Dichotomy

Chapter One

She scrawls love on the white board in a pink marker, going as far as to doodle a heart beside it.

"What is it, class? Peyton?"

I jump, startled. "Um, an intense feeling of deep affection?"

The class laughs, but Ms. Henderson shakes her head, disappointed. Ms. Henderson was often disappointed in my work.

She said I was a sweet, smart girl, but I was unable to express emotion in my work.

Honestly, her criticism sounded a lot like something my ex-boyfriends might tell me.

Bri shoots her hand up. Bri never does anything half-assed. Even her hand has to be fully extended when she raises it. I roll my eyes, I can't help it.

"Brianna?"

"It's what connects us all together. Without love, everything would be chaos," she muses, her eyes landing on Edgar.

I roll my eyes again. I'm not usually an eye-roller, but Bri brings it out in me.

Bri is a pretty damn good friend. That doesn't mean that some of her cheesy opinions don't annoy the hell out of me.

My third realization is that Ms. Henderson's assignments are utter shit.

That realization was a long time coming, though. There are only so many haikus about inner peace and essays about deepest secrets one can take.

"I want you to partner up and interview your partner. This won't be due until the end of the semester, and you'll have all of the time to work on it in and out of class."

She continues, "That being said, I'm expecting amazing work, class. I want to know all about your partner's views on love, their experiences with love, and what role love plays in their life. This is worth one hundred points, your last grade for the semester. Get to work, everyone."

I turn around and pull out a piece of paper.

"Okay, Bri, do you want to go first or-"

I see her leaning over a piece of paper with Edgar.

Fuck.

"Who's name is Edgar, anyways?" I mumble to myself as I turn back around.

"Looks like it's you and me, Waters." I turn around to see Seth Torres.

"Oh," I force a smile. Seth exists. I exist. We just don't exist together.

As hard as I've tried, Seth is hard to ignore and harder to forget. I can't help noticing how every new school year he shows up looking even better than the year before.

I guess it was impossible to miss how he started to fill out his dumb polo shirts, or how he learned how to calm his dark brown curls. When he shed his glasses for contact lenses the entire female population realized just how light blue his eyes are, and we all turned our heads when he pulled off a sweatshirt and his shirt rode up to reveal his new, toned stomach.

Like I said, it was hard not to notice Seth. Which is just the opposite of me, and maybe that's why he ditched me freshman year.

In theory, we were best friends. That's what our parents thought. Honestly, it was what I had thought during my freshman year when I told him everything about me.

During the summer, I guess he got sick of me. He started going to parties, and I spent the whole summer with my awful boyfriend Kyle.

Kyle and I had dated part of freshman year, and part of the summer. I think I just wanted to be able to say I was dating someone, and in retrospect it was a dumb decision.