Starstruck

The next day, I went through my classes in a daze. I had a plot kink that needed to be worked out, and I just couldn’t get it right. I was so distracted that I nearly walked right into Coll. He was standing in front of my locker, looking excited.

“Hey,” I said distractedly while he continued to beam at me. I brushed past him and spun the dial to the numbers of my combination. I ducked out of habit, and was not disappointed. An avalanche of notebooks and pencils, papers and folders flew at me.

“Stupid lockers,” I grumbled. I bent to pick up my things, but Coll had already done it for me. I didn’t bother thanking him, and he understood. I was awful in the mornings. Conversation wasn’t really possible, and I only spoke in fragmented sentences until I’d had two cups of coffee.

My coffee maker had broken yesterday morning. I had a right to be a little crabby, I thought. So it was absolutely justified that when Coll held out a thermos and I smelled the coffee in it, I leapt into his arms and smothered his face with kisses.

“My hero!” I proclaimed. By this time, a mutual friend, Jase, had made his way over to us and was beaming.

“It’s about time,” he said. I was too busy happily twisting off the cap of the thermos for his words to really register. If I’d already had some coffee that morning, I might not have missed the warning look Coll shot at him.

“I brought her coffee,” Coll explained. By this point, I’d already downed half of the coffee, and was feeling better already, in anticipation of the caffeine hitting my system. So I wondered what was going on when I looked up and noticed Jase blushing.

“Time for math, Aurely,” Jase said, taking my shoulders and pushing me down the hallway.

“What was that about?” I asked. He just shook his head.

I was lucky, very lucky, that I was smart. That I didn’t need to pay attention to figure out how to work my math problems. I didn’t give today’s lesson an ounce of attention, instead scribbling furiously in the thick black notebook I wrote my stories in. Normally, I wouldn’t be so obvious about my writing. I was always worried in the back of my mind about getting my notebook confiscated, and read to the class.

I’d seen it done with personal notes. If it happened to me, I would just about die from the mortification of it.

So, it couldn’t happen.

The day stayed pretty ordinary, until lunch. I was still writing obsessively, hardly caring about my friends noticing, as long as they didn’t read over my shoulder. I was on a roll.

So when Coll came up behind me and snatched away my journal, I panicked. My nerves were already fraying from the stress of worrying over teachers taking away my notebook, and here my best friend did.

But after the shock came outrage. “Coll Deniken, give that back right now, or I’ll make you regret it!” He gave me a long look, staring straight into my eyes. I didn’t blink, holding his gaze. No matter how uncomfortable his gaze made me feel, I’d rather have his eyes on me than on my notebook. Goodness knew anything was better than that.

He must have seen something in my eyes that convinced him that I was serious. Good thing, too, because I was all set to lob my burger at his head. Of course, that was a last resort kind of thing, because I was terribly uncoordinated. I had as much chance of hitting my own book as I had of hitting him. That, and I didn’t want to call attention to myself that way.

Around that time, our other friends started showing up. Jase sat across from me, and next to him was the ridiculously beautiful Alexia. She had perfect blonde hair and eyes so dark, they were like pits. Her skin was a creamy pale that mine could only dream of. And she was head over heels for Jase. Not that he knew, the idiot.

But then again, who was I to give out relationship advice? My only boyfriend had lasted a day before I freaked out, dumped him, and ignored the poor boy. That wasn’t a very good track record, I’d admit. The very worst part of it was that now he was the school’s pretty boy, and I’d gotten on his reject list early on.

But I had my friends, so I was alright. Normally, it was just the four of us, but I liked small groups better. In junior high, I’d been that girl, the one everyone wanted to be. It didn’t work out for me, and I slunk into the shadows like a coward.

I was still there, still afraid to come out. And yet, I couldn’t regret it. I got along with this group way better than I’d ever gotten on with the airheads who got by on looks alone.

For the first time that day, I tucked my notebook safely in my giant bag and put on a friendly smile for my friends. They deserved at least a little attention. It was the least I could do. “So, what’s new?” I asked.

Jase and Alexia exchanged uneasy glances, and I noticed that they were sitting farther apart than usual. What had happened there? Normally, they sat unrealistically close, so close that they were bumping elbows while they ate. Normally, they would look at the other whenever they thought no one would notice. None of that was happening.

But now wasn’t the time to ask, so I turned to Coll and lifted my brow.

“I thought you’d never ask! Prepare to love me. I got tickets to see the Epic Failures in concert next Tuesday!” he exploded.

“You didn’t?” I was smiling so wide, my lip cracked open. Not that that was hard to do, mind. I was a habitual lip-gnawer.

“I did. You think you can make it?”

“I wouldn’t miss it. They’re my favorite group, you know. I can’t believe I’m going to see them! Really? You’re the best, Coll.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

But my gratitude faded pretty quickly when, no less than five minutes later, I caught him with his nose in my book. He’d already had a warning, so I hurled my half-eaten burger at him. By some miracle, I hit his face. He didn’t like that much, and tried to throw his own back at me.

But he had ketchup in his eyes, and his aim was way off. He ended up hitting Preston Lowe, the school pretty boy, in the back of the head.

And so the food fight began.