Innocence

Maybe your just over reacting.” I tell Maryana and Nadia who are following close behind me in the lunch line.

“No,” they say together, “you need to tell us.”

I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest. They were just buzzing about yesterday at lunch. They hadn’t been able to get anything out of me so far so they were starting to pile on the troops, coming straight for me with all of their questions. It wasn’t something I really wanted to talk about. It was so confusing for myself I wasn’t sure if I could even tell them.

When I was with Aiden and his brothers, their presence gave me a certain calm, like nothing could happen to me. But when I was close and yet not hanging out with them, I had a feeling deep down in my gut, telling me I should run and hide under a rock with a knife.

How could I explain that?

“Just tell us what he said to you.” Maryana urged, “What did he want?”

“To talk to me.” I said those words to tweak Maryana in the way I had learned how only minutes ago. She was a big gossiper and when you knew something she didn’t, she always pestered you. But a way around all of it was to answer her questions with an answer that was filled with information she already knew.

Nadia on the other hand was completely different. She may have wanted to know about Aiden and me, but that was just because I had become her friend. Any other gossip didn’t interest her. If it didn’t affect her, she would discard it without a second glance.

The line a few inches and I shuffled my way closer to the doors that led into the cafeteria. Lexi was suddenly beside me, her arm slipping through mine.

“You can’t just deprive us of information about one of the hottest guys in the school.” Maryana whined.

Lexi, with her dull brown hair in low pigtails that went just past her bust, nodded. “Seriously. You should tell us. We’re girlfriends right?”

“Friends don’t tell each other everything.” I pointed out.

Nadia, Maryana, and Lexi all looked at me like I was on crack.

Lexi frowned, her peppy face losing almost all of its pep. “Best friends do.”

The way her face turned into a puppy dog begging for someone to pet them made me want to apologize for what I had just said.

“Alright,” I sighed, “He just wanted to talk to me, that all.”

Lexi instantly pepped back up, her scheme working perfectly. “But what did he want to talk to you about?”

I shrugged. “He asked if he could get to know me better.”

Maryana grabbed my shoulders from behind, turning me around in line to face her. “You mean he like—wants to go out on a date?”

“I—don’t think so.” My gosh, did he mean it like that? Was I seriously that blind?

“He couldn’t have meant it any other way!” Lexi screamed into my ear. People surrounding us gave us glares of annoyance as Maryana and Lexi jumped up and down. “This is so exciting!” they screamed at each other.

The line moved again and I slipped away from Lexi’s grip to move with the others. Nadia slipped in beside me, a smirk on her face. “I love it when I’m not the weird one of the family.”

“You always are,” someone behind me said, standing very close to me. I turned to see a girl with a squished face a glasses. Her teeth glistened with braces and her clothes told me she was trying to fit in with the popular crowd but failing miserably.

The girl put her hand in front of my face for me to shake. “I’m Jamie, Nadia’s friend. How’s your day been? I’ve been sick so we haven’t been able to meet.”

Before I could even speak one syllable to the girl, Nadia pulled me forward till we were almost pressed up against the person in front of me. “Do not speak to that girl, I swear to god she is stalking me.”

Jamie followed us, talking like nothing had happened. I turned my head to watch the girl as she used her hands, going on about some person that had talked back to her this morning when she arrived at school. In some ways I felt sorry for the poor girl. She seemed like the kind of person that was trusting from the get go. And with her overpowering personality, she scared off a lot of people before they even knew her name.

She finally caught me staring and turned to ask me a question. "So you moved from Georgia? That is so cool! I use to live there when I was little. Wouldn't have been cool if we were friends back then and now we meet up here? That be like the biggest, coolest, most awesome thing in the whole world! My gosh you have amazing hair."

She reached toward me and grabbed a lock of my hair. Feeling it between her fingers, she smiled. "It's so soft."

Nadia pushed me in front of her, turning on the energetic girl. "She doesn't really want to talk right now, okay? So why don't you just shimmy your little hips over in the other line." She turned back around and brought me out of the lunch line into the area where the chips, muffins, and drinks were in the cafeteria.

I was slightly surprised at Nadia's attitude towards this girl. I wasn't sure if she deserved this hostility or if Nadia was just a little annoyed with the girl. Either way, I thought it was a little uncalled for.

I got my food and was drug over to the table I had been sitting oat the whole week. There was hardly anyone there yet. Maryana and Lexi had somehow gotten a head of us and were both sitting at the table waiting for me. Dawn came up right behind me and sat down next to me.

"So tell us." Dawn prompted.

"Yes," William said, pushing aside Maryana and Lexi to sit between them. "Why don't you tell us how Aiden's eyes sparkled as he pronounced his love for you and asked you to marry him so you could live happily ever after." He stared at me, batting his eyes like he had a problem.

I had to laugh at that. At least one person truly didn't care about Aiden and I. It was a relief to know I was the talk in everyone's conversation no matter how small the group of people that didn't care was.

Richie, Atarah, and Adrian sat down at the table together, all smiling at a joke none of the others heard.

"Did you guys hear about Megan?" Adrian asked.

Talk left me then as everyone gossiped about Megan and something to do with her new boyfriend. Nadia quietly ate her food, every now and then yelling in a comment that everyone laughed at. She was the only one beside myself that didn't really want to spend the lunch hour gossiping over some dumb girl none of us really knew.

What I did instead was watch people. If I put it that way inside my head, it sounded creepy. But I was just sitting there watching people, I was trying to figure this place out. It wasn't like High School back in Atlanta. Here, fashion was big to both girl and guys, and makeup looked essential to any girl who wanted to have at least one friend. Guys didn't separate themselves from the girls, but the opposite. Girls sat on boys' laps as they drank their water. I never saw an over-weight person yet. It was like Hollywood in high school.

Isn't that odd though? This town wasn't well known, it wasn't one people talked about, and no one real special lived here. So the fuss that everyone put up about their looks and whom they hung out with was for--what? I didn't really get this place. It was the complete opposite of what I was use to and I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

I looked down at my simple blue shirt over a white camisole. A girl a few seats over was wearing the same thing. And the sweater I had worn on the first day of school, a girl throwing her food in the trash across the cafeteria was wearing the same thing, only in a bright red. The shoes on my feet were also on Lexi's and Dawn's.

It was like I was in a factory of Barbie dolls, all made to look the same. I could pick out the people that had the same things as me, only I had never worn the clothes before. They were still unworn in my closet.

I was always the first one to leave the lunch table. Actually, I was one of the only ones to truly eat something. Nadia ate food, probably more than me on a daily basis, and Dawn had an apple every once and awhile, but the only [people to really eat lunch were the guys. Even for them it was weird how much they ate.

I was living in a world of super models and I didn't fit in very well.

I said goodbye to everyone at the table and went to my locker to get my books for my next few classes. When I got to the locker bay, A group of people where blocking the way to my locker. Seven guys and four girls were stalk still as they stared into the center of their circle at two boys who were on top of each other. One guy was sitting on top of the other, holding the boy's neck.

As I took a step closer I saw the other boy was trying to pry the guy's hand away from his neck, his face turning past blue and onto purple. The guys on top brought his face closer to the one on the floor.

"You want to say that to me again?" he asked.

"Hey!" someone yelled from behind me. I didn't have to turn to see who it was. Trevor and Ryan past by me, shoving other kids aside. Trevor grabbed the boy that was choking the other slammed him against the lockers. Ryan picked up the other kid and dusted him off.

"Why don't you tell me what's going on here," Trevor seethed into the boys face.

The circle parted and started to creep away from the mess that had started. A voice behind me made me jump so high I felt like I was flying.

"Hey, oh sorry." Aiden said quietly.

When I turned to see him he wasn't looking at me, he was looking at Trevor who still had the guy against the lockers.

"Excuse me," Aiden said to me, going over to his brother. All Aiden had to do was touch Trevor's arm and Trevor instantly relaxed. The boy dropped to the ground and picked himself back up, a scowl on his face.

The boy clenched his fists, getting ready to defend his ego--or what ever he was trying to do. "What the hell is your problem man?"

"What's my problem?" Trevor got into the boy's face again, intimidating even me from a few feet away. "What's your problem?" He shoved his finger into the boy's chest.

"Why don't you go with your friends." Aiden suggested to the boy, making a show of looking at the group of kids inching away from them to the other side of the locker bay.

The boy turned on his heels and stormed away with his friends right with him. Trevor stood quite still, his hands clenched into fist just the other guy. Ryan came back to them to go right up to Trevor and smack him on the side of the head. "Calm down!' he said in a fierce tone.

Aiden pushed Ryan aside. "No need to get into it now."

As I stood there watching, it was like Ryan and Trevor saw me for the first time. Their heads turned at the same time to focus in on me. Aiden patted Trevor on the back. "Let's get to class."

With that, Aiden turned and started toward me all the while, Trevor and Ryan turning and going the opposite way. When Aiden was two feet away from me, he stopped. "I guess you can get to your locker now."

I twisted the lock on my locker and opened it. Taking my things from its depths, I watch Aiden from the corner of my eye. He was leaning against the lockers next to me, his arms crossed over his chest. His face however, was turned away from me. He was staring at the people still eating in the cafeteria.

When I slammed my locker shut, he looked down at me, his bright green eyes running a shiver down my spin. They were so bright and vibrant, not anything like yesterday, that I had to step back.

He didn't take a step toward me, but surveyed my expression with interest as I tried to cover it up. When I composed myself, I opened my mouth to speak but Aiden beat me to it.

"It's supposed to be a really nice day today. The snow is melting already."

I turned to looked out the wall of windows behind me. Sure enough, puddles already filled the parking lot beyond the sidewalk. "I guess so."

"When do you get that taken off?"

I turned back to see what he was talking about. His eyes were on my cast that covered half of my arm. I was having troubles carrying my books with it on, which was probably the reason he asked in the first place.

"Tomorrow. At least that's when the doctor said I could go in and see if it was ready to be taken off."

He didn't respond only watched as I positioned the books on my hip so I wouldn't have to bare all the weight on my arms. After a moment of silence, I began to walk. He was such a weird guy. It was like he wanted to talk to me, ask me something, but his mind was struggling with the pros and cons of the idea. If that made any sense to myself I would have known what he was going through.

As I walked, Aiden followed right beside me, but far enough away so it just looked like we were casually walking down the same hallway at the same time. Almost everyone else was still in the cafeteria, waiting until the last second before they had to be in class. That meant the hallway was almost empty.

When I was about to go up the stairs, Aiden stopped me.

"Do you…" he began but decided against the question.

My foot on the first step of the staircase, I turned. "What?"

He shook his head, starting up the stairs without me. "Never mind."

Struggling with my books, I tried catching up with him. "You can't just do that."

He stopped at the top of the stairs to wait for me. "Do what?"

After I caught my breath and resituated my books on my hip I said, "You can't just start a question and then stop suddenly without any explanation. It drives people crazy!"

"Why can't I do that?"

"Didn't I just answer that?"

"No, you answered why you don't want me to do that. I asked why can't I do that?" He smiled then, starting to walk down the hallway away from me. I followed him even though I was walking away from my next class.

"Why do you do that?"

He truthfully seemed puzzled this time. "What am I doing?"

"Trying to make me angry."

He stopped walking. "I'm making you angry?"

His perplexed and truly sorry face made me want to take back the words. "Well no, but you're frustrating me."

"How?"

I slumped my shoulders and almost lost some of my books. "You just did it again."

"What?"

"Do you not get anything?" I asked seriously.

He stared at me, trying to figure out what I was really trying to say here. "I guess not."

I sighed. "What I'm trying to say here is--why are you such a mystery?"

Aiden smiled in a way that showed me he got exactly what I meant now. The smile that appeared on his face didn't match his eyes though. It was like a dark veil was placed over them that shut out the rest of the world. That is exactly what he was doing too. Even though he didn't say a reply, I knew exactly what was going through his mind. He was liking the way I was getting frustrated with him. He liked that I wanted to know more no matter how much I said I didn't. And he liked knowing that he wasn't just going to give me answers, but always more questions.

Getting all of that information from a glance at his face was something that scared me and elated me at the same time. I was never the kind of person that could read someone, but right now, I felt like I could read his thoughts.

Before he turned the corner he looked back at me and said, "See you later Candace," in that way that bugged me to no end. The weird way his tongue wrapped around my name was like a snake catching its prey, and then watching it as it wiggles and tried to get free. But then lets it go because it's too nice to torture it any longer. How odd…

  

Charles dropped me off at home and left as quickly as he could so he could pick Nathan up from work in time for my dad's meeting with the interior decorator. A woman was coming in to change a few rooms around to my mother's liking.

"She could change your room too if you like," my mom said as she shuffled through my closet.

I sat on my bed eating one of the cookies Mike had sent to me. All of them were individually wrapped and this one was extra chewy. "I like my room."

She poked her head out of the door. "Really?"

I nodded. Sure, red and black had never been my colors, but the dark mysterious feel of the whole room was growing on me. My mom lied on the bed next to me, her hand tracing all of the signatures on my cast.

A ringing in the room caught me off guard and I dove for my phone on the end table.

"It's mine," my mom informed me. She whipped out a cell phone that looked exactly like mine from her pocket and brought it up to her ear. "Hello?"

My mom had never been big on technology and definitely not with cell phones. It was always, 'they rot your brain,' or 'they cause cancer.' Now she was using it like it was her lifeline. What a change.

She inspected her fingernail, nodded and kept saying "Sure, sure," to the person on the other line. When she hung up she smiled. "The doctor had to cancel our appointment for tomorrow. He had an emergency."

I looked down at the chunky cast on my arm and wanted to hit it. "Crap…"

"That's what I was thinking. But then I got them to get us another appointment."

"For when?" I asked, "Like twenty days from now?"

She stood from the bed. "It's in twenty minutes. Get your coat and we're out of here!"