Superior

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Delaney

For the rest of the weekend, I deliberated whether or not to meet Caleb in the library. Past experience had taught me that Populars were nothing but cruel, but could Caleb's actions really be predicted from Carlie's history? Maybe, if I trusted him, I'd find him to be a perfectly acceptable human being.

Or maybe not.

In the end, I chose to give him a chance. I could be out of that library in a second if my original suspicions proved to be correct. If he really just needed a tutor, then fine; I would tutor him. If not, I would leave and forget I ever spoke to him in the first place. My reputation was something I was not willing to compromise.

It was as simple as that.

"Where are you going?" Lizzy asked, her eyes narrowed. She watched suspiciously as I stood up and brushed grass off my pants.

"Just to Mr. Slate's room," I lied, gathering my things. "I told him I'd help put away some supplies from last period." Being the terrible liar I was, I'd planned out what I would say to Elizabeth.

"Oh, well if you're going to do that, I think I'll like, go hang with Samantha Markowitz and Alyssa Page for the rest of lunch?"

I smiled. "Yeah, go ahead. You don't have to ask, you know."

"But, like, I mean, I could come with you..."

"Lizzy, you know you don't want to," I said matter-of-factly. "Go hang out with Samantha."

Liz grinned and shouldered her bag. "You're right. I wasn't serious. Bye, Del!"

I waited until she had turned the corner before heading toward the library, which happened to be in the opposite direction of Mr. Slate's class. I passed no one on the way, and the library was void of students. Though I looked around for a librarian, there didn't seem to be one. It was completely empty—which might have been why Caleb chose it.

After a moment of hesitation, I picked a table in the back corner of the room, behind some shelves of science fiction tab-books. The tablets were lined up carefully in alphabetical order, their plastic cases shining. I picked one up at random and turned it on but didn't get past the title page, because a moment later, I heard the library door open. Immediately, I froze.

The door swung closed again, but there was no indication that anyone had entered. Standing on tip-toe and looking through a gap in the shelves, I saw that it was, in fact, Caleb. He was standing by the door, frowning.

"I'm back here," I called, with some trepidation. Chewing on my bottom lip, I sat back down. A moment later Caleb appeared around a shelf.

"Hey," he said, smiling, and I nearly gasped. I'd never seen him up close, and at the party I was half blind, so I didn't get a good look at him.

The boy was gorgeous.

I suddenly felt self-conscious. The girl Caleb saw at the party was all dressed up as an alter ego. The girl he was looking at now was wearing faded jeans and a black hoodie, no makeup, and her hair was a frizzy mess. Compared to his glowing olive skin, bright green eyes, and thick black hair, I looked like crap. I'd never been one to worry about how I looked, but now I was more aware of my lack of beauty than ever.

In a moment of weakness, I hoped my changed appearance wouldn't scare him away. Then I very nearly slapped myself for daring to care about what he thought of me.