THE DIN OF the cafeteria was practically deafening, distracting me from the school work I had begun in hopes of keeping me from glancing over at the table where Lyle, Derrick, and Sam were sitting. I hadn't spoken to any of them in over a week, which was actually quite a big feat. I had Lyle in quite a few of my classes, and since we hadn't been talking, none of our teachers had put us together for a project. And since Sam and I roomed together, not speaking to her was quite hard.
I frowned and dug my iPod out of my bag, putting my ear buds into my ears and turning up the music until I couldn't hear the people around me chattering away. I returned my attention to my work and scribbled the next few sentences of answers to the history questions I had for homework. My last visit to see Dr. Sterling had resulted in another medication write up. I'd thrown away that slip of paper, too, but vowed that I would pull up my grades. She'd prescribed medication for ADHD and asked that I got a tutor.
The tutor I understood, but medication for ADHD? I wasn't hyper, and she was just crazy.
My pencil stopped moving and I tapped the eraser against my notebook as I tried to get my train of thought back. What had I been writing about again? I read through what I'd just written and paled, then I flushed a bright red color. Like anyone else had read what I'd just written. I erased it quickly, rereading the question and scribbling down the answer quickly. I can't believe I just wrote my feelings on my homework paper like it was my diary. Which I didn't have one, now that I thought about it.
I glanced up as the chair across from me squealed back and Marc fell into it. “Hey, Jemmy,” he exclaimed, smiling cheekily.
I frowned at him. “Hey, Marc,” I muttered, returning my attention to my homework.
“How's it going?” he asked, completely overlooking the fact that my ear buds were in and I wasn't paying any attention to him at all.
I sighed and turned the volume down on my iPod. “It's been going,” I told him, scribbling another answer down.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
I looked up at him sharply. “What?” I said, drawing out the one-syllable word slowly. I set my pencil down on my notebook and leaned back in my seat, watching him link his fingers together and set his hands behind his head.
“What happened between you and the others?” he asked, nodding his head at Lyle, Sam, and Derrick.
I glanced over at them and winced, staring down at my notebook. “I'd rather not talk about it,” I told him, picking up my pencil again. I checked to see what the next question was and realized that I'd finished my homework. I set my pencil back down and stared at the paper.
“I can respect that,” he said, nodding his head. “I've noticed Vince hasn't been bothering you as much lately. You finally threaten to castrate him if he didn't leave you alone?” He grinned, obviously joking.
My eyes widened and I cringed at the memory. “No,” I said a little breathlessly, shaking my head and glancing out the window.
The grin dropped from his face. “Hey, everything all right, Jemma?” he asked, concern in his voice.
I glanced back over at him and forced a smile. “Of course, Marc,” I exclaimed, forcing myself to sound happy. I definitely wasn't happy, but I couldn't really let others know just how far that unhappiness went. “Was there a point to this visit, Marc, or did you just want to ask about why no one's speaking to me now?”
He stared at me for a moment longer before leaning forward and onto his elbows. “You going to Joey's party tonight?” he asked, his dark brown eyes studying me intently.
I shook my head, starting to pack up my bag. “Nope, wasn't planning on it,” I told him, lifting the strap of my bag over my shoulder.
He frowned. “I think you should come,” he said, leaning back slightly. “It's going to be loads of fun.”
I was sure it was going to be plenty of fun—for him, and Lyle, and Vince, and whoever else went. But because I knew Lyle and Vince were going, I wouldn't have fun. I shook my head again. “Nah, I think I'm good.” I stood up and stretched slightly. “Besides, you know I'm not a party person.”
His frown deepened and stood as well. “C'mon, at least say you'll think about it,” he insisted, setting his palms on the table and leaning towards me.
I sighed and pushed my seat in, biting the inside of my cheek. Eventually, I nodded. “Okay, fine,” I said, smiling slightly when he punched the air in triumph. “I'll think about going, Marc.”
“Good enough for me!” he exclaimed, coming around to give me a one-armed hug.
I laughed and pulled away, sighing and telling him goodbye. Then I headed for the cafeteria doors, stopping when a prickling sensation made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I paused in the middle of pushing one of the doors open and glanced behind me, searching for the source of the prickling. My eyes landed on Lyle and I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw him staring at me. He frowned at me and went back to talking to Sam, and my heart wrenched.
I hated this.
I sighed and pushed the door the rest of the way open and left the cafeteria, relishing in the silence that the hallway kept. My footsteps echoed in the hall, and I left the building to go to the library. As crazy as Dr. Sterling was, she'd had a point when she'd suggested that I get a tutor. I walked into the silent library and up to the desk, speaking in a hushed tone to the librarian. She handed me a clipboard and I signed my name where I needed to.
“Be back here at this time,” she whispered, handing me a slip of paper. “There'll be a tutor here waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, smiling and turning to leave.
The bell rang and I sighed. Time to return to classes. Great, now I had to deal with more droning on and on from teachers that didn't really seem to care if we learned what they were teaching or not. It was a wonder why I was failing most of my classes.
After school, I was back in the library with my textbooks open and papers spread out all over the table I was occupying. My ear buds were back in my ears and my eyebrows were pulled down as I tried to puzzle out a math problem. The teacher had explained how to do it in class, but I'd only been half paying attention, and the half that wasn't was trying not to focus on the fact that Sam and Lyle were in that class with me. In fact, I was concentrating so hard, my tongue had started to slip out of my mouth slightly.
“Are you seriously having trouble with this?” someone asked, causing me to jump and let out a squeak of surprise. I looked up to see Lyle sitting across the table from me, a smirk on his face. He apparently found my squeak amusing.
I huffed and yanked an ear bud from one ear. “What do you want?” I snapped, trying to ignore the way my heart sped up at the sight of him. The way his hair fell into his eyes as he lounged back in the chair, seemingly at ease.
His smirk widened. “A little birdie told me that you needed a tutor,” he explained, his eyes twinkling in the sunlight that spilled in from one of the windows.
“You need to stop talking to birds,” I muttered darkly, glancing back down at my paper. “Are you sure you shouldn't be seeing Dr. Sterling once a week?” I added, biting the inside of my cheek as I continued to try and puzzle out the math question.
“Nah,” he exclaimed, leaning forward in his seat. “I'm not as crazy as you are, Niks.”
I chose to ignore his little comment and continued to stare at my paper blankly. My head was starting to hurt from trying to figure out the problem, and knowing Lyle was staring at me wasn't helping. Eventually, Lyle sighed and started to explain how to do the problem. Still frowning, I listened to what he said and executed what he told me to do. Surprisingly, it worked. Who knew model-attractive, swimmer guy was so smart?
“I can't do this,” I muttered after half an hour of tutoring. I wasn't talking about the math problems or science that I didn't understand, though. I couldn't stay here, listening to him speak and knowing that I couldn't actually speak to him outside of class or tutoring. Knowing that if I made one friendly move towards him, I could kiss my chances of getting Sam back as a friend goodbye. “I'm sorry, I can't.”
“Really, you can't understand this?” he exclaimed, raising his eyebrows at me.
I packed up my stuff and stood up, shaking my head. “Yeah, sure,” I mumbled, running my hands through my hair as I left. That's what I'd been talking about.
Lyle didn't come after me.
I hefted my bag further onto my shoulder and kept my head down as I walked back to the dorm. The wind was a very annoying thing that tangled my hair and blew it into my face. I was actually really glad when I made it to the dorm and walked inside. My relief quickly changed to panic when I saw Marc and Vince sitting in the lobby, watching TV. I kept my head down as I headed for the stairs and didn't stop walking until I'd made it to my room.
“Jemma!” Sam exclaimed the moment the door shut behind me. She was grinning and looked like she was going to start bouncing off the walls at any moment. This was...strange. “Guess who asked me out?”
My bag dropped to the ground with a loud thud. “What?” I said, certain I'd heard her wrong.
She bounced her way over to me. “He asked me out,” she squealed, grabbing onto my arms and forcing me to jump up and down with her.
My heart stopped and I felt my eyes widen as I stared at her. I quickly forced a smile and let out a small squeal along with her. “That's great,” I exclaimed breathlessly, swallowing hard as she released me and I sat on my bed.
“I know,” she screamed, practically running in circles. “I'm so excited!”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Where do you think he's gonna take you?” I asked incredulously. “We aren't allowed to leave campus after seven pm.”
“You know Joey's party tonight?” she replied, twisting as she tried to stay in place. It wasn't working for her. I nodded. “He's taking me there.”
I snorted. “How romantic,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. Even though he wasn't taking her anywhere special, it still hurt that he'd asked her out. But this was what I wanted, wasn't it? For him to ask her out and have her actually talk to me again? It seemed like the idea had worked, so why was I complaining?
“Shut up,” she said, affectionately pushing my shoulder. I chuckled and shook my head at her. “Hey, are you going to Joey's party?” she asked suddenly, tilting her head to the side.
I shook my head. “I wasn't planning on it,” I told her, stretching out on my bed. “Marc asked me to think about it, but I'm really not much of a party person.”
She raised an eyebrow at me suggestively. “Ooh, Marc wants you to go?” she questioned, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and stalking over to her dresser. “Hmm, is there a possibility he likes you?” She didn't give me time to respond, though. “You should totally come, Jemma!”
I opened my mouth to say something, but she whirled around. “Oh, my gosh,” she squealed, jumping over to my bed and bouncing onto it. “Could you imagine us going on double-dates if you and Marc started dating?”
My eyes widened at her assumption and the blood drained from my face. Marc and I, dating? The thought was almost laughable. Not that Marc wasn't attractive or a nice guy, but we had very little in common. Besides, he barely spoke to me.
I started to shake my head, but she cut me off again. “You're coming, end of discussion,” she exclaimed, jumping from my bed and pulling me up after her.
“Ugh, fine,” I told her, letting her drag me to my dresser. “But I'm going running first. I need to blow off some steam.” And figure out how to deal with this new information.
She frowned at me, but let my wrist go. I changed into my running outfit and left, telling her I'd be back soon. As I was going down the stairs, I passed Lyle and stiffened. I averted my gaze, but could feel him staring at me as I passed by him and left the stairwell. My heart picked up speed and I shook my head, pushing my way out of the dormitory. He shouldn't have been looking at me.
He'd asked Sam out.
That thought still stunned me more than anything. It was the only thing running around in circles in my head as I ran circles around the track. I'd known she'd liked him, but I couldn't even figure out how he felt about her. Heck, I couldn't even figure out what his and my relationship was. Were we friends or were we enemies? Well, now we were neither technically. We were more like acquaintances.
Lyle was a confusing character. His brother, on the other hand, was a little more of an open book, and it seemed like he was a little infatuated with Sam more than a few times. But I'd never really payed much attention to those sorts of things, so I couldn't really confirm that. Instead, now I was stuck trying to figure out how I was supposed to fit into all of it. Especially since I'd just recently realized that I may have feelings for Lyle that I'd never really payed attention to before.
I was happy that Sam was talking to me again, it meant that I had my friend back. Honestly, I'd been a little lost without her—I was never really great at making friends. If it hadn't been obvious before, it was now. Especially with Lyle pointing it out over a week ago.
My heart wrenched and I slowed to a stop, breathing heavily. How was I supposed to fit into all of this now? I couldn't just go back to sitting at the same lunch table with them, not when doing that meant seeing Sam and Lyle together and acting like a couple. They were supposed to, but it'd very nearly kill me seeing that. It very nearly killed me hearing that he'd finally asked her out.
My breathing, which had been evening out, hitched and the tears started falling down my cheeks. I'd screwed up everything. At first, I'd thought it was because I'd managed to lose Sam as a friend. Now it felt like I'd screwed up because I didn't know how I was going to go anywhere near Lyle without apologizing to him and possibly screwing up my friendship with Sam again. I was screwed either way I looked.
In the middle of the track, I sat and pulled my knees to my chest. Then I proceeded to cry myself into oblivion.
Several hours later, I was standing awkwardly in a very crowded dorm room. The furniture had been pushed up against the walls, allowing more room to maneuver around. Even standing still, I had people accidentally elbowing me as they danced to the very loud, deafening music. It might've been a Friday night and we might not of had a set curfew, but I swear the music was loud enough to make me fear that someone would come up to tell us to get back to our own rooms.
I'd lost Sam about an hour ago, so I was standing by myself while sipping at my Coke in a red solo cup. I'm sure there was alcohol somewhere in the party, but I wasn't into underage drinking and really didn't feel like accidentally getting drunk enough to have a hangover the next day. I sighed and started pushing my way through people, hoping to find something to sit on. Even though I was wearing flats, my feet were starting to kill me.
“Jemma,” someone exclaimed from behind me.
I turned to see a guy with sandy blonde hair and bright blue eyes standing behind me. “Hey, Joey,” I yelled over the music.
“How's it going?”
I shrugged and smiled slightly. “Things are looking up,” I told him, taking a sip of my Coke. Then I gestured around us. “Nice party!”
“Thanks,” he shouted, smiling widely. “You know, I wasn't sure if I'd see you here. Never really see you at any of the other parties.”
“I guess you could say I was...coerced into coming,” I laughed, brushing my hair away from my face.
“That's great,” he exclaimed, patting me on the shoulder. “Well, I'll catch you later then.”
“Bye, Joey,” I called after him as he disappeared into the throng of people.
I finished off my drink and threw the cup away, cupping my elbows in my hands as I glanced around at everyone else. They all seemed to be having fun, but I couldn't see how. Sighing, I started pushing through them. I needed to find Sam to tell her I was leaving. When I found her, she was making out with Derrick. I squinted, certain that I was seeing wrong. She was making out with Derrick? What about Lyle? Hadn't Lyle been the one to ask her out?
I tapped her shoulder to get her attention. “We need to talk,” I yelled close to her ear so she could hear me.
She rolled her eyes at me, looking irritated at the interruption. “Okay,” she shouted back, turning back to Derrick. She yelled something in his ear and then turned, grabbing my wrist and leading us to the hallway. “What is it?” she asked when we'd made it into quieter territory.
“Why were you kissing Derrick?” I exclaimed, feeling slightly offended. Why didn't she tell me before?
“Um, because he's my boyfriend?” she replied. It was meant to be a statement, but it came out as more of a question. “You know that.”
I shook my head. “No—wait, what?” I was confused beyond complete and utter belief. “I thought you liked Lyle.”
She quirked an eyebrow at me. “I liked him for about a week,” she laughed, shaking her head.
“Then why did you get so mad at me when he and I started talking?” I asked, on the verge of having a frustration-induced melt down.
She shook her head. “I didn't get mad because of that,” she explained. “I got mad because I knew you weren't telling me something.”
“What did you think I wasn't telling you?” I muttered, trying to figure out what I could've been hiding from her when she'd elbowed me at lunch the one time. “Wait, was that week you liked Lyle a few weeks ago?”
She nodded. “Actually, yeah,” she confirmed, looking slightly sheepish. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I liked Derrick, but I thought you might do something to get his attention...”
“You thought I might try to steal Derrick from you?” I exclaimed, my jaw nearly hitting the ground.
She shrugged, messing with a lock of her blonde hair. “It seemed like that was what you were doing with Lyle,” she mumbled, her cheeks tinging pink.
“Okay, one, I wasn't trying to steal Lyle from you,” I snapped, really offended now. What kind of person did she think I was? “Two, you can have Derrick. I have no interest in him like that, at all.”
“So you admit you have feelings for Lyle,” she exclaimed, a grin spreading across her face.
I opened my mouth to snap at her again, but closed it again. I sighed, pushing my hair out of my eyes. “Yeah, but it doesn't matter now,” I muttered, cupping my elbows in my hands. “I kind of screwed things up because I thought you liked him.”
“Oh, crap,” Sam breathed, wincing slightly. “I'm sorry.” She reached out to give me a hug, but I shook my head and stepped back. “Jemma—”
“No, I think I'm gonna head back to the room,” I told her, brushing passed her. “I'll see you later.”
I kept my gaze on the ground as I walked away, avoiding looking at the couples making out in the hallway. Why couldn't they just get a room? Jeez, it was like the world was rubbing it in my face that I messed up. I headed for the elevator. Joey's party was on the eighth floor, and there was no way I walking down the stairs to the second floor.
I pressed the button for the elevator and rubbed my arm as I waited for it to get here. When the doors dinged open, I stepped in and grimaced at how shaky it was. It was an old elevator, which meant it was extremely slow. It was better than taking the stairs, though. I pressed the second floor button and fell against the wall as the elevator jerked into movement. I had to lean against the wall the whole time to keep from falling on my butt. Even though the elevator was old, it'd never been this jerky before.
Frowning, I left the elevator and walked back to my room. I knew for a fact that Rachel and Jane were up at the party—what Jane was doing there I had no clue. She'd never been much of a social butterfly, and if her sister had forced her to go, you could definitely count on her to be reading right now. I pushed the door open and slammed it shut behind me, falling onto my bed. At least I could be alone right now to wallow in my own self-pity and turmoil.
I curled up on my bed and let the tears fall from my eyes. If I'd thought I'd screwed up before, I'd done even worse now. Just because I'd thought Sam would never be my friend again, I'd screwed up any possibility of even getting Lyle as a friend, let alone something more. Why did I have to find out I liked him right before everything went to hell in a hand basket? Okay, so maybe everything had already been heading there, but now it felt like I'd just sped up the whole process.
Sam didn't even like Lyle like that. At least, not anymore. That's what sucked even more about this whole mess. She hadn't even bothered to tell me when she didn't like Lyle anymore, which had led to me pushing him even farther away than before. And I'd also probably hurt him more than when we were kids. God, why did everything have to be so messed up?
Eventually, I calmed down enough to do some normal, late-night teenage things. I flicked on the lamp on the bedside table and grabbed the book I was reading, curling up by my headboard to read. I don't know how long I'd been reading, but when I glanced up, it was eleven-thirty. Biting my lip, I closed my book and set it on the bedside table. I got dressed into short-shorts and a tank top to sleep in. Then I clambered into bed and flicked the lamp off.
And the Grim Reaper appeared at the foot of my bed.
I screamed, my hands flying up to my mouth to stifle the sound. I could see him as clear as day, as if I hadn't just turned off the light. His hood was over his head, and his bony fingers grasped his scythe in one hand. He tilted his head to the side, and I swear he grinned at me. My heart was beating the inside of my ribcage painfully.
He pointed his free hand at the door and whispered for the first time ever. I hadn't even known he was capable of talking. Then he disappeared, leaving me to stare at the spot he had previously been in horror. What he'd said rang around my head, bouncing off the insides like an echo.
“Samantha Reys.”