and the second hand slowly ticking away.

"Uhm, so," he pauses trying to string his words into a sentence.  "Do you have a partner for the project yet?"

I am taken aback.  I have not once shared a syllable with him and he wants to be partners with me?

I turn to the back of the class and to his friend group that quickly turn away and pretend to laugh about something.  I count.

One

Two

Three

And I turn back to Noah

Four

There were an even amount of them, why does he go out of his way to talk to me?

"So you are going to ditch your best buds for me?"

"On my defense, Ethan wants to ask some hot chick in the room which leaves me," his eyes flickering from his friends to me and back.  "Please?" he pouts.

"Sure," I say.

He bites his lip and nods as he gets up from his seat and back to his friends without addressing me anymore.

I don't bother turning around because I know that when I do I would regret saying anything to Noah.

Instead, I hear it.

It's almost as worse as seeing it because the voices echoes through my head.  I try to block the sounds out without actually physically doing it which, now, sounds funny, but I still try.

Ethan snickers in the back. "No way, bro.  Did she really?"  I hear them high-five and the bell rings as I finally let a breath I didn't realize I have been holding out.

____

"I'm finally free," I say smiling as I walk with my best friend, Amanda, to my locker.

"Don't be too happy, we still have one more day to go before the weekend," she says looking at herself in my locker mirror.

Somehow that makes me think of the history project and...

Ugh, Noah.

"Shit," reality hits me as I realize the history project is due on Monday. We exit the school and thankfully find Noah...

getting all cozy with a girl in his car.

I roll my eyes and storm towards him.  Once I reach his car, I bang on the window just before their lips meet, making me almost gag involuntarily.

He rolls down the window, "what the fuck, man."  He looks at me like he already forgot who I was and that I was even in his history class.

I just stare at him and we have a staring contest for a few seconds. He mumbles a few curses realizing what I'm talking about.

"I'll text you my address," he says before rolling the window down resuming his heated session.

I shake my head.  "Unbelievable."