Private
By: Ari Baecker
"I'm sorry, come again?" WHAT THE HELL?
"You heard me." He looked me right in the eye when he said it, and with that, he turned around and walked away, leaving me to stare in shock at his back.
When I could finally compose myself, I started walking towards the Dining Hall, this time alone.
When I walked through the door, no one stared so I imagine that I did a good job of hiding my anger. I walked past Gage's table and caught his eye. I glared at him with so much venom, but it wouldn't faze him. He just smiled big and cocky at me. He has really nice teeth. Almost better than Josh even… Almost.
I guess Josh noticed because he looked at me with a confused expression. Then, I turned my glare over to him. This time, worse. Unlike Gage, Josh cowered. To say he looked scared would be an understatement.
I continued walking until I got to my usual table and took my seat next to Noelle.
"You know, if looks could kill, Gage and Josh would both be dead, although, Gage might stand a chance." She said, thoughtfully.
"What was that about, anyway? I mean, why Gage? I get why for Josh." She looked at me curiously. Could I tell her? Maybe, but not here.
"I'll tell you later." I said, still glaring at the back of Gage's head. I'm assuming he sensed it, 'cause he turned around and met my eyes with a smirk. Well, turn around!
I was the first one to look away and then proceeded to glare at the wall.
"You have some serious issues, my friend." Noelle told me. Tell me something I don't know.
"Thanks, Noelle." I said sarcastically. She just smiled big at me.
"I'm bored." I said.
"Yeah, me too. Let's go to the library." She said with a thoughtful expression. Why would she have a thoughtful expression about the library? I decided to voice the thought,
"You have to think about saying let's go to the libarary?"
"No, I make that face 'cause it's fun." She said, rolling her eyes. "What kind of question is that?"
I had to laugh at her voice. Lately, Noelle had been a lot more carefree. She'd been making more jokes and had been a lot happier. I think it might have something to do with Dash. Fortunately, I was able to keep that thought in my head.
"Yeah, whatever, let's go." I said.
"Alright, well we'll see you ladies later. Reed and I are going to the library to study." Everyone looked at her like she was crazy.
"Since when do you study?" Mostly everyone said at once. We all started cracking up.
"Hey! I don't get the grades I do by doing nothing!" She defended mocking hurt.
"It's alright, Noelle. We all know how smart you are. You don't get favourites for nothing…" Tiffany put it. Everyone smiled.
"This is true. Goodbye, girls." She said, now smirking. See what I mean?
As we were walked by the Ketlar table, I couldn't help but notice Josh's eyes on me, eyebrows raised, and Gage's on my ass. There's the guy I remember.
I was glaring at him, but he was oblivious. Suddenly, I got a text. It was from Josh.
It read; One New Text Message: Joshua Hollis. The text said; Are you okay?
I responed, Why wouldn't I be?
And then he responded, Because you were shooting daggers at Gage and me.
So then I responded again, Wow, nothing gets by you.
Which he proceeded with, You're mean.
I had to smirk at that one, Thanks for noticing ;)
He said, You need help…
I said, So I've been told…
He said, Creep.
I said, I've gotta go, loser.
He said, Good.
My last response was, Yeah, I'm mean…
By the end of the conversation I was smirking to myself. I hope Josh and I can still at least be friends… Even if he is going out with one of my good friends.
Noelle seemed to notice my sudden light face.
"Who was that?" She said, wiggling her eyebrows.
"Oh, no one…" I said, lightly. I might as well get some fun out it, making her wonder.
"Reed!" She said, whining. I never thought I'd see the day.
"What's up with you, Noelle?" I asked her.
"What do you mean?" She asked, warily.
"You're happy." I said. Okay, so I probably could've worded that better.
"What? I'm always happy. In FACT, I'm probably the happiest person you've ever met. Yeah, that's it…
"Alrighty, then." I said, dragging out the sentence. I think I could get used to this new Noelle.
"Shit, we didn't even bring our books." I suddenly stopped. We can be really dense sometimes.
"Oh, you actually thought we were going to STUDY? You are really dense sometimes." She said, laughing.
"Oh my God!" I said.
"What?" She asked.
"I was just thinking of the word dense! And then you said it!" I probably looked like a freak, bugging my eyes and eyebrows raised.
"You're such a retard sometimes." She said under her breath.
"Hey!" That cause people in the quad to stare at us. Luckily though, I have learned over the years to not care when people stare at me, but give something to actually stare at. I decided to embarrass myself and Noelle a little bit.
"What are you looking at! Don't stare at me! Why can't you people ever just leave me alone!" I screamed. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. Noelle and I looked at eachother and started laughing hysterically. This cause everyone to crease their eyebrows and look at us oddly.
"Oh, come on. Have a sense of humour, people!" Noelle said laughing slightly at everyone else. They still just stared at us.
"Reir! Tough crowd." I said, making a cat movement with my hand quickly. *A/N: That "Reir" was supposed to sound like a cat the way people say it when they're trying to make the sound. You know, like when you say it quickly when someone gets kind of pissed off. I'm embarrassing myself… I'm just gonna shut up now…*
By now, everyone probably though we should be taken to an asylum. Noelle didn't even care that we had just embarrassed ourselves? Wow.
We were both still laughing when we were walking away, leaving everyone to stare in wonder as we did so.
"That was good," she said as we reached the library. I nodded my head in agreement.
"Anyway, if we're not gonna' study, what are we doing here?"
"We're going to get a book." She told me.
"Alright." I said.
"Look for, Early Acceptance Into Yale." She said, and I was suddenly reminded that she would be leaving next year.
She must have noticed my long face because she told me, "Reed, it's not for me. It's for you."
"What?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"They have an early acceptance program. You get in a year early. It's for eleventh graders who want to go when they're in grade twelve." She explained, trying to suppress a smile.
I was smiling full-on now. I gave her a hug for her thoughtfulness. "I'll take that as a yes, you'll apply?"
"You can take that as a Hell, yeah I'll apply." I told her.
"Good," she said, smirking cockily, "cause I did some research and you've gotta have uber awesome grades and extra curriculars if you want to be considered. Even then, there's no guarantee. So, you're already acing mostly everything, right?" She asked me.
"Mostly, yeah. It's not like I have anything better to focus on."
"That's the spirit! So, you're already on the soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, and badminton team, right? You hate basketball, so that's a no go. Uh, you're on leadership, announcements, used to be on the debate team. I'm losing count now. You used to write for the school paper, you regularly volunteer at that nasty retirement home, I don't and will understand why, uh, you volunteered a couple times at church. You volunteered at that formal, and you helped with pretty much every school function since you came to Easton. You're quite the catch, aren't you?"
"Well, when you put it like that, you make me sound like a freaking humanitarian." I hadn't realised how much I had actually done for the community until Noelle laid it all out for me.
"Yeah, well that's going to look great on the application." She explained, looking at the spines of the books, tilting her head to read.
"Good. Maybe I'll stand a chance getting in." I started looking through the books myself.
"Here. Found it." I said.
"Great. We'll check it out and leave," She started walking to the checkout desk. We took the book out and left.
"So what was going on with you and Gage before? He walked in smiling like a loser then you come in and start glaring at him."
"Oh. That. He apologised for not taking our side in St. Barts." I told her, not wanting to have to explain him liking me. I didn't even know how I felt about him.
"And you had look at him like that?" She asked suspiciously.
"Yes. He can't just take an epic failure of an excuse of an attempted murderer's side and then expect me to forgive him just like that." I told her breezily. Wow, I'm getting good at this. I didn't even stutter. It all just came out like diarrhoea. Okay, well that's a really bad example. Diarrhoea causes death…
"Right…" Noelle said sceptically. Okay, so maybe I overestimated myself. A girl can have dreams!
We walked in silence most of the way back.