Click

At school the next day while I tried to get to class quietly without drawing too much attention, Marcy followed shortly behind me, pointing really obviously to all of the guys that we passed who she thought was good-looking and suitable for me.

“Maybe it’s him,” she said, pointing to a short red-headed boy, who turned to look at her when her finger was turned in his direction. He scowled and walked off. I rolled my eyes.

“Marcy, can we drop this?” I asked her calmly. “Why are you so into figuring it out anyways?”

I really didn’t understand what had suddenly brought on this newfound interest in discovering the “true identity” of Nathaniel, but she really seemed to believe he wasn’t who he said he was.

“Because now that you’ve taken the test, it’s obvious that you two need to be together. Now, you just have to take action and find this guy,” she said.

“Marcy, there’s about seventy-five thousand other boys in our tiny little town. I seriously doubt that I’m ever going to find him, so can we just drop it please? All it said was that we were compatible and that he lived in my area but that thing's got like a million foot radius tracking system, that could go from my computer all the way to like, Quebec probably. I’m not going to be able to find him.”

“You could always arrange something,” she said, shrugging. “And by the way, I have no idea what you just said because I totally tuned you out when you started talking about big numbers.”

I scowled and walked faster until she was no longer near me. I slipped into my first period class a little earlier than usual but if it would stop her from starting the whole “find Nathaniel” thing again, than I had no complaints.

All of first period was spent doodling on a spare piece of paper in my binder while the teacher gave a lecture on square roots and the metric system, which I already knew without any problems. It was boring not knowing anyone in first period because it just always gave me that feeling that it was going to be a boring, uneventful day. Although, second period changed that impression because David was beginning to greet me by jumping in front of me when I wasn’t paying attention and screaming something in my face.

I sat down next to Nick and he looked up at me, smiling slightly.

“Hey Chris,” he said.

I furrowed my brows in confusion. “Wow, you’re not embarrassed to be talking to the girl who screams at teachers?” I asked him, opening my binder and flipping to a blank page. Over the past few days that this semester had held, so far I had gone from being the average student to having the reputation of “the girl that screams at teachers”, even though it was just the one time and to one teacher. He shrugged.

“Social statuses don’t faze me,” he replied. “Like, David and I used to be friends and then he got really popular but we still talk on rare occasions.”

I glanced back at said-boy and frowned. “He doesn’t seem like your friend though, no offense.”

“None taken. That’s just how he is,” Nick said. “He’s got a split personality. His mood swings give me whiplash sometimes but you get used to it after nearly five years of hanging out with him and living next to him.”

“Well you two really don’t seem very buddy-buddy with each other for two people who still talk after the effects of high school took you on,” I pointed out.

"That's because he's my younger sister's friend's cousin . . . or something. I don't know, I barely pay attention to anything she says," he says, waving a hand in the air.

"Aren't you a sweetheart," I teased.

“You don’t know me well enough to make that judgment,” he said. I laughed and looked toward the door for no real reason at all. As soon as my eyes were staring in that direction, I saw Blade just about to open the door to step inside but just like yesterday, Amanda pounced on him. I could hear her squealing in happiness from in here because she was so loud and high-pitched. I rolled my eyes.

“All right. Since you questioned my opinion on David, I can question your opinion on Blade,” Nick said, snapping me out of my extreme staring moment. I looked over at him.

“What opinion? I have no opinion of Blade,” I said, shaking my head.

“Well this is where my question comes in,” he said, smiling crookedly. “If you don’t like the guy, how come you’re staring at him constantly?”

“I don’t stare at him constantly,” I objected, crossing my arms over my chest, leaning against the back of my chair and frowning.

“Well you always look at the door whenever he comes into a room. He’s always drawing your attention, and yet you say you don’t like him.”

“I don’t like him,” I said, shaking my head. “I just happen to look at him sometimes.”

“You said you don’t look at him,” Nick corrected me.

“No, I said I don’t look at him constantly. I’m looking at you right now, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but I’m not Blade,” he said. “I don’t have that . . . raw sexual magnetism that he gives off to you girls.”

I burst out laughing. “Nick, he has no raw sexual magnetism. It’s just charm and good looks.”

“So you admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“That you think he’s good looking.”

“Well I never said I didn’t—"

“But you said you have no opinion of him. If you had no opinion, it would just be like him having a body but no head to you.”

“I didn’t say that either,” I objected, shaking my head. Even though I knew Nick was just continuing this conversation to annoy me and admit that I had a crush on Blade—which I didn’t—I still found the situation to be amusing and a smile began to break out on my face. “I just said that he has charm and he’s cute. That doesn’t mean he has no head or that he’s just like a body walking around the halls. Of course I know he’s there. I have an opinion of him but it’s not like . . .” I stopped myself from going anything further because I really didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.

Nick smirked, amused my by current state. I hit him lightly on the arm. “Shut up,” I mumbled. “I know what I’m talking about.”

“Well at least someone does,” he mumbled. I hit him again and he laughed. “Come on. You can’t honestly tell me that you don’t find him to be like this real life fairytale prince or something that everyone wants to be with.”

Why was it that so many people were making connections between Blade and male leads in children’s story tales?

“No one said he was a prince,” I objected. “Frankly, I don’t think any of the guys at this school are really . . . prince material.”

“Oh, thanks,” Nick said sarcastically, chuckling under his breath.

“I didn’t mean—I just—I wasn’t implying that you were . . .” I trailed off, coming to the realization that there was no real way to save face in this situation. I groaned and slammed my face down on the table.

“I’ve known you for a total of three classes and you’re already twisting my words around to make it sound like I’m a witch,” I mumbled, but my voice was muffled by the desk. Nick laughed but didn’t bother objecting to the fact that that was what he was doing. He knew I was right so he didn’t push the conversation any further.

“Hey Chris.”

I looked up and saw Blade flashing me a smile before sitting down next to me.

“You okay?” he asked me. I bashed my head back down on the table and grumbled something unintelligent. Blade frowned in confusion.

“If you didn’t catch that, she said . . .” Nick began, making the same noise that I had just made. Blade smiled.

“No, I caught it. I’m just a little curious about what it actually means,” he said. “It was kind of difficult to hear you with your face smashed against the desk.”

I looked back up at him and opened my mouth to say something but there really was no way of escaping this without making myself look like a complete idiot or a very immature teenager.

I just closed my mouth and shook my head, telling him through my actions that it really wasn’t important. Luckily, I didn’t have to bear with the awkward silence passing between the three of us for very long because Mrs. Adams entered from the back room right when the bell rang, took attendance and began the lesson. I had expected her to start teaching us about sexual and asexual reproduction like the course outline said she would but instead, she began a conversation about pollination and how plants reproduced.

What she mistakenly said at one point throughout the class was “remember, the more you reproduce, the more popular you’ll be”, at which time David found it necessary to stand up and do a weird pelvic thrust kind of dance, It made Mrs. Adams realize what she had said and quickly added “well, not for humans, just for plants”.

We all decided not to tease her about her mistake and massive blush forming on her cheeks and just stayed quiet but the way Nick was hunched over his paper, biting his lip said that he was trying extremely hard not to laugh.

At the end of the class, she gave each of us a piece of paper with a diagram of a cartoon pig sliced in half so that we could see all of the organs, intestines and everything else inside of it. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Seeing an animal—dead or alive, cartoon or real—cut in half on a piece of paper for with all of their insides exposed for me to look at really wasn’t my idea of a good picture to look at.

“Memorize it, because tomorrow, you’re disecting this,” she said strictly, right before the bell rang. I swear that I nearly threw up a little in my mouth but I managed to keep it down. I knew now that keeping my ham sandwich at lunch time was going to be a lot more difficult than I had planned on.

When I was walking out the door though, I glanced at David who was leaning backwards a little bit to see into the back room. I looked over as well and noticed a dead pig lying on the center table. That was when I was completely turned off eating lunch because David leaned over the garbage can, and brought up his breakfast.



I had never once skipped a meal before but at lunch period, I had to. Just looking at food made me sick to my stomach, so I left Kayti and Marcy in the cafeteria and proceeded to the library to study for the math test I had on Friday. The teacher was giving us one to see how much we remembered from last year, which I would have expected him to do on the first or second day but I guess waiting a little longer so he could get to know our names was more important than helping us pass the class and actually get an education in mathematics –whether we were thinking of pursuing that as a career or not.

About twenty minutes into my lunch period, my cell phone buzzed and I pulled it out, reading the screen that said [ThisFails Is Calling You]. My eyes went wide. He was calling me? I was actually going to hear his voice for the first time.

I closed my binder and stuffed it into my backpack while pressing the Accept Call button on my phone and holding it between my shoulder and my ear.

“Hello?” I grunted.

“Am I talking to a man?”

I laughed. I was really hoping that I could have recognized his voice but it didn’t sound familiar. Well actually, it sounded a little similar to someone but I couldn’t place my finger on who he sounded like. After all, phones always made people’s voices sound different than they actually were.

“No, sorry. I’m just packing up my bag. You caught me when I was in the library so I have to leave if I’m going to talk to you,” I replied, zipping up my bag and pushing my chair back.

“Oh, sorry. Would the librarian have stolen it if she saw you?” he asked.

“Well that, or make me hang up on you and then just give me a big lecture on how I’m supposed to keep quiet in this sort of environment and cell phones are not the way to do it,” I explained, standing up and slipping my right arm through my backpack strap. “So how come you decided to call me instead of texting like you usually do?”

“Well apparently texting makes it obvious that I’m talking to someone I’m not supposed to during school hours. A phone call makes it look like I’m speaking with my mom or my dad,” Nathaniel replied. I smiled.

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it before,” I pointed out.

“That was because I didn’t have the principal trailing behind me last time. Now, he’s like stalking me to make sure I’m not ‘not making unnecessary phone calls’,” he responded. “He’s a few feet away but it’s like he’s deaf in one ear because he hasn’t heard any of this.”

I laughed. “Well should I just talk to you later or something? So that you don’t get in any trouble?”

“No, no. It’s fine. So how’s your day?” he asked me.

“Good. Did you get my email last night?”

“I did,” he answered. He sounded like he was smiling now. “So now you’re not a total Van Halen virgin.”

“Actually, I am,” I said. “I broke it.”

“You broke your dad’s record?” he asked, before bursting out laughing. “You’re keen.”

“It wasn’t my fault! The slit was very small!” I exclaimed, but despite my stress from going over what happened last night in my mind, I was smiling. “That’s probably why they don’t make records anymore.”

“Because people kept forgetting where the opening to the case was? Haha, yeah right. Get real, Christabelle,” he joked, continuing to find my discomfort amusing since he kept on laughing. The way my name slid off his tongue so casually made me blush without control. “I’m sure they’d realize that they should check for the opening after breaking like . . . two. They wouldn’t keep doing it.”

“Well . . . whatever,” I said, laughing. “I don’t want to relive my mistakes. You know that compatibility test on the website?”

“Really bad way to change the subject but whatever. Yes, I know of it.”

“Well I took it.”

“Oh yeah? So who’s the lucky guy that will win the fair maiden’s heart?” he teased me.

“Apparently you,” I said, laughing. “You were number one on my list.”

“Seriously? I didn’t get you on my list,” he said, sounding genuinely surprised.

“Well that’s because I only took the test last night and you took it before me so my results weren’t calculated yet.”

“Oh, right. That makes more sense. Well maybe we should hook up,” he joked. I laughed.

“Funny,” I said. “Don’t you have like . . . thirty other girls tied for first place? You’ve got lots of options instead of the ‘Van Halen virgin’ as you so famously call me.”

“Oh shit.”

“What?” I asked.

“The principal’s looking. Uh—all right, mom! I’ll meet you outside for my . . . doctor’s appointment,” he said. I laughed.

“Bye, Nathan,” I said, hanging up and putting my phone back in my pocket. All I could think about was his voice. Before, it was his looks but now that I had heard what he sounded like, I could at least make an assumption on his appearance so I could match the two up. His voice was charming and friendly, but mysterious at the same time.

If Marcy had talked to him, the only word she would ever think of using to describe his voice would be “sexy”.



Even though we were only three days into the new school semester, drama would be my cheer-up period but I had already been cheered up for today. I sat down with Marcy and Kayti with a really big smile on my face. Even when I tried to hide it, I couldn’t do it because I was just in such a good mood.

“Let me guess,” Marcy said, narrowing her eyes at me. “You’re just having a good day.”

I laughed. “Yep,” I replied. “That’s all it is.”

She rolled her eyes. Kayti slapped her on the back of the head, making her scowl. “Well, I think it’s sweet.”

“That she’s ‘just having a good day’?” Marcy asked, raising her eyebrows.

“No. You and I both know it’s because of that Nathaniel guy. And it’s sweet that he’s good enough of a guy to text her in the middle of the day and make her grin like how she is now. When’s the last time you saw a boy do this to her?”

“Connor O’Riley,” Marcy said, nodding slowly. “Fair enough. I see your point now.”

Connor O’Riley was Kayti’s step-brother’s cousin that I dated for about a week in grade six. We were doing fine and he was such a sweet guy—and he actually managed to make me smile over him, unlike all the other guys—until we went to Kayti’s twelfth birthday party. We were playing Spin the Bottle just for something to do because we were all so bored and when it landed on me, he just grabbed me without any heads-up and stuck his tongue down my throat. I was so freaked out that when he pulled away, I accidentally threw up on his lap. We never talked about it again, and it was kind of like both of us knew we had broken up, even though neither one of us said it. It was just kind of common knowledge. Either that or I was still dating him –dating a guy I hadn’t talked to or seen for nearly four years now.

When Mr. Sadusky came into the room, he looked surprisingly cheery. Usually, he managed to keep on that same amused smile because he liked being able to come into a classroom full of students and make them embarrass themselves by performing their emotions in front of everyone else. This time, he looked like he was excited for something other than that.

“Good afternoon, class!” he said, grinning at us and placing the papers he had been carrying when he entered the room on his desk. The bell rang and he leaned against his desk, looking over at the door and waiting for everyone else to rush inside. When they were in, I looked directly across from me and saw Shane staring at me. He had a curious look on his face, like he was trying to remember who I was, but then he looked away once I caught him watching me. I frowned but didn’t think about it anymore. I looked back at Mr. Sadusky.

“Good job. You’re all here on time,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “So here’s the deal. I’m not going to tell you guys what play we’re going to be performing at the end of the year yet,”—Romeo and Juliet—“but I do have a fun activity for you today.”

I looked at Marcy but she just shrugged.

“I need three volunteers,” Mr. Sadusky said, tapping his fingers on his arms. Shane and Blade looked over at each other and stood up. Blade stuffed his hands in his pockets and lifted his shoulders a little, leaning casually on his hip.

Vienne started to stand up to join them, and so did a few other girls in the class, but Marcy and Kayti both grabbed my arms and thrusted them into the air. My eyes went wide.

“What? No!” I hollered, glaring at both of them.

“Ah, thank you for being an enthusiastic and willing participant, Chris,” Mr. Sadusky said sarcastically, smirking at me in satisfaction. “Get up. You’re doing it.”

“I hate you both,” I hissed under my breath to Kayti and Marcy, before shrugging their arms off of me and walking to the center of the room. A couple of people were chuckling from my outburst but it wasn’t like a full on laughing fit, so I wasn’t completely humiliated—just slightly.

“All right. So for the rest of you who aren’t going to be our actors, I need your help as well,” he said, pushing himself away from his desk and picking up a marker from his desk, before walking over to the white board and turning to look at the rest of the class. “The scenario is this; Blade is the infamous ex-boyfriend of Chris, and Shane is her current boyfriend. Both of them are fighting for her. I need you to describe their personality. So what’s Chris going to be like?”

A girl in the back of the room raised her hand.

“Yes?”

“Impatient.”

Mr. Sadusky nodded and wrote CHRIS on the board, underlined it, and then put Impatient underneath it. I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest.

Another person raised their hand.

“Needy and clingy.”

Mr. Sadusky wrote Needy / Clingy under my name.

After several more things, which made my character look completely awful—and by awful, I mean the whole desperate girlfriend role—I ended up being a crybaby with stability issues.

As for Blade and Shane, they just had to get dramatic with everything they did. I only got it the worst because I was the girl who got to be with two hot boys, presenting a skit where they both wanted me for themselves. All of the other girls were out to get me for this.

“All right. So Chris, Shane is your boyfriend so you two start off together and then Blade, you enter and try to get her back. Got it?” Mr. Sadusky instructed, glancing back at the board for a second and laughing at the role I had to play.

I shook my head as several chuckles passed over the room. God, this was even more humiliating than screaming at Mrs. Adams.

Blade walked to the corner of the room with an amused smile on his face while he waited for his cue. Shane turned to me and cleared his throat.

“Uh . . . um, baby, I’ve got to go because my mom needs help. She’s in the hospital with leukemia!” he exclaimed. I bit my lip to keep from laughing but composed myself again and stood up straighter.

“Oh no! That’s awful! But you can’t leave me! I need you!” I hollered, throwing my hands up in the arm and making my bottom lip tremble. People around the classroom were beginning to laugh.

“My mother needs me too,” Shane said, shaking his head.

“I need you more! Your mother can wait!”

Shane took me by the shoulders and gave me a light shake. “You’ll manage. I promise I’ll return to you. Will you wait for me?”

“Oh, always!” I said, nodding frantically. Shane stifled a laugh and nodded, kissing my cheek and running past me to the corner of the room. I wiped my eyes, pretending to cry and let a sob escape my lips. Blade stomped across the floor and put his hands on his hips.

“Chris!” he exclaimed. I whirled around to face him, trying so hard not to laugh from the expression on his face. It was really determined and his jaw was set but his Adam’s apple kept moving because he was trying to keep his laugh in as well.

“Blade! What in the world are you doing here?!” I exclaimed, covering my mouth with my hands. Through the corner of my eye, I could see Mr. Sadusky smirking.

“You can’t be with him, Chris. I need you. He’s lying to you. He’s not going to visit his mother. He’s seeing another woman behind your back!” he shrieked.

I fake gasped. “How am I supposed to believe a word you say?! You broke my heart!” I turned my head away from him and crossed my arms over my chest.

He approached me and grabbed me by the side of the arms. I looked over at him. “I never meant to hurt you. You have to believe me.”

“Well I can’t,” I wailed, brushing his hands off of me and walking a few feet away so my back was to him. I covered my face in my hands and pretended to cry. Blade came up behind me and grabbed one of my hands, spinning me around to face him.

“Please, just give me another chance!” he cried.

“I can never believe you again!”

“Hey!”

I whirled around, making Blade let go of me and saw Shane marching back into the room.

“Get your hands off my girlfriend!” he screamed.

“Why should I?!” Blade yelled. “You’re just using her!”

“No I’m not!” Shane objected. He shoved Blade backwards. “You’re the one who broke up with her the first time! She’s my girl now!”

Blade stepped forward, his jaw set and his eyes narrowed. “Then why did she let me kiss her?” he asked. I raised my eyebrows at him. What the hell just happened?

“You kissed her?!” Shane screeched in hysterics, throwing his arms in the air.

“I did! Two weeks after you got together!”

Shane gasped and turned around to face me. “Is this true?! Is he lying to me or is he telling me the truth?!”

I wasn’t really sure what to say because I got a little lost but I decided I wanted to change the story up a little. I stepped toward Shane. “Don’t you yell at me, you idiot!” I screeched, before slapping him across the face. His face jerked back and then he turned to face me again, glaring and breathing heavily. Mr. Sadusky couldn’t take it anymore because he burst out laughing and clapped his hands together.

“I’ve got to hand it to you kids, you’ve got talent,” he said, doubling over and clutching his stomach. I smiled and put my hands on Shane’s cheeks.

“Oh, God. Sorry, did I hurt you?” I asked him, beginning to laugh as well but not intentionally. He laughed as well.

“It’s no big deal. I’ve had worse,” he replied, shaking his head. I giggled and looked at Blade. He smiled at me and stepped up beside Shane. He put his hand out to me and I shook it.

“A very convincing performance, Chris,” he joked. I laughed.

“You too.” Blade turned to Shane and nodded at him.

“And hats off to Shane. Quite a competitor,” he said. Shane chuckled and patted Blade on the back before they both turned and walked back to their seats. I did the same, sitting back down between Marcy and Kayti who were both practically in tears from laughing so hard. Almost everyone in the classroom was, now that I noticed.

“You know, you three are a good team,” Mr. Sadusky said. He looked over at me. “Chris, you’d fit the female lead for our play perfectly.”

I raised my eyebrows.

Me as Juliet? Seemed to fit. After all, I liked tragic love stories.