Patrick
Christa has been acting weird all day; she refuses to look at me whenever we pass each other in the halls, she has been late to all her classes, and she wore jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and a jacket today. After knowing her for three years, this is the first time shes ever worn both a long sleeved shirt and jeans, I don't know why but she doesn't like having her whole body covered and always wears shorts even when it's a snowy day like today. Something is up and I plan on asking her.
“Patrick?” I get snapped back from my thoughts by someone shaking my arm. “Patrick?” I hear the person call once more.
“Hmm?” I manage to grunt out while turning my head and seeing that it was my friend and lab partner Anna who was causing of the shaking.
“Patrick?” She asks once more to make sure I'm paying attention. I blink a few times and give my head a quick nod to indicate that she can continue. “Patrick, the lunch bell rang like a minute ago and you didn't rush out the door like normal, and I saw you weren't scribbling down notes like you always do in science. Are you okay? I mean, it's just not like you to space out like this.” She places her hand on my arms and rubs it slightly, her eyes pleading for me to confide all my thoughts to her.
“Nah, I'm fine, just a little tired from lack of sleep last night” I shrugged off her hand and saw the look of disappointment in her eyes as soon as I said that. I offered a weak smile towards her.
“Well, okay then... just know you can tell me if anything is wrong.” She pokes my side a few times, “Now we should get out of here. For one, Mrs. Caren is giving us the death eye, and two, everyone is probably waiting for us at McDonalds, remember? I invited a bunch of friends to meet up there after I asked you if you wanted to go? They'll probably be disappointed if the star pupil doesn't show.” She poked my side harder which caused me to flinch back slightly and caused her to laugh in response.
She dragged me out of class after I'd put all my books into my backpack, and we stopped at our lockers to drop our bags off and grab our money.
“So who all is coming?” I asked after closing my locker.
“Umm..” she waited a minute before answering, making it seem like we had invited the whole senior class. “I'm not really sure...” she closed her locker and we made our way towards the courtyard and toward my convertible. “ All I know is that we invited Bryan, Andrew, Brendon, and Lana. I don't know who they decided to bring along but knowing them, they probably spread the news.” We reached my car and I unlocked her door for her.
“Ooh we got a gentlemen over here guys.” She shut the door and laughed as I jumped into the drivers seat.
“Did you possibly...” I paused mid-sentence and started the car, “.. invite Christa?” I looked at Anna who just put on her sunglasses and handed me mine.
“Yeah, I mean, I asked her if she wanted to come yesterday in Calculus and she seemed enthusiastic enough when she replied,” she cleared her throat and made a really bubbly expression on her face, “Yeah! I'd love to! See ya then!” She flicked her hair which caused me to chuckle a bit. Christa was always really gregarious.
“Patrick, you aren't telling me something. What's wrong?” She gave me those pleading brown eyes again.
“What? Nothing is wrong I swear Anna.” I gave her a quizzical look at the frown that took its place on her face.
“Don't lie to me, I just saw you go from happy and chuckling to having that worried expression on you face,” she pointed to my face and I realized that I had started to worry about Christa again and frowned, “there's something you aren't telling me.” She put on another jacket when we both realized that I was pulling into the McDonalds parking lot
“I'm not lying,” I pulled on another coat I kept in the back and threw it on over my cardigan, “I was just thinking about how cold it's gonna be when we have to get out again.” I shouldn't tell her what I saw with Christa, besides, from what I know... well I don't know, that's the thing. When I had slid my jacket on, the leather on the outside cold but the inside warm, I looked at Anna and smiled at her, patting her leg to try and convince her I wasn't lying to her face. It didn't really work considering she kept giving me the “I know you're lying and I'm not getting out of this car until you tell me what's on your mind” look.
“Well, we wasted the first quarter of lunch already so lets go!” I wanted to get away from the tension in the air between us. I quickly grabbed the keys and jumped out of the car. Holy smokes it's cold!
It had started to snow while we were driving over and the tiny flakes bit my skin every time a new one fell onto it. I love the cold, so I took it much better than Anna did; she cursed as she closed the door and pulled her jacket even more tightly around her arms. She hated the cold days of Chicago, she's a summer kind of gal. I couldn't help but laugh at the site of her walking up to the entrance. She looked like a penguin as she waddled up to the door and slowly opened the door.
To most people, it would've looked like I was staring at her ass. Anna was probably one of the prettiest girls at our Glenbrook, but I've known her since we were children and couldn't imagine dating her.. besides, we had tried being a couple back in middle school but never got close to kissing or anything. It was just awkward. People never believe us when we say we aren't dating though and still to this day, people always ask if I'm going to “hit that” anytime soon. “Some people...” I muttered under my breath, watching the smoke-like cloud puffed out of my mouth.
I reached the door and looked around, at first I couldn't see anyone I knew, then I looked towards the back of the restaurant at the “back booths” and saw Anna being her flirtatious self with Brendon.
I started my way through the crowd of people towards the group; next to Brendon was Bryan who had Andrew to his right. Next to him sat Lana who wore a repulsed look on her face, probably because she had to sit next to Andrew and absolutely despised him.
Christa... I thought. I wonder if she came. I reached the table and was greeted by the whole group in the normal teenage way of just saying “Hey Patrick” and “Sup dude.”
“I ordered for you in order to pay ya back for that favor you did for me.... remember? Yeah..” Andrew scratched his head nervously and handed me a bag with a chicken wrap and some fries, “Don't worry about paying me the money back.” Everyone exchanged glances before continuing to talk about the latest gossip from the school.
“Oh my god, did you hear Dillan and Alexis got together? She's such a whore.” Lana exclaimed to the table, receiving a handful of agreement statements in response. “Seriously, didn't she just break up with Xavier like a week ago?”
“It was yesterday actually.” Brendon corrected her. He was always the smart one of the group, and he loved making sure everyone knew by always correcting them if they said anything wrong.
“Whatever.” Lana muttered before sipping on her ice coffee.
“Dude, did you see what Christine was wearing today? She was totally showing off her...” I couldn't help but laugh at Bryan start going on and on to Andrew about her clothing. I would be interested if it was about the girl I cared about, but it isn't.
“Hey guys?” I openly asked the whole table, “Did Christa come by any chance?” I looked each one in the eye awaiting a response.
“Yeah,” Bryan said after shoveling about four handfuls of fries into his mouth, “she was here just probably about five minutes ago and then she ran into the bathroom and she's been in there since.” Everyone shrugged.
“Thanks, now scoot your scrawny butt over!” I slammed myself into the booth, smashing Andrew into Lana, who shot me a dirty look. “Might want to wash your face, it's really dirty right now, and you could break out.” I told her while taking the first bite of my wrap. She continued to stare at me before going on and on about stuff I didn't care about.
It was ten minutes before we had to get back to school and there still hadn't been any sign of Christa. I was starting to wonder if they lied to me. I looked up regularly from the random conversations we had, one was about banana dolphins just to say one of the weirdest ones, and never saw her.
“Anna?” I whispered and tugged on her arm.
“What Patrick?” She asked in the nicest way possible considering she was probably mad about me taking her away from the “sexiest man alive.” I couldn't help but smile and roll my eyes at her impatience.
“Could you go check on Christa? I don't want her to be late..” I gave her a pleading look and she looked between Brendon, who was cracking up over something Andrew said, and I.
“Only for you Patrick.” She sighed and headed towards the bathroom. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if she was in there for Pete's sake! I hope she is, but I don't trust a few of these guys that much after they've pulled so many pranks on me.