The Buddies Rule | ✓

Chapter 5

On her right shoulder, she had a name tag, one that Alan had caught onto long before I had. "Astrid Free, is it?" Alan began before clasping his hands together in his lap. "I'm sorry for offending you, or for having to retake this class, but my friend and I would like to get back to the lesson, now." He quickly brushed the girl off before looking back down at his notes.

A frown took form on my face. Alan never, and I mean never, dismissed the opportunity to flirt with a girl. No matter what level of hatred she may have harbored for him. Though it had seemed like she had wanted to further the conversation. She was acting like she wanted to talk with him.

Astrid was completely his type, too. Tall, short blonde hair, blue eyes, sassy; I could go on and on. He and she seemed like they would fit perfectly together.

Again I say: everyone is still acting weird.

"Sure. I know how much you love Shakespeare, Alan." She dismissed with a short glare before turning on her heel and stalking off towards the front of the room. I could feel my fist moving towards Alan's arm before I even had time to think about it. Within seconds, my balled up hand had left a large red mark on Alan's upper right arm.

"Owe!" He hissed quietly, his own hand flying up to cover the area where I had smacked him. "Why?"

"What was that?" I said along with the ringing of the bell. I had known we only had another few minutes left in class, but the conversation with Astrid had made the time pass quickly.

"What was what?" Alan asked, his eyes wide with concern as to why I had hit him.

"You know what." I sneered before pulling my books into my arms. I quickly shoved the worksheets into the middle of my English textbook, not worrying for the moment about the large amounts of homework I had to do over the weekend. "Mister, can we get back to the lesson?" I mocked, getting an equal slap on my arm back from Alan.

"Stop." He threw his head back in distress. "I want to learn! Why else would I have gotten into college!"

I rolled my eyes at the mere sight of him. He was practically throwing a fit. "If you wanted to learn, you would have passed English three last year along with Astrid. Isn't she supposed to be in my graduating class, anyways? I think she doubled up her classes last year-"

"Quit bragging about the girl, already!" Alan cut me off as he came flying up from his chair. I'd struck a nerve, I knew that much.

"I was just saying," I mumbled. "But why are you so defensive about it?" Alan had been acting so weird around her. Not to say that he hadn't been acting weird all week, but it had gotten worse when she had come around. It felt almost as though there was a sort of history there that I didn't know about.

"No reason." He said sternly before waving off towards the door. "Let's just get out of here and go get some pizza or something. We're done with classes for the day." Alan took in a deep breath, the man taking slow steps around his desk as he waited for me to follow.

I pursed my lips together, allowing myself to look over my shoulder at the girl Alan had tossed aside. Alan ignored me and made his way towards the back of the classroom. Knowing him, he and Astrid had probably hooked up sometime last year and he never called her back. That had to have been why he had seemed so cool towards her.

I shook my head, silently deciding to chase after him.

Alan was far enough ahead of me that even speed-walking wasn't enough for me to catch up. When I finally did reach him, we were at the doors of the lecture hall that led out to the quad. "I'm not getting pizza with you," I said simply, my head held low as we walked out. The sun was still up, though it was dropping in the sky. It was after four now with our hour and a half long English class just ending.