All Rubber Duckies Go To Heaven

Chapter Twelve

“So…Romeo and Juliet were a pretty cute couple, eh?” Aerin tried.

I sighed and slumped back down in my seat, twirling the black ball point pen with my fingers. We weren’t getting anywhere. Thank the holy higher power that this was just a participation grade.

We were supposed to be discussing on of the many works we’d read so far this year. Each student was to be graded on participation but I could tell the teacher wasn’t paying attention. I could probably start stripping on the desk and she still wouldn’t acknowledge me.

“January? Hello? Earth to New Year’s.” Aerin waved his hand across my line of vision and pulled me back into the moment.

“Sorry,” I shook my head briskly before eyeing him with a brow raised. “‘Earth to New Years’?”

He smiled proudly. “Yeah. Like, cause your name is January and it’s a month and—”

I held up my palm, laughing. “I get it. Jeeze, your mind must be a terrifying place.”

His profile darkened. “You couldn’t know the half of it.”

This creeped me out a little so I watched to see if he was joking.

After a few silent moments he jumped across the desks (torso only) and put his hand over mine, laughing.

“I’m just kidding!” As he eased back into his seat he tagged on, “Kind of. Jeeze, lighten up.

I glared at him, still stiff from his sudden movement. After discretely sliding my hands onto my lap I spoke through my teeth. “Not. Funny.”

He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. He shook his glossy black bangs out of his eyes. “Is too.”

“No it’s not,” I retorted in a sing song voice as I rolled my wide eyes and scribbled in my journal.

“You know it is.”

I kicked him under the desks, hitting the floor that was keeping his chair suspended on its back two legs. His hold on the desk slipped and the chair fell to the floor, taking Aerin with it. I gaped at him in horror, as did the rest of the now silent class.

“Ms. Caste and Mr. Lawson!”

Now the teacher decided to pay attention.

I groaned as Aerin scrambled up. He rubbed the back of his head, wincing as he “Yes m’am”ed.

“What exactly are you doing?”

My mind blanked as I tried to think up excuses.

Aerin didn’t miss a beat. “I was leaning back in my chair. Sorry. I just can’t do it anywhere else. All the other desks are connected and stuff. It’s quite annoying.”

Ms. Aims sighed and closed her eyes, letting her left hand support her forehead. With the other hand she waved Aerin off. “Fine. Just don’t do it again. This isn’t your living room.”

“Thank you Ms. Aims. I’m sorry for disrupting your class.”

“Yeah yeah. Get back to work.”

Aerin righted his chair before dropping back into it and very pointedly glaring at me.

I played dumb. “What?” my eyes widened innocently.

“My head hurts.”

“Aw,” I cooed as I started writing random lyrics on my journal. “Poor Baby.”

I rested my elbows on the desk and put my chin on the base of my palm. My fingers lightly touched the skin behind my ear with their tips resting on my neck. My pinkie finger brushed the top of my cheek bone.

“You absolutely owe me.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled (considering my jaw movement was restricted. The ink was reluctant to leave my pen so the words were thin-lettered and sharp, almost cutting through my journal cover. I paused after putting the final punctuation and Aerin slid the spiral out from under my wavering pen tip.

“Hey!” I reached for the journal but he snatched it away and sunk into his chair, hiding the journal on his lap.

“‘All because of you, I believe in angels. Not the kind with wings, no, not the kind with halos. The kind that bring you home when home becomes a strange place. I’ll follow your voice; all you have to do is shout it out.’ “He eyed me suspiciously. “Did you write that?”

I scoffed. “I wish. It’s a Rise Against lyric. ‘The Good Left Undone’. They’re the same band who sings ‘Swing Life Away’.”

“Oh. Cool. So what’s in here anyway?” He started thumbing through the journal.

“No sir!” I snapped and lunged completely over the conjoined desks and ripped the spiral from his hands. His grip on it ripped the back cover a little. I growled and smacked him repeatedly with the journal before regaining my composure and retreating back into my seat. “Hmph!”

“Jeeze,” he remarked as he rubbed his reddening arm and neck. “What in the world was that about?”

“This,” I growled, holding up the spiral. “is mine. It’s unbelievably personal and no one is allowed to read it.”

He nodded slowly. “I see.”

“Good.” My voice was stiff and I slid further into the desk, propped the journal spine on its edge, and started scribbling on the cover once more.

Aerin soon became fed up with my silence. His voice snapped it like a bullwhip. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,” I mumbled, shading in a half of a heart in the top left corner of my notebook.

“You never noticed me before I fell on you a few days ago, did you?”

I paused and brought the pen to my mouth, gripping its cap between my teeth. “No, I don’t think so,” I reluctantly admitted.

“Neither did I. You’re always so… into yourself.”

I looked to him with my eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”

“No!” his voice was full of shock. “I mean, not like that. Like, you’ve always been so seclusive. The only person you ever paid attention to was Jayden. It was like he was your world. From the outside it seemed like he was your hell but it was all you ever knew. Like if we found out life on the moon was possible would we leave Earth just to test the waters of a new environment?”

I opened my mouth to protest band dropped my pen but he continued without allowing me the chance.

“How long had you guys been dating?”

My argument got bumped from my head. “We…What?”

“When did you start going out with Jayden?” he clarified.

“Uh… we’re juniors now, right? So about the middle of freshman year.”

“Two years steady?”

Again I had to think. Aerin waited for my answer patiently. “No, not steady. I tried breaking up with him a few times.” I shuddered at suppressed memories.

“Tried?”

I sighed and put my forehead on the desk. “No comment.”

“I see.” He paused, letting silence soak into the tension like water into a sponge. “What do you have eighth?”

“Free period,” I mumbled.

“Do you do anything?”

“Uh, sleep in the library.” I laughed a little and straightened up. “Why?”

Aerin smiled. “I’ll tell you at lunch.” He pushed up out of his seat.

I opened my mouth to ask where he was going as soon as the bell rang.

He hugged me when I got out of the seat. This shocked me, as always, and my muscles tensed. They always did and I knew I wouldn’t react well to any touch for a while. I wondered if I’d ever be like I was before Jayden.

Ah, who the hell was I trying to kid?

He’d always haunt me.