A Perfect Circle

05 | disaster

05

D I S A S T E R

A WEEK PASSED, and things in my head were finally starting to calm down.

Well, kind of.

No, I hadn't told Jenny about the Ren kiss, and now that so much time had passed... I wasn't even sure if I should.

It sounded awful. I was painfully aware of that. Keeping this secret from my best friend was like carrying a boulder with me everywhere I went. But the more I got used to the idea of never telling her, the more pieces of that boulder chipped away.

It would ruin our friendship. I knew it would. Jenny was still bent out of shape over Ren, so I decided that it would be best not to tell her – at least not until she was over him. Maybe then she'd see reason. I mean, technically, I hadn't kissed Ren... he had kissed me. But I had the strong feeling that if I tried to explain that to her now, the only word she'd hear was kiss.

I held my flute case as I walked to Graphic Design. Gemma Alderson – Heather's best friend and head of the drama club – plastered something against a billboard in the hall. We didn't know each other that well so I wasn't gonna say hi, but she jumped in front of me. I jolted as I met her sea-green eyes.

"Miss Ella Volkov," she said. Her auburn hair was in a messy bun atop her head. "The Halloween play. Are you interested?"

My eyebrows tugged together. It was strange that such a dramatic, school-oriented girl was friends with Heather, who only cared about partying, cheerleading and money.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm looking for people to help with the set, and aren't you in the art program?"

"The music program, actually." I tucked my hair behind my ear. "I kinda have no artistic talent."

A heavy arm draped across my shoulder, and I almost flinched – until the oaky scent of Old Spice filled my nostrils.

Ren.

He put half of his weight on me, threatening my knees to buckle, but I stood firm.

"Ella would love to help with the play," he said.

I pushed him off of me. "I'm actually quite awful with a brush."

His dark eyes fell on me. "Well have you ever tried?"

Gemma raised an eyebrow. "You two are weird. Ella, are you helping or not?"

"She'd love to," Ren said, before he put his arm back around my shoulder and guided me down the hall.

I stepped away from him with more force this time. "What the hell, Ren? What if Jenny had seen that?"

He walked ahead of me and entered the computer lab. "Oops."

I looked over my shoulder with paranoia shaking me. In the past week of school, Ren had been more than a little friendly, which was pissing me off as much as it was giving me butterflies.

He didn't exactly hit on me, though there were flirtatious undertones in the things he said sometimes. I did my best to ignore that and not show him what he was doing to my heart. Ren and I couldn't happen. We just couldn't. The small level of "friendship" we had now was bordering on unacceptable, but what was I supposed to do? Tell him to fuck off? I wanted to keep him a secret from Jenny, but I didn't want him to hate me.

Feeling all moody and scatterbrained, I walked to the edge of the room and sat down at my usual spot. The walls of the lab were lined with computers, while a round table of them was set up in the middle. I sat against the wall while Ren helped himself to the spot beside me and dumped his bag on the floor.