Chapter 5: Attractive Wall

Scarlet's POV

High school was the home of drama. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to get done with it. Hormonal teenagers with immature thinking wasn’t really the crowd that I wanted to hang around. But against my better judgement, I found that it was hard to shut it out completely when some of those hormonal teenagers were my friends.

“Should we tell him?” I asked Simon.

A few tables away from us, a rowdy lunch was taking place. The stocky guys belonging to the football team were having fun with most of the cheerleading team giggling along, some of them comfortably snuggling on the guys’ laps. The only guy among them who looked like he had skimped on gym training was Benjamin, but the only person he ever had eyes for was his girlfriend, Angela—or Angel, as he always called her. If you asked me, I’d say she was way more like one of those sirens who looked demure and pretty when pulling in the prey, before metamorphosing into creatures of hell the very moment you turned your back.

“Nah. We don’t really know if she is cheating on him. It would only make him defensive of his beloved Angel,” said Simon. Although his tone seemed uncaring, he also glanced at Benjamin from time to time with a small frown on his face.

“Don’t you have some guy way of telling him his girlfriend is a stinking two-faced bitch?”

“That’s just your opinion. She is hot, you know; can’t blame him for being blind.”

I glared at him. “Really? Have you actually fallen that low?”

He shrugged, taking a bite from his half-eaten sandwich. “I’m a man. We can’t help but appreciate what we see. Call us pigs if you want, but that won’t change.”

I looked at the scattered cucumbers he’d picked out of his meal and the breadcrumbs lying around. “I can see that.”

When a loud holler of laughter pulled my eyes back to the rowdy table, I saw Keith looking over. And then he did something I found extremely funny. He actually winked at me. Either that or he had something in his eyes and just happened to close one when looking over. The second seemed way more likely. Ignoring that moment of weirdness, I turned back to Simon.

“I wish Eddie would come back though. He’s been cooped up in the library from last week. You think it’s because of them?” I rather covertly gestured toward the other table.

Simon shrugged carelessly. “Who knows?”

I thought I knew. But it didn’t really get me any closer to piecing our small group back together. Simon and I had been best friends from being in diapers, and so had Ben and Eddie. When we entered high school, we happened to take French together and hit it off really well, becoming a small group of friends that had lunch together.

Sometimes, we also hung out outside of school. Benjamin, though, had always been more of a quiet guy in our group, so him eating lunch away from us didn’t really leave vast holes in our conversations. But the absence of Eddie, on the other hand, was almost palpable, like a gaping black hole, awkward silences never failing to remind us of his undeniable absence every time neither of us had anything to say.

Cleaning up my plate with sloth-like enthusiasm, I let my gaze wander around the cafeteria. My eyes lingered on a few guys with dirty-blond hair but moved on quickly. When I couldn’t find anything interesting enough to keep my attention, I lost my remaining appetite.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, picking up my bag to leave.

There was no reason to keep listening to the buzzing of the crowd around us. Simon seemed to agree as he lifted up his platter without a word and followed me out.

Walking down the corridor toward the lockers, I started talking. “Hey, you think you can make it to Roxy’s tonight? We’re doing MMA today.”

When I didn’t get an answer, I turned, only to find Simon leaning against a wall some distance away, chatting up a pretty brunette. Not again, I inwardly groaned, contemplating if I should just go and grab him by the arm or leave him smooth-talking the innocent girl who knew no better; she looked extremely flattered by the attention she was getting. Well, he did have the looks of a sweet charmer, especially when the killer dimples made their deadly appearance. Coupled with his baby-blue eyes and long doe lashes, I had yet to find a girl who hadn’t fallen for his boyish looks. Except for me, of course.

He looked toward me for a second and winked, a sign he was going to take a while. Rolling my eyes as I usually did, I continued on my way. It was clear that one day, all the flirting he was so blatantly doing was bound to come back to bite his butt. Well, maybe losing a piece or two of flesh from a place that hurt would finally open his eyes again.

Reaching my locker, I exchanged my morning lessons’ notebooks for the afternoon ones. My books were placed into neat rows, a precaution to avoid certain death because of a book avalanche every time I opened the locker door. It was no joke if a 900-page thick French dictionary fell on your head. Add to that the robust copy of Literature classics and you could be doomed to forever have nightmares of Romeo and Juliet throwing weighty tomes at you.

My hand stopped when my eyes were suddenly fixed on a familiar back at the end of the hall, his tall frame towering over the small chubby teacher I knew very well. Mr. Scott was our Economics tutor, a person I truly respected because unlike many other teachers here, he’d actually used the principles he was now teaching. For twenty years, he’d run his own publishing business before deciding to take on a post at our school. His company was now run by his son, who happened to be a graduate of this school too.

In the library, I had been shamefully too distracted by the face of the guy, but seeing Mr. Scott only barely reach his shoulder made me wonder if I’d come as high as his nose.

“Are you staring at the blond or that shorty Economics teacher?” Simon’s sudden appearance made me slam my locker’s door closed a bit too forcefully out of fright.

“Neither,” I said, turning my back to the pair; I started walking to my next class, inwardly cursing at myself for giving such an obvious answer. Simon caught up quickly and fell into an unhurried pace beside me.

“So, it was the blond, huh. And here I was thinking you were a book-sexual.”

“Did you get her number?” I asked, refusing to react to his teasing.

“I did actually, but you don’t get to change the topic like that,” he said, grinning. I could see his blue eyes twinkling dangerously. I sighed. How come me looking at a guy for a few seconds seemed to be such an enormous thing for someone who got the number of almost every girl he talked to?

“You never give any guys such passionately burning looks.”

“How was that passionate?” I argued. “I could watch an empty wall with the same level of interest.”

His lips curled up into a smirk. “Well, that has to be one hell of an attractive wall for you then.”