Even though he did have all of the afternoon classes together, we didn't really talk very much. Unless there was a question about the homework or small conversation. Until sixth and seventh hour, that is. Also known as algebra. You kind of just started talking. I couldn't just ignore you. And even when I was doing the asignment, you were just staring at me. I hate it when people stare at me."Why are you staring at me?" I ask.
"Does it bother you?" he replies.
"Yes it does."
"Would you say it... I don't know, scares you?"
"You're still on that?"
"Yes."
"I love it when people do that. I do that all the time."
"So you love yourself?"
"No. That's not what I'm saying. It's a good trait to have, okay?"
"Yeah it is. It means you have a good attention span. I'd say I've got a decent attention span. And because I do have a good span, I would notice that you avoided my question, yeah?"
"Yes it does. Congradulations Spock you are the first person that has found something that scares me."
"Victory!" I smile and continue doing the homework. Everyonce and a while I glance up and he's still looking at me. "Stop staring at me," I tell him.
"Nope."
"Please?"
"Nope." I exhale dramatically.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't have to." Just leave it. I look back to my homework and finish it. I look at the clock and there's still five minutes before school lets out. Great five minutes of being stared at. There's a theory that, at least with dogs, if you look away from a staredown, it's a sign of submission. But if you stare back, it's a sign of challenge. The same rules, to a degree, apply when dealing with guys. Not that I know much about dealing with guys, or people for that matter. But what I do know could come helpful. Knowledge is always for the betterment of society. I glance at him and he's still staring at me. I stare back. He seems to know what I'm doing, because his gaze deepens. I follow his lead. He exhales deeply and looks away. "I will get you back," he says. I smirk, silently hoping that he won't because I'm really competitve. "I will."
"Okay," I say.
"Okay," he says.
"Okay,"I say.
"Okay," he says. I hide my facee in my hands. "Hey. Okay?"
"Okay." I'm a mixture of emotions between trying not laugh and trying not to sob. The bell rings.
"I'll see you on the bus Hazel." I don't know what my face looks like but he laughs at it and before he walks out he winks. I kind of melted.
I am the third person on the bus; Jack is not amongst the other two. It seems, no matter how hard I try, I am early. It isn't a bad thing to be early to some things. But if it's a gathering and I arrive and it's still being set up I feel awkward. Given the only gatherings I go to are family reunions but still. Even though this school is smaller than average, there is still a steady stream of kids/ adolescents coming out. Only a few coming onto this bus, though. I see Ethan get onto his bus. We've never really "hung-out" (as normal people call it) before. We talk in school and see each other at the park or in a store ocasionally. But we haven't made any plans, it just happens sometimes. I see Jack, finally, walking toward the bus. He smiles first, and I return the actions moments later. He sits down, but doesn't say anything. Then, "What a slut time is. She screws everybody up." A smile grows on my face. I finally look at him. He has this huge grin that somehow fits on his face perfectly and makes him look perfect. Although it isn't that hard. There are those people that at first glance you think Wow that person is really attractive. But then you hear them talk or pull out a ciggarette and it just completely lowers their standards and how you view them. Then there are those people that you think They really aren't that attractive but are really nice so you talk to them and their inner beauty starts to shine out and after time you find their personality attractive. And there are the best kind. Those ones where you think Holy crap that is a beautiful person and you get to know them and they are amazing and perfect and you don't think that they could get any more perfect but then they do something and they defy the word 'impossible' and get even more perfect. So as their inner beauty starts shining onto their external beauty they become this angel that you wonder what you've ever done to recieve the pleasure of meeting them and you're so unextrordinary why are they even paying attention to you. That's how he is. He is an angel sent from heaven, a miracle when I needed it most. Not only in his beauty does he seem angelic, but in every movement; so fluid and precise. His imagination allows him to wonder into different worlds; For all I know he has. When you look at him you see perfection and if you see a scratch or a bruise you figure it was the fall from up above. The only thing that shows his true ality are his eyes. No angel could have those eyes. They're a blue-grey. An angel would have eyes like ice; pure. His eyes are like this:
He has those eyes you can get lost in/
A labyrinth that goes on forever/
One path leading to the next to the next to the first/
Going on forever.
They pull you in with a trance/
Like an undertow/
Trapping you in his stormy ocean.
It's some sort of hypnosis/
And nothing ever looks the same again.
Everything has thise undefined, unexplainable beauty/
A new light shining upon your world.
You suddenly realize you're seeing everything through his eyes.
This labyrinth and ocean you're trapped in is inside his head/
You are peering out through his eyes/
You seeing things the way he looks at you/
And you at him.
When you get lost in his endless labyrinth/
He comes in and leads you through an unforgettable adventure.
When you are lost in his treacherous ocean he comes with a rescue boat.
You may get lost/
But he makes it worth it/
Because he is there every step of the way.
He makes you want to get lost/
And I guess I kind of did.
That is how it is; Every angel has his wicked schemes.
I came back to my senses as the bus started moving a few minutes later. "Couldn't you have chosen one easier to quote off of?" I ask.
"Were you seriously thinking of quotes that whole time?" he asks.
"Yes," I lie.
"Okay fine. Redo. You start. Okay?"
"Okay." He laughs and shakes his head.
"Maybe okay can be our always," he says.
" 'Always is kind of their thing. It's like saying 'I'll always love you'. I swear in the past year the've said 'always' at least a million times.'"
" 'Come over here so I can examine your face with my hands and peer deeper into your soul than a sighted person ever could.' " Most people would not get what he just said and how it applies to the one I just said. But I do, because we were talking about Isaac and he quoted Isaac. Brilliiant.
" 'That's what love is. Keeping the promise anyway.' "
" 'I'm in love with you.' 'Augustus,' I said. 'I am,' he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corner of his eyes crinkling. 'I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.' " He blows out an exasperated breath.
" 'I fell in love the way you fall asleep: Slowly, and then all at once'," he said after a minute.
" 'Oh I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a pleasure to have me heart broken by you.' "
" 'But I believe in true love, you know? I don't believe that everybody gets to keep their eyes or not get sick or whatever, but everybody should have true love, and it should last at least as long as your life does.' "
" 'Augustus Waters was a self-aggrandizing bastard. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he had a heart as figuratively good as his literal one sucked, or because he knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any nonsmoker in history, or because he got eighteen years when he should've gotten more.'
'Seventeen,' Gus corrected.
'I'm assuming you've got some time, you interupting bastard. I'm telling you,' Isaac continued, 'Augustus Waters talked so much that he'd interupt you at his own funeral. And he was pretentious: Sweet Jesus Christ, that kid never took a piss without pondering the abundant metaphorical resonances of human waste production. And he was vain: I do not believe I have ever met a more physically attractive person who was more acutely aware of his own physical attractiveness. But I will say this: When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him.' I was kind of crying by then.' " He's just staring at me. Legit open-mouth, wide-eyed, staring. Grabs ahold of his senses. Takes a deep breath. "I give up," he says. "There isn't a way I could beat that. I mean you just quotes Isaac's eulogy. Who the heck can quote a eulogy word. For. Word."
"Well obviously me. I can quote Hazel's, too. But I can't do that one without crying so..."
"Oh God you cried in it?" "Yes didn't you?" He didn't reply."I'm not answering." I can't tell if he did or he didn't. If he did, he might be reluctant because he may think that it lowers his standing as a man. (Personally whenever a guy cries I think them to be "manlier", as some put it. Because they don't let other people's view on how a guy should act or what he should or should not do. I mean yeah, a guy is going to cry at least once in his life. Everyone's got to get their heart-broken at some point. But if a guy cried, for example, in a book or movie. And not just some extremely heart-shattering phenomenon, just like a part that is really moving. Then it shows they aren't afraid to have emotional feelings, or to at least to show emotion. I find that really extremely attractive.) And if he didn't cry then he might have the impression that I would think of him as a heartless, emotionless person. Which I might. I mean like how could you not cry. I was sobbing. That night I almost drowned in my own tears. I do believe I shook the house with my tremors. "Fine then," I say. "Be that way.""I will," he says. My house comes into view and I kind of deflate. I always thought that it was people that I didn't like, that's why I never had any friends. I now see that it was the type of people I saw, not human race in general. Suddenly it's obvious how unfair I was in my view was. It's like saying you don't like food because there's a specific food you dislike. Or hating an entire nation/ race because you don't like the action of one person (althought that is an extremely common view, sadly). I've just never found the right people to like, is all. As I get off the bus I look back and see him waving ferociously at me through the window. I laugh as I'm unlocking my front door. And I think, I think I've found the right person to like. And then, I know.