Chapter 7: Jesus Was a Great Man

Scarlet's POV

“Morning, Scar! Don’t you look like morning sunshine today,” said Simon with his usual dimpled grin when he saw me walking down the corridor toward my locker.

“You mean I look like that asshole who intrudes into my room from between my curtains at five-thirty in the morning and annoys the hell out of me?” I raised my eyebrow at him in question, daring him to say yes.

“Well, I actually meant her nicer sister at 9 a.m. But just so you know – they’re twins.” He smirked, closing his locker’s door and leaning against it. I took my things from the locker, while Simon went on.

I wasn’t really in a mood for this. Even after a full night of tossing and turning I couldn’t shake off the disappointment. That man had been right. Although he was nice about it, it still burned.

“By the way, we were thinking with Eddie and Ben that we should go out on Friday for bowling. You up for it? There will probably also be some other girls.” He eyed me dubiously when he said it, ready to start convincing me at any sign of my usual reluctance to attend activities like this.

“I’ll think about it,” I told him while making sure I had gotten everything I needed from my locker and wouldn’t need to run back later. I needed to get my mind off this, so might as well go out for once.

“Really?” he asked skeptically after a second to digest my unexpected answer.

I nodded, finding his unbelieving expression a bit amusing. I usually didn’t really like to hang out with strangers, especially when the strangers were girls like Angela. The way she always acted like a good girl in front of guys, then eyeing me with distaste when they weren’t looking, just made me want to give her a sample of my rarely used vocabulary. Instead of wasting my nerve cells trying not to flip out on her, I preferred to stay away.

There were more important things for me to do, like reading a book while bundled up in a warm blanket with a steaming mug of hot chocolate. But I thought the idea did seem good for a change. Besides, Eddie had been skipping lunch for a week so I hadn’t had a chance to chat with him for a while.

From the corner of my eye, I saw someone with familiar dirty-blond hair. My gaze quickly turned to see, but to my disappointment, the person walking by was a random guy I didn’t know.

“Scarlet?”

I snapped my eyes back to Simon, who was looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t even heard.

“Yes,” I said without thinking.

His lips turned into a small smirk at my quick answer. “That’s so nice of you to lend me 900 bucks.”

“Ye…Wait, what? No!”

Simon laughed and put his hand on my shoulder before dragging me along toward our History class.

“Just kidding.”

The History class was going to be my doom. I felt like my mind was slowly falling into a boredom-induced coma. I wished I could have taken an extra Calculus class instead. At least that could give my brain a bit of a tickle.

My poor notebook was suffering from the affliction of excessive doodling. Strange faces were watching me from the page’s corners and some weirdly shaped doodles reminded me how bad I truly was as an artist. It was hard to make out the difference between class notes and pointless scribbles that looked like I was unknowingly trying to learn Greek. Maybe it was simply the inner genius in me waking up.

The sound of the classroom door opening pulled my attention as well as everyone else’s to its source.

“I’m sorry I’m so late. I got lost.”

It took me a second to register that voice. He was standing by the door, looking at Mr. Williams, who was attempting to smile. It was like he was trying to bend iron with the corners of his mouth.

“Well, it’s nice to see you found your way in this maze of a building and decided to join us on this marvelous day.”

To my - and probably everyone else’s - surprise, the humiliating comments he usually liked to serve on a golden platter were left unsaid. “Take a seat, Mr. White.”

My eyebrows rose when I heard his name. White? Well, that was a bit funny. His name just happened to be the opposite of mine. What were the odds of that?

Mr. White – as the teacher had called him – turned his gaze to the classroom and his gaze landed on the seat next to me, the only one available. Our eyes met and I saw how the corner of his mouth twitched up in immediate and happy recognition.

Ignoring the sudden quickening in my heart rhythm at that expression, I chose to turn my attention to the front of the class. He sat next to me wordlessly, leaning back comfortably on his chair.

The lesson continued with no further disturbances, if you exclude my heart beating like a drum, which I was positive the others could hear. The reason for this alien phenomenon remained a mystery. I felt my heart’s reaction was extremely ridiculous. Sure, he was handsome – in my book at least – but it wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen people with looks on his level before. Okay, most of them were on a TV screen, but still. But it wasn’t even really his looks that pulled my attention.

He was sitting with a straight posture but somehow managed to look extremely relaxed. I let my eyes travel over the class to take note of how the other guys were sitting. The difference was painfully obvious. Most were half lying on their table while the other half was slouching. Jeez, the problem wasn’t even the posture. Something about this other boy just didn’t fit with the surroundings.

Following the ridiculousness of my thoughts, I decided someone must have messed with my head. If it wasn’t some alien messing with my body, then the second possibility sounded even weirder – I was, for some unfathomable reason, experiencing a chemical reaction that resulted in my heart completely and utterly misreading the situation.

It suddenly felt a lot warmer in the room. I was feeling attraction for this representative of the opposite sex. Go figure. I had thought the books were surely exaggerating when they described this natural phenomenon.

“Oh, Jesus Christ...” I mumbled under my breath.

“Miss Black, did you say something?” I snapped my head up and looked at Mr. Williams, who was staring at me with his eyebrow raised a bit, clearly not very happy about the interruption. I felt the attention of the whole class turning to me. My already pitter-pattering heart started to pound the beginning of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.

“Oh... nothing. Just thinking about how Jesus was just… such an awesome person… and all...” I said, barely believing the complete rubbish cascading from my own mouth.

I heard a muffled chuckle behind me, the source of which was undoubtedly my supposed-to-be best friend. Some students at the front had turned around, waiting to watch a good show, which – knowing Mr. Williams’ love for interruptions – they were most probably going to get at my expense.

“Well, it is very nice to hear you are deeply interested in Jesus Christ, but I hope you know today’s lesson’s topic is something else entirely? You’re off by nineteen centuries, Miss Black. I do also hope you can follow me from now on and turn that attention to the topic at hand,” said Mr. Williams while flipping a page in his textbook. “But if you are interested, then I would be de-li-riously happy to give you some extra reading about Jesus Christ and you could write a nice 2000-word essay on it,” he added with a stern expression. “How does that sound?”

“Oh, no need at all, Mr. Williams! As much as I respect him, I also don’t feel the need to pry into his tragic personal life any more than needed…I mean…me being such a private person myself…and all that…umm, you know?”

My refusal came out all too quickly, too stutteringly, and all too eagerly, to the sound of yet more unrestrained snickering from behind me. Even my seemingly disengaged desk mate had an amused smile on his face.

Great. Way to make an impression.

To my luck, Mr. Williams didn’t seem to want to keep insisting. “If that’s so, then I must say I hope no such interruptions happen again. But let’s continue with the lesson now.” I was surprised I had been let off so easily. Maybe he was in a good mood today, which was weird in itself as he never seemed to be.

A sigh of relief left my lips and my shoulders slumped a little. I threw a glare over my shoulder to Simon who was still trying to suppress his grin. He only winked and glanced at the guy sitting next to me with a smirk. I felt the heat rise to my cheeks and looked away, trying to concentrate on the lesson again. Damn him for knowing me so well.