Synthetic Love

When I woke up the next morning, I could feel the pain from my face immediately. I got up, heading straight to my mirror to see a huge red and purple bruise on my cheek. He had hit me too hard and now I had to be the idiot who hit herself in the face.

I pulled my plaid button up shirt on over the tank top I was already wearing and I quickly put on some skinny jeans and my boots. I tossed my book and my journal into my messenger back too, so I could have enough time to try and cover it up.

After about ten minutes of the attempted covering, it was still noticeable but it wasn't as bad as it could be. I pulled my hair to the sides of my face and put a beanie on in hopes that my dad wouldn't see it so I could get out without him getting angry and making both sides if my face look like this.

I threw my bag on my shoulder and ran down the stairs, passing him without him noticing. Today must be my lucky day.

I walked quickly to school, so none of our neighbors could see. They're already probably curious about us... School would be my downfall. Trent would have something to say. He always did.

When I walked into the courtyard, he wasn't there yet. No one was except for myself, two girls, and the new guys including Ricky.

I sat down at my usual spot. Alone, until I felt someone beside me. I looked over to be greeted by those blue eyes. "Hey." Ricky whispered.

I turned my head around completely. "Hey."

He gave me a look and touched my cheek. "Who did that?"

I shook my head too quickly. "No one. I-" he gave me another look. "I might tell you one day."

He nodded. "It's okay for me to sit with you right? I just assumed we could be friends." He stated with a grin.

I nodded. "Yeah, of course. If you can stand me."

"I think I can manage."

"What about your friends?"

He shrugged. "They'll be okay without me for now." He smirked. "You just seem like you need someone."

"We all do at times. Do you want to have lunch with me and Vannah today? You all can join us. We just don't want you guys to skip or anything and be hungry... Unless you want to be hungry or you don't want to eat with us."

He nodded. "Okay. That would be cool."

~

"You did what?" Vannah stared at me.

"I invited them to eat lunch with us. You want to talk to Balz so bad, here you go. You can sit by him."

"What if he doesn't want to?"

"He will."

"Will you be sitting by Ricky?"

"Maybe. If he wants to. He's cool."

She leaned back in her desk. "Sure."

"I hardly know him. Stop that." I whispered.

"I know that but you have time to get to know him. I see...something there. He seems...I don't know."

"You're stupid. No matchmaking. We're friends. Just because we talk doesn't mean we want to fuck each other."

"At least admit you think he is attractive. I mean, come on."

"Shut up.." With that I got up and turned the paper I was doing in to the teacher. She nodded at me and I went back to my seat. I was done with the conversation but I knew we'll enough that she wasn't.

The bell rang a few minutes later for lunch. Once I got to the lunchroom, I saw the guys all standing by the door. I tapped on Ricky's shoulder and pointed to our usual corner seat and he and the other guys followed.

Over the course of the half hour lunch, I learned their names (other than Balz and Ricky) They were Chris Cerulli, Ryan Sitkowski, Devin Sola, and Brandon Richter.

They were really cool guys. They had good senses of humor and they were into really good music and all that good stuff. They were a band as a matter of fact. no wonder they were so close. They were gonna be called Motionless in White. Devin and Ryan knew they would be big some day.

Balz did sit by Vannah and to Vannah's delight,
Ricky was quick to sit by me. Not that I minded of course. I was actually sad when lunch ended. I normally pray for the time to go by fast. We told them to sit with us from now on. They agreed.

The feeling I got yesterday returned again. I really felt like things were looking up from this point on. I just hoped my feeling wasn't wrong.

By seventh period I was down again though. I just knew when I got home, I would be berated with questions about what I told people at school if they asked about my face (no one did though, except for Ricky) then he would yell about how stupid I am for letting it happen. It would all be my fault.

Today, when I walked into Mr. Bender's class, Ricky was already there. We made small talk until the tardy bell rang and Mr. Bender came in. "Class, today I am giving you some beginning of the year projects on a topic you were suppose to learn last year. You will have three weeks to complete it and you can choose how it is presented. You will be given a topic. Choose partners now."

I looked around as everyone was hastily tugging their partners toward them and I look at Ricky. He was staring around awkwardly just as I was. "Ricky?" He looked at me. "Partners?"

He smiled. "Wouldn't choose anyone else."

"Okay, I will now pass out rubrics with your topic. All topics are different so don't even try to cheat." Mr. Bender called as he began to walk the aisles.

When he reached us, he handed Ricky the paper. We both look at it to see that our topic was The Holocaust. That should be fun.

"Now, discuss what you want to do with your topic for the rest of the class." He continued. He sat down at his desk.

"What do you want to do?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. We could do a trifold display board with information about it."

"Yeah. We can come to each other's houses to get it done quicker. I have a laptop so we can get information and my mom will buy the board."

"Can we just do it your house. I don't have Internet. That'll work." It wasn't a complete lie.

He nodded. "Okay. Well exchange numbers then, so we can set up times."

I pulled out my blackberry and handed it to him, he giving me a iPhone. We put our numbers in handed our cellphones back. "Cool?"

"Cool."He replied.