The Untitled Diary of a Girl Named Bones

I hurried to class.

I slipped into the room silently, gave my pitiful excuse to Ms. Bates, who nodded disbelievingly, and tried to find a place to sit down.

Most of the seats around the room were taken. It was only then that I realized that he was in the class. And to add insult to injury, the only remaining seat was next to him. Brittany, who was seated adjacent to the empty seat hissed, "Where were you?!"

I shrugged, and took the seat, hoping Ryan wouldn't notice that I was the same person he had just run into in the cafeteria.

I had always thought of myself as forgettable, and nothing special. I probably had the least amount of self-esteem of anybody that I knew.

I saw him shift slightly away from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the subtle movement of him focusing on me, and immediately, snapping away towards the front of the room.

He probably thinks I'm a freak, after that little stunt with the notebook.

He stared ahead, as though he was paying attention to the lecture we were receiving on one thing or another. I sure as heck wasn't paying attention, not to mention having missed half of the class.

I thought that Ryan was paying attention, taking fervent notes, until he moved his arm, revealing his scrawled handwriting.

And whatever adorned those lined pages, sure as hack weren't Chemistry notes.

Class passed slowly. The whole time, the room felt tense. As though a slight tremor would detonate the atmosphere, resulting in a high-energy explosion.

Or maybe, that was just me.

The bell rang, and I jumped, grabbed my bag, and ran for the door.

Once I got out of there, and into the hall, I suddenly was able to breathe easily. The intensity I was suffering through had passed.

Brittany had finally walked out of there, with a strange expression on her face. She reached up (seeing as she was eight inches shorter than my freakish 5' 9 frame), and felt my forehead.

"Hun, you feelin' okay?", she questioned with a concerned expression.

I shrugged. "PMS?", I answered with a sort of half-smile.

She returned my smile, and linked arms with me.

We met up with Erin. As soon as I saw her, I ran up to her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and planted a great big kiss between her eyes.

"What can I do for you, m'lady?", she asked in her noblest voice.

"It would be a pleasure if you could provide me with a lovely steed", I jumped up on her back, and she started running down the hall towards our next class.

Brittany had to head towards the math wing, while we headed to English. Erin was running with me on her back, with me shouting orders like "Onward, and upward", whatever that means, and "Giddy-Up!"

I kicked her side. She didn't like that one much.

We were laughing hysterically, ignoring the teacher's and students' angry complaints, and kept running.

Until we hit something solid, of course.

I was like hitting a wall. Well, if it was a human-shaped wall.

I heard Erin go "Oof!", just as she landed, sprawled on me awkwardly.

There was a groan. And a sort of strangled chuckle.

"We have to stop meeting like this", the wall said.

And I looked up to see those brown eyes for the second time today.