Blue Moon.

Chapter 10

Morning came and when I picked Cassie up for school, we were both fighting back yawns. Our daiquiri night had gone on longer than usual, mostly due to Missy demanding a daiquiri of her own, and then more conversation between all of us, laughing into the night until the clock struck 11 o'clock.

Of course my mom was rather bothered that I didn't call her to tell her I'd be staying late, but she got over it within five minutes, like she always does, and left me to sulk in my bedroom, staring blankly up at my ceiling. Part of me was content, my stomach especially, and due to the cheeriness that always surrounded me whenever I spent time with the Mitchells; and then a part of me was preoccupied.

I wondered about Liam and our conversation about him that night. Joni's advice was that maybe he just needed someone to show that they care, but if he wanted someone to care, why would he say and act the opposite?

After all he had said very clearly that he didn't want to make friends. Why would he say that if it wasn't true?

One thing was for sure though; I wasn't going to give up easy. There was something about Liam that told me there was so much more than meets the eye. Inside I knew there was a side of him just begging to be seen, and he was waiting for someone to work hard enough to find it.

During communication arts the next morning, we mostly discussed the Grapes of Wrath, or rather everyone else besides Cassie and me. We spent the majority of class with our heads down and our eyes eased shut, hoping to cram in a little more sleep before our next class; PE.

Unlike Cassie, an athletic volley ball player, I was completely uncoordinated unless it came to kick ball. All 12 years of my physical education career I was the one picked last for a dodge ball team, last to finish the mile run, the girl who lingered out in the baseball field kicking around sand instead of running after the fly ball that had just soared over her head, and the one who slacked off during every torturous activity the coaches inflicted upon us.

But like I said, Cassie was athletic, so she tried her best to get me to apply myself inside the gym.

Like always we did stretches for the first few minutes of class, twisting, bending, and doing jumping jacks until all our muscles were loose. Then they sent us out of the gym and outside where we were to run two laps around the track, my least favorite part of the class.

The cold breeze outside nipped at all our exposed cheeks, paralyzing our lungs with its icy air. Cassie jogged at my side while I wheezed on, trying to keep up with her 'light' jog. Everyone was dressed in the same grey Peterborough high shirt, and the customary black shorts. However now that fall was showing its face, more and more students were wearing black sweat pants, keen to not freeze into a popsicle while we did our morning jogs.

"So, was your mom mad that you got home so late?" she said to me as we finished our first lap around the track. One more to go.

"Yeah, but she wasn't mad for long." I shrugged and she nodded.

"That's good. Sorry again for my parents grilling you about Liam." She said easily, however my one sentence to her in the midst of our jog had already left me breathless.

"Nah, it's alright. Not much goes on in my life; I think it's only fair they are notified when something does come up." I chuckled shakily, pressing forward, almost halfway finished with the last lap.

"When you left, they told me they hope things work out. I mean obviously right now you're just working for a friendship, but they think it's time you get a boy friend." she laughed and I glared playfully at her.

"I could say the same to you." I smirked and she rolled her eyes.

"I'm so busy I don't have time for a boyfriend. Now that volley ball is starting, I'm barley even going to have any me-time." she sighed and I wrinkled my eyebrows.

This was true. Volley ball season was like a blood thirsty vampire, sucking all the life out of Cassie every time it reared its ugly face during the fall. "Why do you do it when it stresses you out so much?" I gasped, my knees aching for the finish line.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah sure, practicing sucks, but I love playing the games. When I'm in the game, it's kind of like everything disappears. I forget who I am, and so does everyone else. Out on the court, my team and I are like machine cogs, and it's like I finally fit in." our feet landed on the finish line, and Cassie looked around with satisfaction; we weren't the last to finish this time.

"That was deep, really." I chuckled, patting her on the back before bending over with my hands planted on my knees, trying to take in gulps of air. I heard someone snigger to my left, and as I straightened up I saw Jake McCubbin looking pointedly at me, obviously amused.

"You run with two left feet, Locke." He hollered at me, all his football player flunkies snickering as he said so.

I rolled my eyes at him and turned away, following the rest of the class back inside the school gym, already dreading the rest of class.

Of course, Coach Haskin and Mrs. Lang had planned for us all to play ultimate Frisbee, a sport definitely way up there on my Over My Dead Body to do list, so the rest of PE was like hell.

Five minutes before the bell was going to ring, Mrs. Lang led all the girls back into the locker room, giving us more time than usual to change out of our uniforms and back into our school clothes. Cassie and I walked back through the gym, newly dressed and smelling fresher, and waited patiently for the bell to ring.

Once it did we made our way out of the gym and towards the senior locker area, stopping at our own lockers to gather our things. I was going to psychology, and Cassie was going to astronomy. We said goodbye and parted ways to our own classes.

Psychology wasn't too interesting today, Mr. Blanche using the majority of the time having us write notes, and next trigonometry, which was torturous as always, Mrs. Sullivan in a worse mood than she usually was.

"Homework, Aubrey." She droned down at me, her hooked nose casting a shadow down her pointed chin, making her look menacing. She was a woman in her mid 40s perhaps, with brittle auburn colored hair that she always had clipped to the back of her head. She had shallow cheeks and ocher, deep-set eyes.

"Here." I sighed, plucking two work sheets out from my trig binder and handing them to her. Her eyes made a swift cursory glance over my homework before she marked something onto the sheet laying on top of her clip board which she always had in her arms at all times.

"I've told you before; do not doodle in the margins of your paper. I'll start tossing your homework into the trashcan if you don't catch on soon." she said monotonously, moving on to Penny Larson, the girl who sat next to me.

I rolled my eyes and glared at the clock, my body aching for the bell to ring. To my relief, it rang as I stared down the clock, and like lightning I grabbed my things and started off for my locker where I pitched my trigonometry things into.

I walked at turbo speed to the lunch room and fidgeted impatiently all the way through the lunch line just to get my pear before flouncing off towards the square table I usually sat at. I sat down, and put my purse onto the table, turning the smooth yellow pear over in my fingertips. I sat there, staring eccentrically at the seat diagonal form me that Liam usually sat in, but as lunch dragged onward, and I saw no sign of him, I realized he wasn't coming.

I did a quick, disheartening scan of the lunch room before I concluded that he wasn't here. With that I looked crestfallen down at my pear and took a bite, my lower lip jutting out in a pout as I chewed.