Innocence

Again, what I was expecting was not what I got. What I did expect out of the next few days at school were days I could put into a good category, not a bad one. I had been expecting to go to school and see the same thing I had on Sunday. I had expected to feel like I was beginning to be friends with Aiden. But that wasn’t what happened. The opposite actually. Who would expect that I would become Aiden’s enemy?

I had hoped that Aiden would be his happy-go-lucky self. But he was silent, distant, and didn’t even bother to look in my direction. I noticed Monday, and worried I had done something wrong without noticing. He did not come and pick me up for school like he said he would. I had to call up Maryana to come and get me because my parents took the limo to get breakfast.

I sat on the front step with my face in my hands, waiting for Maryana to come out of her way to come and get me at my house in the middle of nowhere. Today was going to be a bad day, I could feel it. I watched for Aiden car to see if it would pass by my house, but after five minutes, stopped. I had no idea what his car looked like so how I was going to spot it, I wasn’t sure.

The whole entire day I tried to track Aiden down, but any class we would have seen each other, he was gone for. And I know he was skipping those classes purposefully. That irritated me. Any suspicions I had about him just accidentally forgetting to pick me up were thrown out by now. He had purposefully stood me up, and was too cowardly to face me.

At lunch I looked for him as well, but it was only his brothers that were there with him.

“What’s up with you today?” Lexi asked after ten minutes of silence on my part.

“Who, me?”

“Yes you.”

The whole table erupted. “Couldn’t be! Then who?”

William stood up on his chair. “Maryana stole the cookie from the cookie jar!”

“Who me?” she asked, standing up on her chair as well.

“Yes you!”

Nadia put her head in her hands, hiding herself from the situation which I noticed she did frequently. Lexi stood up to. “Shut up!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. The whole entire lunch room quieted, focusing their attention on Lexi.

She bowed a few times, her crazy pink and purple hair covering her face each time. “Thank you.”

All three of them got down from their chairs and sat down just before the lunch room monitor came over. He clicked his tongue at us, but didn’t say anything else.

“Seriously you guys act like your five. Be serious here.”
Atarah smiled in Lexi’s direction. “We’re just not the serious type.”

I grabbed my fork out of my salad and stabbed a few pieces of lettuce. I tried to be subtle about it as I gazed across the lunch room to his normal table. Ryan was staring right back.

“Maybe you all should just change the subject!” Nadia instructed, “Hey Candace. Why don’t you tell us about your day with Aiden yesterday?”
That was nice of her. Nadia was only torturing me for her own amusement.

Maryana giggled like a smitten girl in love. “Yes, you have to tell us everything! What did you guys do? Did you guys talk? About what? Did you get to see the inside of his house?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I dropped my fork again. I was never going to be able to finish my salad at this rate. “Slow down. You’re making it hard for me to think.”

Atarah leaned closer to me. “What did you guys do?”

“Nothing—“

“Where did you guys go?”

“Nowhere—“

“Well what did you guys talk about?”

“Stuff—I don’t really—“

“You kissed him!” Maryana screamed.

I was so stunned by this comment I didn’t answer fast enough.

“Oh my jellyfish you did!” Will said with exaggerated excitement. He picked up his tray and left the table mumbling something like, “Girls are so annoying.”

“Don’t do the kiss and don’t tell. Tell us. Please?” Atarah whined.

“You guys, I just met him last week and you’re seriously asking me if I kissed him?”

The faces on all the girls surrounding me did not change. Each one waited for my response to their questions. The only one who did not look expectant was Nadia.

“Well?” Maryana coaxed.

Nadia stood from her chair and came up behind me. “I think I just heard you name come over the intercom, Candace. I’ll come with you.”

She forcefully pulled me from my seat at the table and led me away from my new fans. “Seriously those girls are gossip whores. Don’t take anything personally…unless it is personal. Then you can take it personally.”

We passed by Aiden’s table in a rush. However, we weren’t fast enough for me to miss the looks the guys gave me. Each one had their piercing eye glued to my face in an unnatural way; a way that conveyed so much hatred for one person you wanted to run away and hide.
Their stares stopped my muscles from moving the way I wanted them to. I halted my progress away from them so I could turn around and face them. They kept staring as I took a step closer.

“Candace, what are you doing?” Nadia grabbed my arm and wrestled with me as she pulled me through the tables. “You really want to approach those guys right now? What, do you have a death wish or something?”

That surprised me. “What?”

“Trevor Westcott. He looks like he wants to kill someone…and he’s staring right at you.”

I looked back just before we turned the corner and saw Trevor, but he wasn’t staring at me anymore, he was walking away with his younger brothers behind him.

Tuesday passed in the same way, but by Wednesday I was starting to get irritated. I would purposefully stare at Aiden for long periods of time, hoping he would make eye contact and at least tell something that would help me figure out as to why I was suddenly hated again. Thursday I ignored him, trying something new. By Friday I had made up mind to ignore him for good.

“We can drive you home after school and we can get your stuff before we head out to meet William,” Maryana gushed, “You think your parents will mind?”

Aiden coughed a few seats down, covering up a laugh. I ignored it. “My parents won’t even notice that I’m gone.”

Nadia clapped her hands together. “Perfect! We’ll see you after class.”

The bell rang just as Nadia and Maryana left the room. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to, but my head just turned automatically to see Aiden’s reaction. For the first time in five days, he was acknowledging me. His eyes were focused on mine, his jaw set in a stern line. He looked angry, furious even. But with me? For what? God this guy had issues.

I could feel his glare throughout seventh period. It was hard to ignore it now that I knew he was still thinking about me. His glare never left me. When the bell ran I shot out of my seat and headed for the door, no longer able to take anymore of this guy’s attitude.

“Candace, wait!” Aiden called after me.

That stopped me in my tracks. He was going to speak to me?

Aiden appeared in front of me with his books in hand. Other kids from our class moved around us with grumbled complaints. “Hey Candace, don’t go.”

“Don’t go where?”

“With those girls, on that yacht. It’s not safe. You really shouldn’t go with them.”

I placed my free hand on my hip, “Excuse me?”

Aiden relaxed his posture, bringing his eyebrows together in confusion. “What?”

“You expect me to just say ‘oh okay Aiden, I’ll listen to everything you say,’ after you’ve been ignoring me? Hell no. Now get out of my way.”

He planted his feet, making sure there was no possible way for me to get out of the classroom. “Yeah, I was rude. But you need to listen to me. There’s going to be a huge storm tonight and you won’t be safe out in the middle of the ocean.”

I snorted, “So you’re a weather man now?”

“Candace, I’m sorry okay? Why won’t you just listen to me this once?”

“Get out of my way Aiden!”

Trevor, Ryan, and Clark stood behind me now, their arms crossed over their chests. “Aiden what are you doing?” Ryan hissed.

Aiden did not look up. “Don’t go tonight.”

I pushed hard on Aiden’s chest making him fall back into the wall and rushed past him out into the hallway.

“Aiden don’t!” Trevor yelled.

I turned to see Aiden’s books sprawled across the floor underneath him. His brothers each had a hand on him, keeping him up against the wall. Trevor was right up in his face, whispering something. All of them were crazy! All of them!

Aiden was a jerk and was not worth my time. I had other things to do with my time. Like go and spend the weekend on a yacht.

Nadia was the one to meet me at the front doors of the school. Maryana was just outside with a group of seven or eight other people. Most I knew, but two guys that seemed most interested in Maryana were people I had never seen until now. They were both rather tall, their jeans too big for their waists and their shirt four sizes to big. But I wasn’t judging. They seemed innocent enough.

Nadia shot a warning look my way before leading me through the front doors to the group. Atarah, Lexi, and William greeted me with an awkward one arm hug.

Even though it would have been a good distraction from Aiden five minutes ago, the chatter around me did nothing to focus my thoughts. They stayed on the subject of Aiden and his attitude. Why had Trevor, Ryan, and Clark held Aiden back? Was he going to come and chase after me? Or was it something more?

“So you’ll be there?” Maryana was asking one of the guys.

The guy with the backwards baseball cap smiled, “Sure, whatever.”

“We leave the dock at four. So be there before then, okay?”

He left without answering. The guy’s walk was something that reminded me of a cross between a woman that was pregnant and a person with a stick up their butt. I’m he was only trying to keep his pants up.

Most of the kids had already fled campus, not wanting to be here a second longer than necessary. So when I heard someone whispering behind me, I turned to see who it was. Of course it was the group of boys I didn’t need to be around right now. Way far in the corner by the doors, Aiden was arguing with Clark, Ryan standing between them in a referee fashion.

“…going with them? You know who those guys are! You can’t just—“ Aiden was saying.
Clark cut him off. “It’s none of your damn business! Why can’t you just let it go and walk away?”

“Don’t you feel that I can’t?” he retorted, “Why can’t you see that this is what is supposed to happen?”

“No!” Ryan screamed at the both of them. “Why can’t you both see that you are making complete fools of yourselves? Now get in the car.” He pushed both of them forward with a powerful shove.

Aiden didn’t budge, but Clark moved forward his chest out in a ready-to-fight kind of way. “All I’m saying is you need to snap out of it. You were the one who said it wasn’t a good idea in the first place.”

“That’s because I wasn’t listening!”

“Well stop listening now!”

They weren’t screaming, far from it, but it still drew my attention. They couldn’t be talking about me. None of what they were saying could even relate to me. So now what? These guys were always mad about something or another. How annoying.

I pulled my coat closer to myself, the wind picking up around the parking lot. The good weather was long gone. Clouds filled the sky now, threatening a storm.

Maryana pulled on my jacket. “Candace?”

I reluctantly looked away from Aiden and Clark to focus in on “Yeah? Oh sorry, what?”

“We’re leaving. You coming?”

I hoisted my book bag over my shoulder more securely. “Yeah, I’m coming.” I gave Aiden one more glance over the shoulder. He wasn’t fighting with Clark anymore, but he was still angry, glaring his piercing eyes right at me.