Chapter 4: Fellow Anomaly

Scarlet's POV

It had been barely a day since my amazing visit at ZYNOTECH. I was still shivering from excitement every time I remembered the people I had met and meetings I had been allowed to attend. More than ever, I wanted to create something like that company, which was why I was planning to raid the library when I got the chance. Some extensive research was acquired to do what I was thinking. And I knew my next steps wouldn’t be easy. Another thing was that I still had high school to finish.

But until then, I had to deal with this micro problem at hand. I let out a frustrated sigh.

It was no use. I just couldn’t do it. Trying to fit an elephant through the eye of a needle had about the same possibility of success, maybe even more.

“What are you doing?”

I looked up, seeing nothing but a blurry outline of a person, or people—I wasn’t completely sure. Pushing up the glasses that had slid down my nose, I found Simon and Ben, the quiet one among my small group of friends, both looking at me with conflicting expressions. Simon was pressing his lips together in an effort to not burst out laughing while Benjamin looked just interested.

“Nothing, at least not anymore,” I sighed, abandoning my efforts to fit my earring that had fallen out back into its place. I could swear the hole in my ear had shrunk in seconds.

Sitting down at the desk behind me, Simon leaned over. “What’s with the glasses? Decided to finally start looking smart?”

“Sure, about time I started living up to my colossal brain, just like you,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I lost my last pair of contact lenses. The new order will only arrive on Wednesday.”

That was in two fricking days. I was already annoyed after three hours of pushing the glasses back into place. My nose was feeling uncomfortably itchy also—I was probably having an allergic reaction to the plastic glasses supports.

The sound of the classroom door closing pulled my attention. Mr. Williams walked into the classroom and the chatter died down instantly, as if someone had pressed the mute button. This teacher was an interesting anomaly among his colleagues, one actually respected by the majority of students in this school—or in some cases, feared. He was the kind of teacher you didn’t want to mess with, since no one wanted to fall victim to his sharp tongue. Even poking a sleeping lion seemed a better option.

“Good morning, students. I’m very happy to see everyone has made it to my class today...” he began, letting his cold eyes travel over the class. “Watson!” His sharp shout made everyone turn toward the back of the class where the group of football players was sitting. Keith, the quarterback of our school’s team, sat ramrod-straight in alarm, looking like he’d just been woken up – which he probably had, judging by his guilty look.

“What are you up to at night?”

A tense silence followed Mr. Williams’ words; only a few suppressed giggles could be heard. Keith was turning red in the face. I also couldn’t stop an amused smile appearing on my lips. Still, I felt a bit bad for him. Having to discuss his nightly activities in front of thirty students meant hundreds of kids would know everything he said by lunch.

“I sleep, sir,” he said. Sure, you do, I thought, actually finding the situation a bit funny.

“You don’t say. I wouldn’t have guessed from your behavior. But let’s see if you can show me your well-rested brain can follow today’s lesson. To the front, Mr. Watson.” His tone left no room for discussion as he pointed at the empty chair next to mine.

Wait, what? What did I do to deserve having my spare desk space stolen?

Grudgingly, I moved my textbook from the free table and slid it across to my own. The chair next to me was pulled out and Keith wordlessly plopped down on it. He sent me an apologetic smile, his ears turning a bit red. I returned a much tighter version of it.

I wasn’t really a fan of the boys in our football team, or more specifically, not a fan of their lovely reputation. The things people were talking about may have been only rumors, but I felt sure each one had to have a basis for it.

The sound of the bell after what had felt like a whole year was the embodiment of a ring of divine bells of heaven for me.

“Is it just me, or does it feel like this class is filled with sleeping gas?” said Simon, trying to suppress a yawn.

“It’s just you,” I said at the same time as Ben.

As we stepped out of the class, a busty blonde walked our way with furious steps, her cheeks flushed with color, eyes narrowly trained on someone behind me. This had trouble written all over it. In a practiced manner – learned from a number of similar cases before this – I took a step aside, a bit farther from Simon.

This should wake him up alright.

The sound of skin meeting skin in a not-really-friendly way rang out, making the people close by turn to look at the source.

Simon was dazed as he held the cheek that had just received the wrath of a woman.

“That’s for sleeping with my sister! We’re over!” the girl shouted before walking off with her head held high.

Pressing my lips together, I pretended to have an interest in a poster on the wall that I couldn’t even read thanks to my weak glasses. Not being able to hold it in, I burst out with laughter. Ben also cracked a broad smile.

I really had to give it to her. It was hard to pull off such a spectacular way of dumping someone. It had almost been like a movie, truly amazing, real sound effects and all.

“Hey! This is not funny,” complained Simon, rubbing his red cheek. Actually, he was right. It wasn’t fun seeing my best friend get slapped because he didn’t want to commit, and instead was playing around like a cheap gigolo. I really didn’t mind the girls slapping him – maybe it could actually knock some sense into the boy – but his flippant attitude... It was as if the caring and loyal Simon from a year ago had simply never existed.

I patted his shoulder and pulled him along, tugging him away from the door we’d been blocking. “You totally deserved it. How many times has it been now?”

He glared at me but answered anyway. “How should I know? It’s not like I’m counting.”

Ben gave him a consoling pat on the back. “You should just stop playing around. If not for ethical reasons, then at least to save your face from having a permanent handprint embellishing it.”

I nodded in approval.

“I told her I don’t do relationships. And why do they always hit the left side?” Simon crumbled.

“Maybe because they’re all right-handed?” I offered jokingly.

“Oh, I didn’t think of that. I’ll find a left-handed girl then,” he said, regaining his easy-going smile.

“I’ll see you at lunch, guys.”

I waved to them and made my way into the Science Building for my Advanced Calculus lesson. Having some time to spare, I popped into the library that was more like a ghost town at this time. The only living soul seemed to be the librarian, who was letting out some weird snorting noise, his head lolling to the side. Reaching the embarrassingly small business section, I started scouring the books, hoping to find something I hadn’t already read before.

“Jeez, they could freshen this up more often,” I murmured when all I found were the same old moldy copies no one other than me seemed to have touched. How come they renewed the physics section every week, and added only one book a month here?

“You’re right about that.”

Looking up in alarm, I found I wasn’t the only one spending my free time between these abandoned shelves. My fellow anomaly was standing a few feet away from me, searching the shelf, his sharp but handsome features pulled into a frown. His dirty-blond hair was pushed back from his face, revealing clearly masculine, alluring lines.

He turned, his deep gray eyes meeting mine.

I was sure I had seen those eyes before. But where?

Wracking my gray brain cells, I tried to figure out why that guy looked familiar. I was pretty sure I had never seen him at school before. He didn’t really seem to be a student, and looked way too young to be a teacher. All the girls here would go crazy if he was a teacher though. He would undoubtedly find it easy to keep their attention on him in lessons. Even I had to admit he was very easy on the eyes.

The warning bell pulled me out of my thoughts. “Shit,” I mumbled. Grabbing my bag from the floor, I ran off without looking back, in order to reach the classroom before the actual bell.

In class, my mind kept going back to the weird guy in the library. The nagging feeling I had seen him before was slowly driving me crazy.

Where was it? Could it have just been on a street somewhere?

But no... It wouldn’t have left a great enough impression on me. Biting the tip of my pen, I let my eyes absentmindedly travel around the class. Mrs. Nelson’s droning, monotonous voice only registered as a background hum in my ears when my eyes stopped at the top of the interactive whiteboard.

ZYNOTECH.

They had made a big donation to our school not long ago, and we got a lot of new interactive technology the teachers sadly didn’t know how to utilize at all. Wait a second... That was it! He was the young guy who’d walked out of the elevator.

“…and the answer for this problem – Miss Black?” My attention turned to the scowling face of Mrs. Nelson. She’d obviously seen I wasn’t paying attention. Ignoring her pointed glare, I turned my eyes to the problem on the board, making quick calculations.

“143.”

I turned in surprise toward the person who had answered before I could open my mouth.

“Wrong answer. Mr. Watson, and when did you become Miss Black?” Mrs. Nelson glared sharply at Keith through her round glasses, looking like a starved owl ready to swoop down to catch an innocent mouse for dinner. I frowned. Now she was just acting nasty.

“The answer is 156,” I interrupted before Mrs. Nelson could say something else to Keith and make the guy even more uncomfortable. It seemed he was especially prone to getting scolded today. And weirdly enough, he’d managed to pull me into it twice already.

There were a few seconds of silence in class, the time it took for Mrs. Nelson to glare at me with her nostrils flared. I wondered if pointing out that her nose hair was way overdue for trimming was a good idea. Probably not if I didn’t want to spend the remainder of my high-school days taking ‘surprise’ quizzes every day.

“Correct,” she said, reluctant to admit she had no reason to keep the one-sided staring competition going anymore.

“Now, who wants to take the next question?”