Out of nowhere, I felt irritated.
It was like a bug was crawling up my neck, or there was something stuck in my tooth. Something was just...off.
"He's hot," Marcella observed rather loudly, causing me too look up at whoever she was referring to.
Standing at the doorway of the classroom was a student I'd never seen before. He was tall and had a muscular build, sun kissed skin, wavy light brown hair, and bright blue eyes that stood out against his complexion. He gave off a definite fuckboy vibe, with his adidas joggers, white t-shirt, and sneakers, which were probably some "cool" brand that I didn't know nor care enough about sports to recognize.
"Alright class," my art teacher, who's name I still couldn't remember despite having been in her class for a month now, addressed the new kid with a wave of her hand. "This is your new classmate. His name is...er, remind me what your name is, sweetheart?"
"Mason," said the new guy, and as if on cue a collection of murmurs—mostly female—went up in the class of forty, now forty-one.
"Right, Mason," the art teacher said. "I'm Mrs Garroway—" that's it "—I'll be your art teacher this year. Go ahead and take a seat wherever you'd like. Anyways," she turned back to the rest of the class and started blabbering about whatever we'd be doing that day, at which point I tuned out.
I grabbed my charcoal pencil and resumed whatever it was I'd been doing in my sketchbook. The good thing about this class was, I didn't have to try to hard to pass. I was naturally artistic, and had been all my life. Even if the work I turned in had absolutely nothing to do with Mrs Garrison or Garret or whatever's instructions—which it usually didn't because I never listened to her instructions—she still gave me a hundred, sometimes more, and praised my work as if it were a masterpiece.
I sketched line after line, not really paying attention to what I was drawing. I just let my hand take over, swapping my pencil for one of a different thickness or intensity whenever I saw fit. It wasn't until halfway through the class that I looked up again at Marcella calling my name.
"What?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow. Marcella gave me a scolding look, as if I'd done something indecent.
"It's been half the period and you still haven't said hello to our new table-mate," she scolded. That was when I realized that, sitting on the other side of the table next to a kid who's name I couldn't remember, was the new student, who's name I also had forgotten. I wasn't the best with names; I honestly just didn't care enough to remember them.
"Hello," I said boredly, hardly sparing him a glance. I turned my attention back to my sketchbook and rolled my eyes when Cella snatched my pencil from my hand. Just to annoy her, I grabbed a different one, and started shading. I chuckled under my breath at Cella's frustrated groan. The laugh quickly turned into a yelp, though, when she grabbed my pencil again and used it to poke me hard in the back of my hand.
I looked back up to appease her and get her to leave me alone. "What?"
"Introduce yourself!" Marcella demanded, indicating across the table toward...Marcus? Max?
"You were calling my name for, like, a minute," I said dryly. "If he hasn't caught it by now, it's a lost cause."
At the sound of a muffled snicker, I looked Manuel full on for the first time since he'd first entered to see him smirking. "It's Kieran, right? I'm Mason."
"Cool." I nodded, not even pretending to be interested, and turned back to my sketch.
"What are you drawing?"
"A picture."
I felt Cella elbow me in the side and I looked up to glare at her. "What? I didn't lie."
"You're being rude," she said lowly.
"Sorry, mom," I said sarcastically. "Why do I need to talk to him? You're the one who thinks he's hot."
Marcella's cheeks grew red up to her ears and I heard Mason laugh to himself. For some reason, his very presence annoyed me, as if I was supposed to dislike him. Which wasn't very hard, really; I didn't like many people.
"I'm sorry," Marcella apologized on my behalf. "He's not always like this. Well, he is, but I think he's in an extra shitty mood today."
"I can tell," Mason mused, causing me to turn my glare on him.
"Excuse me?" I growled. Something about this Mason guy was definitely off, and whatever it was, it made me have an instant resentment for him, even if that wasn't entirely fair.
"Did I stutter?"
I had a feeling that whatever it was that was bothering me, Mason felt too. He had a challenge in his eyes, one that said he wasn't any bigger a fan of me than I was of him, and he wasn't about to back down. There was something obnoxiously confident about the look he was giving me, as if he took a regular man's ego and multiplied it by twenty. It was so strong, the kid sitting next to him squirmed uncomfortably.
I could feel anxiety radiating off of Marcella, too. Neither Mason nor I said anything, but I knew he was trying to stare me down. He'd have to try harder, though.
I leaned back casually in my seat, never breaking contact with his blue eyes. We must've looked like exact opposites; he had tanned skin, I was very pale. His eyes were light blue, mine were dark brown. His hair was longer at the top, where it fell in light brown waves over his forehead, whereas mine was straight, black, and perfectly—if I do say so myself (which I do)—quiffed. His posture was stiff as he glared at me, shoulders tense, jaw set, eyes challenging. I didn't have to see myself to know that I looked more laid back, leaning into my chair and smirking slightly at just how easy it was to rile him up.
"I swear this is like a scene from twilight," the two of us simultaneously broke eye contact as we both turned towards Marcella. "Kieran, you're Edward, and Mason, you're totally Jacob."
"You sure about that?" I mused. "Marcus over here sure does sparkle, dontcha think?"
Mason growled, low and dangerous, in a way that was scarily animal-like. How we'd gone from strangers to potential future enemies in less than five minutes, I wasn't sure. Strangely enough, though, it felt good. Satisfying. Not the normal satisfaction that a somewhat sadistic person like myself felt at someone else's upset. It was different; like we were supposed to dislike each other, and we were filling a void by doing so. "Bite me," he snapped.
I knew he didn't have any idea of the weight behind what he'd just said, but I couldn't help but snarl, "Maybe I will," just to mess with his mind a little. It worked, as I saw him falter for a moment in obvious confusion. Marcella turned to me with a warning look.
"Not your smartest move," she leaned in and whispered. I shrugged; she was right, I'd said smarter things. It had been worth it, though, to see that wannabe-big-shot stumble for a quick second.
***
I audibly groaned when Mason walked into my fourth period. Nobody noticed, though, except for Marcella sitting right next to me, because everyone was too busy staring at him. He stared right back, too, making eye contact with every single person. I internally scoffed when his lips quirked up in a smirk—he was enjoying the attention.
The girl who sat in the desk in front of me turned to her friend and started whispering and giggling. I didn't have to listen to know that they were probably going on about how "dreamy" the new guy was. They weren't the only girls in the room talking about him, either. From the way a pair of heads would duck down and start whispering to each other, occasionally sparing a glance at Mason, it wasn't hard to discern which girls were talking about him, which was pretty much all of them.
Thankfully, he got placed in a desk on the opposite end of the room as me. I could sense him, though, as if his presence was stronger than others'. The more I felt it, the more I hated it. It only added to my suspicion that there was something definitely wrong with him, something that made me predisposed to dislike him.
Every now and then, I'd look in his direction and glare. I wasn't sure why, it just felt right. A few times, I caught him glaring right back. He would curl his lips in a snarl and I would grin, because wow it was fun to piss him off.
Naturally, that couldn't be my last class with him. When he entered my seventh period, drama, his eyes automatically found me. He glared, and I felt a sense of deja vu to first period when he'd tried to stare me into submission. Just like in art class, I refused to back down. I smirked, just because I knew how much it bothered him that I wasn't intimidated by him in the slightest.
"Why hello there!" Chirped my annoyingly perky drama teacher, Ms. Jenkins. "You must be Mason! Welcome to Advanced Theater, I'm Ms. Jenkins, and I'll be your teacher for the rest of the year. I'm assuming you've taken theater before, correct?"
Mason nodded and adjusted his backpack on his shoulder. Again, girls in the room—and boys too, this was drama class after all—started murmuring and giggling at the mere sight of him. He looked over the class with a grin on his face before his eyes landed back on me. Instead of fixing me with a glare as I expected, he simply smirked and moved on as if I wasn't worth his time, and I felt my nonexistent blood boil.
Ms. Jenkins told him to pick a desk and I watched with narrowed eyes as he weaved his way through the classroom, passing quite a few empty desks. He made his way the seat next to Marcella's and smiled down at her, completely ignoring me as if I weren't one desk away and glaring daggers at him.
"Mind if I sit here?" he asked, his voice aggravatingly sweet. Marcella smiled back at him and shook her head.
"No, not at all," she said. At the same time, I said, "Yes."
He turned to me with that infuriating smirk and all of a sudden, the roles were reversed. While I sat tense in my seat, he was calm where he stood, one eyebrow raised as if to say 'What are you gonna do about it?'
"I wasn't asking you," he finally said, shrugging. Then he sat down next to Cella and I had to grab on to the edge of my desk to stop myself from jumping at him. For some reason, every part of my body was screaming at me to attack. I had a feeling that, if we weren't in a crowded public space, I probably would have.
I was mildly aware that every pair of eyes in the class was on us. Nobody had missed that little disagreement. Even if they hadn't seen it, the tension between the two of us was thick in the air, filling the entire classroom. Thirty or so surprised faces stared at the two of us for one obvious reason.
I was Kieran Callisto. I was the guy people avoided eye contact with when they passed in the halls because I was what you'd call intimidating. Yet here Mason was, not even phased by my hostility.
"Okay, reign it in, class," Ms. Jenkins chirped. "As you all know, today we are starting our first big project!" Her voice was so high strung with fake enthusiasm, I almost felt sorry for her. "I had originally wanted to have you all work in trios, but there were an even amount of you so I'd figured fours might be simpler. Now, though, since we have Mr. Mason in our class, there are thirty-three of you! Perfect!
"For the project, each group will be assigned a Shakespeare play. You will be responsible for reading it on your own time. I know that most of you have already read many of his works, so you may be ahead. Your group will need to analyze the text for three specific things: setting, characterization, and theme. You will then be responsible for writing your own short play that mirrors those three things.
"The characters and plot must be completely different, but it must be in the same setting and convey the same theme, and the characters must have similar traits. I will hand out sheets with the rubric and more precise directions. Now, I'm going to give you all two minutes to get into groups. Try to work with someone you haven't worked with before!"
Before she had even finished speaking, people started standing and moving toward their friends. I never understood why teachers say the whole "work with new people" thing when they let us pick groups. Surely they knew that their words would be ignored entirely. Why bother try?
I watched as two girls approached rather confidently, swaying their hips as they walked. Marcella shrank back in her chair as one of them gave her a not-so-subtle glare, as if to say 'back off'. For a moment, they both looked back and forth between Mason and I, as if they were trying to make a decision.
"Hey, Kieran" one of them, Emily, said finally, eyes focused on me. I only knew their names because they were some of the 'popular girls'. With the way she batted her eyelashes and played with her hair, it was obvious she was flirting with me. I wasn't too surprised; it was always the popular girls who thought they'd have any success.
"I was wondering if you'd maybe like to work with me and my friend?" She nodded towards the the girl next to her, Jenna, who smiled and batted her fake eyelashes. "I know Marcella is your usual partner for projects but, hey, it's always good to try new things, right?" She had an annoying amount of confidence in her eyes, as if she knew she wouldn't be rejected.
"I'm not really a fan of trying new things," I deadpanned. The girl visibly deflated and blushed in embarrassment. I didn't feel bad in the slightest as I turned to Marcella with a grin. "Be my partner?"
Cella rolled her eyes but nodded nonetheless, and I knew that she felt at least a little satisfaction at my blatant rejection. Marcella wasn't a fan of Emily or Jenna or any of the girls in their little clan.
"Mason, right?" Emily turned to Mason as if she hadn't just been rejected a second ago by me. Wow. Mason nodded warily as she rested her palms on the edge of his desk and leaned forward slightly. "How about you? Want to work with us? You can come over to my place after school so we can...start," she said suggestively. Mason smirked up at her and leaned forward in his seat so that they were only inches apart.
"Sounds like fun," he said, grinning. "It's too bad I'll have to miss out, though. I was hoping to work with Marcella here," he turned to Cella with an eyebrow raised in question, completely disregarding Emily as she huffed indignantly.
Cella looked at me with wide, worried eyes and I gave her a look that clearly said don't you dare. Then she looked at Emily for a moment, red faced and glaring at her, and I knew I'd lost. If there was anything Marcella loved more than me, it was pissing of the populars. "I don't see why not," she said, smiling. Mason smiled back and winked and I nearly gagged.
"I see why not," I hissed.
"You could always work with us instead," Emily interjected.
Annoyed with her desperation, I hissed, "Get lost." Emily and Jenna both huffed and stormed off, attracting the attention of a few classmates.
"Do you have a problem with working with me?" Mason asked innocently, but the challenge was there in his eyes. No way in hell was I about to say yes and give him that satisfaction.
"Why, of course not," I said, my voice sugary sweet.
"Okay class," Ms. Jenkins spoke up. After a few moments, the chatter died down and she continued. "When I call your name, tell me who's in your group!"