Flicker and Snaps

The transitive propery, a property invented and claimed by Matt Habib, is a non-universal property which states that any characteristic that one person or thing has is transfered to a related person or thing.

My fingers wrapped around the cool metal of the refrigerator door. I blinked haphazardly as the light distracted me for a moment; the low buzz of the cooling system was unusually loud in my ears. I could feel their eyes on my back: forceful-unchanging.

I was shocked at my outburst.

I had only intended to observe, but now- I don't know- I was confused?

It was impossible for me not to think of this as a mathematical problem. Ya'know if A=B, and B=C, then A=C, simple.

In math world I could easily solve this problem: If Benedict makes cookies for girls he likes, and Benedict wants to make cookies for me- then in all reality that means Benedict likes me: right?

I let out a disgruntled sigh- why can't life be like math? At least I would have an answer, and not look completely stupid as I stared blankly into the fridge.

What made matters even worse was that we were all out of red Gatorade! All that's left was yellow and blue. I only drink red Gatorade, the other color/flavors bothered me- weird I know- but still....

Actually in all truth- I refuse to drink them. I would have to remind my mother to buy me more later on.

Pestered I instead reached for a Fuji water, my favorite brand. Square bottled water' now that was cool.

Closing the fridge I walked over to the sink, pulling open a cabinet I retrieved a bendy straw, the white and red plastic stripes gleamed at me under the light as I plopped it into the bottle.

"So Jade, how long were you standing there?" Gage asked, his voice sounding odd in the air.

I wondered how he felt about me being here. For a moment I thought about turning around to look at his face to see if I could pick up on what I was missing. Sadly I was too nervous to attempt even a peak at the moment, so I took a long- perhaps even exaggerated- sip from my bottle.

"The entire time, why?" I finally stated knowing exactly why he asked. He needed to know how much he had to cover up.

Okay, so maybe it would have made more sense to lie, but really how naive would I have to be to think they would believe that? Seriously, they were jocks- and boys, but not brain dead.

The point in lying was totally lost on me. I was never really good at it, and if I can't fool them: why even try? Being direct made things easier.

Forcing myself I turned around to face them, my back pressed tightly against the counter for support.

I watched Gage then, curious. I wanted to know what he was thinking, and then I wanted to take apart every minuscule body movement.

My interest fizzled a bit as he turned away from me. I won't lie I was slightly annoyed. I wanted to see his face now. I wanted to know, even if it put me slightly on edge doing so.

Instead I just watched his back- I studied him. I watched the way his shoulders arched about an inch higher than when he was originally making the cookies. The sound of his hands pushing into the dough also was slightly off. Perhaps he was mad?

Now I was confused. If he was mad wouldn't he say so? I know I would- so why wasn't he? This was one of the moments I hated the quiet. Most of the time I would live on the silence given to me by people. Yet, what annoyed me the most was the quiet that followed comments that I could not understand. When the boys at school are angry their shoulders get the way his are now. I've never upset anyone kneading dough before, so I am not sure if such roughness was normal or not.

Benedict was not helping things either. He showed little emotion of any kind. He was so calm it actually startled me.

His beautiful blue eyes were mirrors of expressionless bliss. I'd never before seen such blue eyes except on his sister. The eyes themselves were simply enchanting!

"Do you wear contacts?" The words flew out of my mouth before I was able to stop it. Although I could be a selective mute, I found it hard to hide what I thought.

"No... Why?" Benedict asked through heavy lashes as he turned away from me quickly, his hands going back to knead to dough, just as Gage was doing.

"Your eyes are weird- I mean... That is to say- um.. I gotta go!?" I practically wanted to shove my foot in my mouth as I stumbled out the kitchen door, not letting Benedict reply to my stupid comment.