The Short Hair Chronicles

Chapter 3: I'm Solely Into Dudes. Not Girls.

"Just listen to me, Amelia. You need to stay away from this chick. She's been watching you work out for the last hour." Janet said.

"What? That's not true!" I said angrily.

"Yeah, I've only been working out for fifteen minutes or so..." Amelia mumbled.

"Okay. So I exaggerated a little bit. Doesn't change the fact she's been watching you do squats for far too long." Janet said, glaring at me.

"That was because-" I cut myself off. I couldn't just say I was jealous of her.

"So, you admit it?" Janet hissed.

"Is it true, Erin?" Amelia asked, gazing at me with innocent eyes.

I gulped, "Well, yeah, but..." I trailed off. I couldn't just lie to her.

She put her hand on my shoulder reassuringly. "I appreciate your feelings, but I just don't feel that way about you."

I felt my mouth fall open a little bit and was at a complete loss for words.

"What are you saying to this perv?" Janet growled.

"Well, it seems she likes me! While I can't return her feelings, I should at least accept them." Amelia said.

"Wait, I think you're getting the wrong idea here! I'm not into girls." I said, trying to remedy the situation.

Amelia turned towards me, "No, it is okay to admit it. My cousin is-"

"No, no, no! I'm not like your cousin, or in the closet, or anything else like that. I'm solely into dudes. Not girls." I said, waving my arms frantically.

"Oh, Erin..." Amelia said with a slight frown.

"Look," Janet interjected, "I don't care if she's straight, gay, bi, or whatever. It doesn't change the fact she was looking at you sexually from afar."

"You don't get it. I was-"

"Look," Amelia said, interrupting us, "Let's all just stop this right now. We're disturbing other people and we can always talk about it later."

Janet gave me one last glare before stomping off. "Fine."

Amelia gave me a hug and slipped what I could only assume was her cousin's phone number before going after Janet.

"Shit." I mumbled. I didn't I really feel like exercising anymore.

~~~

The next day, I was both surprised and happy to have Leo come up to me and ask to speak with me alone.

"What do you need?" I asked, blushing.

"I heard about what happened yesterday." He said with a serious expression.

"Yesterday?" I was confused, but then my face darkened as I realized what he was talking about.

"Yeah. Amelia told me, with some input from Janet."

All I could do was nod.

"So, I don't know if you knew this, but I am dating Amelia right now. I don't have anything against you, and still hope we can be friends, but I don't want..."

I began to zone him out. So they really were dating, huh? I thought this would be like some romcom where I totally had misunderstood what they were talking about. Guess I couldn't be that lucky. My heart really, really hurt.

Before I knew it, Leo had finished his speech and was looking at me for sone kind of response. I nodded at whatever he had asked. He smiled at me, slapped my back, and told me he would love to hang out with me as a new friend. Then... He left.

I zoned out a lot through all my classes until lunch.

"Geez, what's up with you?" Lena asked, poking me with a plastic spork.

"Nothing much." I replied without really paying any attention.

"My ass," she replied, "Spill."

I sighed and told both her and Violet, who was sitting across from me, what had happened.

"Wow, Janet sounds like such a bitch." Lena fumed.

"Language," Violet said, "but I do sort of agree."

"Well, I guess I could understand if I saw some person staring at my friend's butt for 5 minutes straight." I said, as I rested my head on the palm of my head.

"Well, I'm mostly sorry about, you know, Leo." Lena said.

Violet nodded profusely. "You've liked him a while, haven't you?"

"Yeah," I stretched my arms out, "but I'll get over him."

Lena gave me a hard slap on the back. "Thataway, girl. There's other fish in the sea." She smiled at me. "Also, remember that today is Friday. That means all three of us are having a girls' day tomorrow."

"Oh, yeah," I mumbled, "I almost forgot."

Violet smiled sweetly. "Mhhmm! It's going to be a great time!"

I smiled. Oh, how I loved my friends.

Lunch eventually ended and I headed to my next class, Chemistry, with Lena.

We took a seat at a lab station near the back and chatted a bit before our teacher, Mr. White, began class.

"Alright. To start today off, I'll be assigning new lab partners." He announced.

A collective groan filled the room.

"Yes, yes. I know that I let you choose last semester, but I realized all most of you did was goof off with your friend when you should have been working. I feel the only way to solve this is to assign them myself."

"Maybe since we actually did work, he'll pair us up again?" She whispered to me hopefully.

I seriously doubted it, but I nodded anyways.

"Alright, so first off, Lena and Garret at station one." Mr. White said.

"There goes that," she said, gathering her things, "At least he's hot."

I stifled a laugh and waited for him to call off my name and partner. Finally, he got to me.

"Let's see. Next, at station 5 would be Erin and," He paused to readjust his glasses, "And Hugh."

Hugh and I made eye contact from across the room and I felt a pit form in my stomach.

It was going to be a long semester.