With You┃Dylan O'Brien ⓵

Chapter Three : For the First Time in Forever

"You must be the new girl they told me about," he says. "Anita, is it?"

I nod.

"So you took AP Chem back in wherever you came from, yes?"

"Yes, I did."

"Great, I'm Mister Luthy. You should be just about where we are if your school system did things correctly. We're just starting on Covalent Bonds."

"We had just started the chapter on that before I left."

"Excellent, then it shouldn't be too hard for you to catch on with what we're doing," he looks pleased. "Now, we have partners in this class but not assigned seats. So basically every time you walk into my class you're picking your partner based on who you sit next to. Make sense?"

I nod.

"Usually people tend to sit with the same people but every now and then there's a mix-up."

The bell rings loudly, and I look at the clock on the wall. It reads 12:07, so now I know when lunch ends. Mister Luthy goes to his desk to prepare some power point he has. Not knowing what else to do, I stand at the front of the room as people slowly start to trickle into the room.

I recognize just a couple people from my other classes, but nobody I know by name walks through that door crushing my hopes of having a partner that I know. But then Dylan walks through the door and I'm just elated that someone I know is in this class. He walks over to a table in the back corner and starts taking things out of his backpack.

Some guy I don't know taps me on the shoulder and when I look, he has a smirk upon his face.

"You're really pretty," he tells me.

"Thank you," I say quietly. I'm so awkward when guys compliment me.

"Do you want to be my partner?", he asks and for some reason I don't want to say yes; something tells me not to be this guy's partner. I can't explain it.

"Sorry, I'm already working with someone else," I lie quickly.

"Oh," he looks disappointed. "Who?"

Crap, I wasn't counting on him asking that! I come up with an answer quickly, "Um, Dylan."

"Seriously?", he raises his eyebrows.

"Why's that so hard to believe?"

"Because that guy never works with anyone, he's always alone. Kind of a weirdo. But I guess no one could say no to you, huh?"

I stare back at him, "I guess not." Unsure how to continue the conversation, I head straight toward where Dylan is sitting, and I wonder how he's going to take this if he apparently always works alone.

As I take the seat next to him, he stops tapping his pencil on the desk and turns to watch me.

"What are you doing?", he asks me.

"Being your partner," I tell him.

"I don't remember you asking me."

He doesn't sound very angry but I still worry that he is.

"Well," I begin. "You're the only person in here that I know by name. Plus I think we're sort of friends by now, right? Or... maybe.. not..."

He stares at me and smiles a little, "I think you worry yourself a little too much there."

"Why do you say that?", I ask, but I'm secretly relieved that he's not mad.

"You should have seen your face. You looked scared that I was going to reject you."