Reality is Elusive

Reality is Elusive (3)

I soon found out that Hayden was in almost every one of my classes today. Each time I was one of the first 10 people into class, and each time, he was the last. I would take a seat in the back left corner, and he would stalk towards me with a scowl on his face and murder in his eyes. Actually, it might have been hate in his eyes, but I couldn’t be sure.

After the second time, he didn’t even have to tell me to move anymore. He would just stand in front of me and look, and wordlessly, I got up and sat in the empty seat next to him.

Usually this would irritate me. Usually I would tell him to suck it up and sit somewhere else, but the strangest thing, was that I didn’t really care. I mean, it was a bit annoying sure, and I really liked being able to sit in the corner and look out the window, but for once, I was able to listen to that voice in the back of my head that spoke reason. The one that was saying, you came into the school year two weeks late. You missed your chance to dibs a seat. It would be unfair of you to sit where this guy had been sitting all year. Don’t be mad.

I was almost able to completely concentrate in class, if it wasn’t for the fact that I could very easily see the strong biceps of the man next, so close I could almost touch, I would have been able to focus without a hitch.

I could even sit still. I didn’t need to twitch, or fiddle, well, that was until last period, Algebra.

I was sitting in the back corner because for once, Hayden wasn’t in my class, and I couldn’t stop jiggling my left leg up and down. Soon, I was either drumming my fingers against the desk, or chewing my pencil. I couldn’t concentrate on the numbers in front of me for longer than a minute at I time, because I kept on getting distracted by other things.

First it was the teacher’s moustache. The teacher being female.

Then it was all the colourful spots on someone’s poster presentation for something mathematical that was hanging on the wall.

Eventually, I was trying to decide whether the girl in front of me had dirty blonde, or light brown hair. I finally just tapped her on the shoulder (while still tapping my desk), and asked her. She looked at me strangely at first, but then just smiled and told me she was blonde. I asked her if she was a dumb blonde, and she showed me the A plus on her math test from the previous week.

Her name was Hailey and she was really nice. I kept on tapping her shoulder with my pencil to ask her a random question to coincide with my random thoughts.  Eventually, she had completely turned around in her seat so that her back was to the teacher. I think she thought the me constantly changing topic was amusing.

 Once I got started, I couldn’t help but talk a lot. I could feel my blood pumping and heart beating, and it made it impossible for me to sit completely still. My constant chattering attracted the math teacher’s attention, and the fact that Hailey was facing the wrong side of the classroom, dutifully listening to me, meant that we both got an extra page of work for homework.

I felt extremely guilty for getting Hailey in trouble, but she just shrugged it off and told me that it was no problem. Math came easy to her and she enjoyed it, which meant that she wasn’t really being punished at all.

 Me on the other hand, well, if this lesson was anything to go by, then I was in big trouble. I wasn’t managing to concentrate at all, and was completely behind the rest of the class. This meant that not only would I have the usual homework to do tonight, I also had to do pretty much everything we were meant to do today, and the punishment work. I honestly had no idea how I was going to concentrate long enough to finish everything.

Hailey walked with me to my locker, which happened to be only a few away from hers. I was pretty much skipping around her the entire way, constantly talking. She was laughing at me, but I think I saw annoyance flash in her eyes every now and then.