Seven Minutes in Hell

Chapter 31 ~ Exposing

Katherine became zoned out, oblivious to the world around her. She blinked slowly, unable to keep her eyes open for any longer. The heavier her eyelids felt the more impossible it became to listen to Mrs.Grimaldi ramble on about chemistry. Her head slowly lowered down to the table, forgetting where she was, drowning out the lecturing tone and the hazy chatter from students that traveled through the classroom.

A hand grabbed at her forearm, shaking her awake and rattling up the loose screws in her brain. Her head snapped up, eyes widening with fear turning to face a concerned Reese seated next to her. 

He hesitantly released his grip around her forearm. "We have a packet to work on," his voice tired, but underneath the many layers of that, she could hear his worry. He didn't want to make a big stink about the whole situation and throwing it out of proportion, but he knew that something was wrong.

Katherine didn't know if she was tired from having a phone call with Benji up until three or because she spent the next three hours after that freaking out about telling Spencer. Her stiff arm outstretched towards her pencil, retrieving it and focusing her limited attention back to the packet. "What are we doing?" she asked to Reese, but the elder voice behind her appeared.

"If you weren't napping in my class, maybe you would know." Her voice trailed off, giving a pointed glare through the circular rimmed glasses perched on her nose. Walking on past to the next group of students seated at the table over.

Reese motioned to the first page, "We're doing questions one through twenty five, if we don't finish, it's homework," he explained, but his eyes never dared to look her in the face. She felt awkward being next to him. She wondered if he knew that Spencer was coming over to her house later that night. She wondered if he had any clue. But then again, Spencer promised he wouldn't really tell anybody. She couldn't tell if Reese was mad at her, but then again, he seemed pretty preoccupied with doing his packet, alone. "First answer's b," he told, circling the correct answer and moving on.

Katherine sighed, "Can we talk for a second?" she inquired hopefully. Her eyes giving the most convincing stare, but Reese didn't even bother on looking her in the face. His auburn hair hung over his eyes as his pencil swept across the page.

"Kind of busy, I don't really want to have homework tonight," he admitted, bringing his attention over to Katherine's packet. "I said the first answer's b," he repeated, as if he believed he didn't hear him the first time he said it. "If you want, we could talk later, ya know?"

Katherine gave a nod of her head, circling the answer on her packet and moving on to the next question,a couple of steps behind from Reese. "Yeah, I guess so." She didn't really know what she wanted to say to him. She couldn't tell him that she spent all night calling Benji, because he wouldn't understand what that was about. She couldn't admit that she was nervous about Spencer coming over, because that would brew a lot of unwanted questions that she couldn't really deal with at the moment. But then there was something that she knew she needed to ask him.

"Have you talked to Alex recently?" she inquired.

Reese's pencil paused its swift movement, his eyes raised to the board, although that was not what he was thinking about. "What?" he faced Katherine, hie eyes widening behind his glasses. Blatant confucian washing over his face, "I mean no, not recently, but why?"

Katherine shrugged, "Nothing really, just about the whole situation-it kind of bothers her," she clued in, but Reese wasn't understanding one bit of the information she gave. Katherine's eyes drifted back up to Reese and she suddenly found herself regretting mentioning the topic. Alex always wanted Katherine to find out more about Spencer and Reese, but maybe confronting him wasn't exactly what she had in mind. Not to mention, by the look on Reese's face she could tell the nerves began to reproduce, rushing up and down through his veins.