Curse of Curves

I had a hard time not laughing at Arrow’s drawing and the paint on the walls but this, this was too much.

It was complete chaos; frogs running everywhere, girls screaming, and some guys were too. Megan squealed and hid behind me as a frog began to approach her. “Ethan!” She squeaked. “They’re everywhere!”

Then I did something that I never ever expected to actually do; even if I had thought it. I laughed. I threw my head back into a laugh that filled my stomach and heaved at my lungs.

“What’s s-so,” I gave another hard laugh, “bad a-about it?” I asked her breathlessly between laughs.

She instantly went wide-eyed at my reaction. “Ethan? What’s the matter with you? This is-” She shrieked as a frog jumped past her and grabbed onto my arm. “-pandemonium!”

“But it’s… funny.” I told her, laughing again as some kid ran into the water fountain trying to escape the jumping little critters.

“This,” she motioned around herself at the hopping amphibians and he running, screaming students, “is not funny! It’s immature, childish, and, most of all-”

She cut off as I laughed at her again as I laughed at the entire sight of it all. My stomach was starting to knot up and it was getting hard to breathe through all of the cackling I was doing. I took a deep breath to calm myself down enough to form a response. “Of course it’s immature and childish but it’s… amusing.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you Ethan, but it needs to stop,” She stated before hiding herself behind me as another screaming girl ran past us with a frog following behind her.

Then I had another first; I rolled my eyes at her comment. I mean, she hadn’t seen, but it was still, well, I knew it had happened.

Despite my shock and surprise that I’d done that, I managed to cold, mature tone I always used. “I need to go,” I told her before leaving her to the frogs.

I think I was the only one who walked down the hall calmly as I nonchalantly avoided stepping on the frogs that were still running lose.

I headed into the bathroom across the hall and hung my head over the sink, not daring to look at my reflection. I nearly ran a hand through my hair but stopped myself because it would mess it up.

I lifted my head a bit to look at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t supposed to laugh at something like that, I wasn’t supposed to roll my eyes at a classmate.

If Arrow hadn’t pulled any of these stunts, would I have ever laughed that hard? I sighed at my reflection before exiting the bathroom, deciding I didn’t want to think on that anymore. But I knew the answer was no.

*~*~*~*

As I figured, Arrow wasn’t in class afterwards. Surely he had been laughing too much at his stunt to avoid getting himself caught.

He was, however, at lunch. How do I know? Well, because a sudden hush fell over the cafeteria as Arrow walked in, wearing that infamous smirk. The smirk that said, ‘I don’t give adamn darn.’ Now his language is even rubbing off on me…

I froze as his eyes landed on me. We stayed like that for a second and my lungs felt constricted as our eyes locked. My heart rate sped up abnormally and it kind of scared me but at the same time it felt kind of… right? But then I was suddenly aware of my cheeks heating up and I turned away from him.

“I thought they called in his mom?” Kaylyn asked the table. I took another bite of my potatoes, trying to ignore her gossip.

“Well, doesn’t seem like they did a good job of punishing him.” Megan said, pouting, still obviously upset about the frogs.

“Do you really have nothing more interesting to talk about than Arrow’s… misdeeds?” Then my shoulders slumped as I realized they wouldn’t have anything more interesting to talk about. Like me, they were all too busy studying at home trying to score high on tests.

Kaylyn and Megan’s gaze dropped to the food on the try in front of them as I realized how harsh I had actually sounded.

Should I be defending him? I looked over to where he was sitting, alone. I let my eyes study his figure. Besides the strange clothing, he actually was kind of… good-looking. Then I mentally slapped myself in the face for thinking that. I cannot think that a boy is good-looking it’s just… well, I don’t know what it is, but I shouldn’t be thinking that about the Satan reincarnate sitting a few tables away!

Then all thoughts melted away as his eyes met mine. I felt myself freeze up before I turned away quickly, trying to conceal the blush on my cheeks with my hair.

*~*~*~*

I sighed as the bell rang and made my way over to my locker and froze to the spot when I was met with an infamous smirk – one that I would know anywhere. Why would I know it anywhere? Just because I would, okay!?

“Hey, I seem to have lost my phone number; can you give me yours?” He asked, grinning like mad as he stood up.

I felt my face heat up with blush. “What?” I questioned breathlessly, shakily trying to enter my combination. I tried to keep my eyes off of him, because I knew that my tortured blush would only add to his sadistic enjoyment of my being flustered.

“Come on, Ethan, we both know you wanna give me your number,” He replied, grinning. “What did you think of the frogs, by the way?” He chuckling at the mere mentioning of it.

I swallowed, I could either lie, or I could give him the truth: that I’d laughed at the sight, that I’d thought it was incredibly hilarious.

Obviously, he wasn’t going to leave me alone, so I might as well give him something to enjoy; maybe it would ease my sentence of having to deal with him for the rest of my high school career.

I shut my locker after I’d taken my books out and turned to look at him. “It was fairly amusing.”

“Really!?” He piped up. Then he got another evil smirk on his face. “So you don’t think I’m the Satanic leader of some underground cult?”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “What? No.”

His grin only got wider. Time to deflate his ego.

“But just because I don’t hate you doesn’t mean we’re friends either,” I let him know.

I thought that that would deflate his ego, but apparently it had just the opposite effect as he wrapped me in an awkward hug. “Ethan doesn’t hate me!” He squealed.

I sighed exasperatedly. Why did everything I say always backfire on me?