Then It Hits Me

Chapter 7: Selfish Animals

"So you didn't at all see the way Ella was treating me?"

Today is Thursday and the school day eventually ended. I'm on Miller's truck, trying to convince him that Ella has turned to the dark side.

After our little argument, we wouldn't even make eye contact in the halls. Thankfully, no one made a big deal out of it since I am so under the radar lately especially since I was forced to hang out with Miller.

What really irks me is the fact that when I was told that I had to spend time with Miller, the whole school turned on me. Ella and Miller are a thing now and everyone is just filled with sunshine because the hottest guy in school and the cutest girl are 'totally, like, perfect'.

"Ella is the nicest girl in the world," he stares at the cloudless sky, "She would never hurt anyone intentionally."

Oh my gosh, he's still on cloud nine?

"You clearly didn't hear what she had to say to me," I hold the door handle as Miller turns into my driveway. I hop out of the car and try to ignore Miller's attempts at convincing me that maybe it was a dream.

Not a dream. Definitely not a dream.

"Hey mom," I smile at her when she opens the door.

She wraps her arms around me, "Have you met our new neighbours?" What.

Mom turns me around to face the house in front of ours. Usually, I would see these two stalkerish seniors who would sit on their front porch all day and watch people pass by. Today, I find a moving truck.

A girl with flaming red hair comes out of the truck carrying to huge boxes. She drops them on the ground to take a break. Then, she sees me and immediately recognizes me just as I recognize her. It's Ashley, the impossibly nice cheerleader.

Mom and I walk over to 'see if we can help', which is mom's idea. I just want to go up to my room and watch a good old episode of Vamps that I recorded yesterday.

"Ashley," I say with a big smile. She gives me one back, "Caitlin! Oh my gosh, it is you! I wasn't so sure from such a far distance. You're driveway is huge. We're neighbours! Yay!"

Yay.

Now you know exactly how nice and perky Ashley is. She's the only one who will actually speak with the 'losers' of the chess team or the 'nerds' of the mathletes. I wanted to be a bit sentimental and talk to the less popular kids at school, but Ella always managed to stop me before I even lifted a finger because she doesn't want her 'best friend' to become a gurd.

Another surprise comes my way when I see Jaxon come out of the truck with a pot. Jaxon is one of Miller's good friends and happens to also have the bad boy image. As any bad boy would, Jaxon has a mysterious side to him that literally works as a girl magnet. I don't understand how girls get all light-headed around him. All he does is go around school wearing a black leather jacket and an unlit cigarette in his mouth when the teachers aren't watching.

The only thing mysterious to me is why he always has the same box of cigarettes. It's like he has magic that duplicates and triplicates the boxes so that he doesn't have to pay. In fact, I think he might do that just so that he can save money on drugs.

"Jaxon!" Ashley calls out, "Come and say hi to our new neighbour!"

He grunts and drops the boxes lightly on the ground. His shoulders slump downwards when he is walking towards us. Jaxon's brown eyes flash with the same bit of recognition that Ashley wore.

"I've seen you somewhere," he puts his hand under his chin as he thinks deeply. Honestly, it's a little offensive to hear that he doesn't even know that I go to his school.