10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love

Lost It

It sucked how both of them shared almost all their classes, Elizabeth thought to herself as a daily practice during PE. What was that guy doing just now in Homeroom? Shaking her head, she went back to her golf ball. Men. The class was playing putt-putt, a dreary and dull sport when everybody sucked; well, almost everybody, she thought with an evil grin.

WHACK! Elizabeth hit the ball just hard enough so that it literally bounced into the sinkhole. The class groaned. They were tired of her getting the ball in on the first shot.

Vincent came up, took his stance, and hit the ball; a little too softly. It slowed to a halt right at the hole. If the wind blew, it would probably topple in. He growled under his breath. Elizabeth this, Elizabeth that. What did she think of him now? Did she suspect him? Was she disgusted?

Didn't he have anything else to think about it?

"Don't be a sore loser," Elizabeth chastised with a smirk from behind the fence. "It's not like my being better than you is a new thing."

Vincent glared daggers at her. As if he didn't already know! The two were closely tied in school, but she always managed to get on top. If he got 100% on a test, she'd get the extra credit. If he ran a mile in 5 minutes, she'd run it twelve second faster. If he laughed with his friends during break, she'd pass by with a pitying look on her face. She infuriated him. She intrigued him. She made him laugh, and she made him worried.

"Uh, Vincent," a girl asked tentatively during passing period when he was off to Biology. "Biology's the other way." Cursing himself, he turned around and found his classroom. FOCUS, he told himself, just as he walked into the door. Right. The handle.

A few girls behind him snickered. God save him.

"Vincent, dude, you are LOSING it!" Andre, his best friend, guffawed during lunch on the rooftop. The two liked to spend their lunches where nobody else could bother them. Andre's flashy dirty blonde hair and sky blue eyes matched up with Vincent's reputation in school attracted WAY too much attention. If only that was the problem today.

Vincent groaned. As if he didn't already know he was going insane! In Biology, Vincent had managed to ignore Elizabeth, until they had to take each others' pulses as lab partners. The look on her face when she measured his pulse! What was wrong with him?

In Advanced History, the one class where SHE wasn't in with him, Vincent had been assigned a biography project... on Queen Elizabeth of England. In Advanced Trigonometry, Vincent accidentally wrote Elizabeth's name on his worksheet, and when the two traded papers to grade, Elizabeth asked in an annoyed voice, "Are you making fun of me?" Wasn't it the other way around?

"You, my friend," Andre chuckled as he sipped his orange juice, "are going crazy over that Elizabeth. Man, what is wrong with you? She's not even hot! Jeremy told me everything that happened this morning."

"I'll have to thanks Jeremy for that later," Vincent muttered.

Andre faced him with a serious look. "Are you falling for her?"

Vincent stared. Him? Fall for an unattractive girl like Elizabeth? Impossible.

"It's not like that," he sighed. "Elizabeth's different from everyone else. She's..." Vincent searched for words as he took a moody bite out of his sandwich. "She's like this black dot on a white paper that I can't look away from."

Andre looked up at the sky with a thoughtful look. "I think that you'll stop thinking about her if you just avoid contact with her. Ask the principal for a schedule change and after the festival's over, you'll go back to the way you were before. Until then, act the same way you did before you met that vixen."

Vincent smiled. "Yeah; I think I'll do that."

That Vincent was really off today. Elizabeth was annoyed. Was he messing with her? Trying to get her to trust him? Striding down the halls, Elizabeth flew to the library at a quick pace, wanting to go over the game plan with Vincent for the festival, which was only two days away. Tomorrow, they'd have to get the project's final material... something she did not look forward to. Despite being on top of things, they had to use this Self-Study time to the fullest.

Opening two large oak doors, Elizabeth speeded into the library, and saw that Vincent had grabbed a window seat. He was staring out at the campus grounds with a nonchalant attitude that had girls squealing behind a bookshelf nearby. Walking up to him, Elizabeth got started.

"I finished making the wheel last night and I'm going to get the eggs tonight at some supermarket nearby but-" she scowled. "Are listening?"

Vincent, who hadn't even turned towards her, stared from his peripheral vision and nodded once. Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. What was up with him now? Is this what they called puberty?

"Anyways," Elizabeth continued. "We shouldn't start setting up the stuff tomorrow like the others, since the equipment will be at the gate and I think people might ruin it on accident. However, that means we'll have to cut it really close, so we need to have everything ready by tomorrow."

Silence. "Don't you want to know what we don't have yet?"

Vincent shrugged. That was it.

Turning, Elizabeth strode out of the library. "Come to me when you remember what it takes to be my partner," she called over her shoulder. He didn't want to work with her? Fine. She wasn't about to force herself to cooperate with some self absorbed jerk.

Vincent watched her leave. Damn it, that woman was too hard to figure out. Most girls would swoon, but she actually got pissed off! Sighing, Vincent got up and followed her trail, leaving the library before his façade broke.

Seeing her figure round a corner, Vincent sped up and was soon on her tail.

"Liz!" he called. Elizabeth spun around, an angry flare in her eyes.

"DO- NOT- CALL- ME-"

"Yeah, sorry about that," Vincent interrupted. "Listen, I was in a bad mood earlier. Want to tell me what you were trying to say?"

Elizabeth huffed, and then tapped her foot in an exasperated manner. This guy and his mood swings...

"I was trying to get you to go shopping with me tomorrow after school."

Elizabeth ask him out on a date? Andre was right. He'd finally lost it.