Aftershocks (6 page)

“Right,” Connor said, “I guess it wil take me some time to get used to where everything is in this place.”

“I’m actualy heading to the same hal. I’l walk with you, so you don’t get lost. I would hate to be sitting in calc thinking about you walking in circles because you couldn’t find your class.” I flashed him a sarcastic smile.

“Thanks, Abby,” he said, smiling at me as we walked together.

We compared schedules along the way and saw that we also had fourth period American History together, right before lunch. Before we parted ways, I gave him brief instructions on how to get to his third period class, bid him good luck, and told him I would, hopefuly, see him in history.

He laughed. “I look forward to seeing you too,” he said, and the way he said it made me stomach flip so much that I had to remind myself that he had a girlfriend, and he was not flirting with me. “I’l save you a seat if I get there first.”

“Deal,” I said, looking for a response that was short and sweet. I did not need to start flirting back. Alexis had eyes al over the school and the last thing I needed was someone teling her I was after her boyfriend.

“Abby,” Connor said when I was a few feet away.

“Yeah?” I turned around to face him, noticing the smirk on his face that was just this side of sexy.

“Glad I could prove you wrong.” His smirk inched up into a half-smile.

I couldn’t help the smile that crept onto my face. My mouth had a mind of its own, but it didn’t seem to know how to respond with words. It seemed Connor wasn’t waiting for an answer, though. My smile had given me away. He just winked once before opening the door to his classroom, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I took a deep breath, shook my head a few times and turned in the direction of my calculus class, although no matter how hard I tried, that damn smile wouldn’t wipe off my face.

The morning passed in a blur of new sylabuses, new books and new teachers. I had always loved the first day of school and felt pretty good about the classes I was taking. When I arrived in history, I saw that Connor had arrived first and had saved me a seat on the far side of the room.

“Hey you,” he said, grinning and putting his arms out as if presenting himself. “Are you proud? I found it al by myself.”

I raised my eyebrows and smirked at him, my stomach doing that flip-flop thing it did when a cute guy was paying attention to me. “I guess there’s hope for you yet,” I said, slightly shocked that I was able to come up with something so witty in that moment.

Connor just laughed, and I realized what a great laugh he had as I took the seat beside him.

History with Connor turned out to be a blast. From our seats that he had strategicaly picked out, he was able to mutter a running commentary about the material under his breath throughout the whole class without Mr. Cooper noticing. It was only the one time when I actualy laughed out loud that I got in trouble. I received a dirty look from Mr. Cooper, which I promptly shot to Connor when Mr. Cooper turned his back.

After class, I play-punched Connor in the halway when he mimicked Mr. Cooper’s dirty look and my face when I’d gotten caught. He continued to make me laugh as we walked to lunch and was stil teasing me when we reached the cafeteria. It was only then that I remembered that I would be eating alone since Nicky had a voleybal meeting that day and Luke, a friend of ours who had also been shunned by the popular kids, had to meet with his guidance counselor to switch a class. After he’d texted me in third period, I’d started to mentaly prepare myself that I would just go to the library and get started on my homework, but walking from class with Connor made me forget my original plan.

As I turned to say goodbye to Connor, he surprised me by giving me a hug. Over my shoulder, at the lunch table where Alexis and her friends sat, I could see her looking at us, her eyes narrowed to slits. She hated that I was hugging with her boyfriend. It was slightly great, so I hugged him a little harder than I normaly would have. Oh, the things that had to be going through her mind in that moment.

Oh, the things that were going through my mind in that moment.

“Why don’t you sit with us?” Connor asked, when I told him about going to the library for lunch.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

I wanted to avoid Alexis, her folowers and the footbal jerks if I could. None of them, except maybe Kelen Thomas and Jack, even looked in my direction these days. Sitting with them for thirty minutes and having to make idle chit-chat seemed less than appealing. I usualy liked to forget that we had al been friends at one point. I had too much pent-up disdain for them.

“Why not?” Connor asked, looking perplexed, his eyes searching mine. “I mean, I know you weren’t too fond of me this morning, but I figured we’d gotten past that and we’re, you know, friends?”

He sounded so sweet when he said that, and I suddenly felt bad turning him down. “Yeah, we’re friends,” I said. “That is if you don’t use your car as a weapon against me anymore.”

He laughed out loud and slung his arm around my shoulder as he walked me to the table where his girlfriend sat, so I didn’t realy have a choice in backing out. Had he forgotten the argument Alexis and I had gotten into before first period? Didn’t he realize we weren’t friends?

“What’s so funny?” Alexis asked, and I could tel she was trying not to sound bitchy in front of Connor, but I could tel she was infuriated.

“Oh, you had to be there,” Connor said, and I noticed Alexis visibly react to his response. He didn’t seem to pick up on it, but she was pissed that he had secrets with me. “Guys, this is Abby.”

I gave a smal wave, feeling like an idiot since I knew almost every person at the table. Yea, lunch with people I didn’t like. Awesome.

Everyone nodded, and I wondered what they thought of me being invited to eat lunch with them. Alexis gave me a look that told me she definitely wasn’t for the idea and promptly turned on a territorial vibe. She stood up, reached over to Connor to hug and kiss him and puled him into the seat she was saving next to her. I mentaly gagged for the second time that day, as I sat down next to Kelen on the other side of the table.

“Hey Abby,” he said, smiling a dimply smile at me. Kelen was a big teddy bear of a guy who reminded me of Bily Bob from
Varsity
Blues.
He didn’t get involved in popularity politics, so he didn’t care if anyone liked or not. He was just a nice guy.

“Hi Kelen. How are you?”

He patted his large stomach. “Hungry,” he said, and I laughed. “Actualy, I’m surprised to see you here. Did you and Lexi make up?”

I shook my head, and keeping my voice low, said, “No, not hardly. I’m friends with Connor, I guess, so he invited me.”

“Wel, I’m glad to see you. When are you going to come out again? I miss drinking with you.”

Kelen was famous for how much beer he could put away, and we’d always had fun at parties when we’d hung out. I enjoyed watching Kelen throw down. He became funnier with each beer.

“Hi Abby,” came the squeaky voice of Faith Montgomery on my left, puling me away from Kelen.

I gritted my teeth. I
really
didn’t like Faith. When Alexis and I had been friends, Faith had always tried to weasel her way in. She wanted nothing more than to cal herself Alexis Blaine’s best friend, and now she finaly could. As soon as I was out of the picture, Faith had slid right into that spot and had defended it ever since. I think she thought I was jealous of her or something, but in truth I realy just found her to be annoying.

“Hi Faith, how are you?” I asked politely.

“Oh, I’m good. You know,” she said, as she tossed her curly brown hair over her right shoulder.

I didn’t know, because I didn’t know her anymore, but I nodded, taking her word for it. Faith was a smal girl with long brown curls, caramel skin, wide brown eyes and a heart-shaped face that al put together made her look like a dol. Her high-pitched voice completed the package, and made me like her that much less. It was grating on my ears to listen to her speak.

“Oh, my God, they are so cute together!” Faith gushed to me like we were BFFs. “Don’t you think so?” She was looking at Connor and Alexis. Alexis was popping a grape into his mouth.

I personaly thought it was disgusting, but I appeased her nonetheless. “Sure,” I said, wondering if maybe I’d been too hasty in changing my mind about Connor. I sure liked him better when he wasn’t around Alexis and her friends.

“I just think they are the best couple ever. I’m so glad they got together this summer. It’s just the best! We al just had the best time this summer.”

I counted the number of times she’d used the word ‘best’ in a span of ten seconds and found myself wondering if she knew any other adjectives. Probably not. I also suddenly knew why she was being nice to me. She was defending Alexis’ territory, aka Connor, and I sort of had to relish in the fact that Alexis felt threatened by me. Despite her alegations, I hadn’t ever stolen one of her boyfriends. She just assumed that because she was crazy and thought the world revolved around her.

“Hey good girl,” Jack said, coming up behind me and giving me a quick hug. He made Kelen slide down, so he could sit next to me, landing his greasy slice of pizza next to my apple.

“Hi Jack,” I said, grinning at him. At least he truly liked me.

“You talk to Wy recently?” he asked, taking a big bite of pizza, pepperoni squishing between his teeth. I wasn’t sure how he could chew that much food at once.

“Yeah, last night. You?”

“A few days ago. He seems good – happy, you know?”

I nodded, and smiled. Wyatt was happy – finaly. But my smile faded quickly, as I looked around at al the people who had hurt him, and I started to feel sick. Most of them were sitting at this table. I wondered how Jack could justify being friends with these assholes who hadn’t been kind when they found out Wyatt was gay. Most of them had freaked out and refused to talk to him, but a lot of them had also openly mocked him. It appaled me. Thank God Jack had stood by him.

“I think I’m going to go up there,” Jack said, puling me back to the present.

“To Michigan?”

He nodded. “Yeah, they’ve showed some interest, so I figure I can check out the campus and the footbal program – see if I want to go there.”

My face broke into a wide smile. “Jack that would be awesome! You can live with us next year. How fun would that be?”

“Dangerously fun,” he said, “but in a good way – especialy if you plan on walking around the apartment in your bra and panties. I could be into that.”

I smacked him on the chest as my face flushed scarlet. “You’re a pig.”

“Sorry, good girl. You’re hot. I can’t help it. Your blue eyes get me every time.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling the fire in my cheeks deepen.

I looked down at my sandwich. When I looked back up, I caught Connor looking at me from across the table, with what I thought was a perplexed look on his face, but I couldn’t tel since he flashed me a smile as soon as our eyes met. I couldn’t help but smile back. Maybe lunch wouldn’t be so bad after al.

Then conversation then turned to the upcoming footbal game that Friday night, and I stopped paying attention. Instead of talking, I studied Connor’s reaction to it al. He seemed perfectly at home in the conversation, asking pointed questions about the team, their past record and their potential to go undefeated that year. I could tel he loved the game and wondered why he didn’t play.

“I can’t wait for the game,” Alexis gushed. “I know the footbal is al exciting and everything, but you know it’s the cheerleaders that everyone looks forward to seeing, right.”

Faith nodded eagerly along with the other cheerleaders who were sitting with us, none of whom seemed to have minds of their own. I almost laughed out loud. Where did they come up with this crap?

“You’re excited to see me cheer, aren’t you, baby?” Alexis asked, as she looked eagerly at Connor.

I think she caught him by surprise, because when I looked at him for his response, he was looking at me. He quickly looked away, turned to her and said, “Hmm? Oh, sure baby, yeah.”

Why was he looking at me?

He glanced ever so slightly in my direction again, and it seemed he was the only one who could tel that I thought this particular turn of the conversation was ridiculous. As he caught my gaze, I smirked at him. He mirrored my expression. Ha! So he thought her comment was ridiculous, too. I was glad to see that. Maybe he wasn’t a lost cause after al.

Cameron spoke up then, and said, “Aww, Lex, you know we al just love to see you shake your asses on the sidelines. It keeps us pumped.” He high-fived Rich and Tyler while Alexis stuck her tongue out at them. Even that she managed to do seductively.

Lunch continued pretty much the same way as it had started, so I was relieved to hear the bel ring and jumped up from the table first. It wasn’t like I was exactly excited to go to Spanish, but I was excited to leave the vapid conversation of my former friends. Thankfuly, Nicky and Luke would be a lunch the next day, so I could sit with them.

***

Later that afternoon, I had settled into my favorite homework spot – the Starbucks with the comfy chairs and lots of light. I had a Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte on the table next to me and my calculus book open on my lap. I hated doing homework, but somehow with the smel of coffee in the air and the noise of the grinders and people ordering their drinks and talking amongst each other, I found I could concentrate better than at home. I already had my plan worked out to tackle calc first since it was my hardest subject. Then I would move onto the reading I had to do for history and finish up with the first few chapters of
Frankenstein
which we were starting in English.

I was halfway through my latte and my calc problems when someone settled into the armchair adjacent to mine. It happened a lot since it was a realy comfortable spot and supplied ample people-watching views, so I didn’t care. I just tucked in closer to my books, hoping the person would see that I was studying and not try to strike up a conversation with me. It happened before, and not that I’m not friendly, but when I’m trying to get everything done so I can have my night to myself, polite conversation just screws with my self-imposed timeline.