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Chapter 5

Brian didn't appear at school for the rest of the week.

Some people said he was out sick, while others claimed he was out camping with the rest of his family. I knew better; I knew he was avoiding me.

I began to adjust to life without Brian. After all, I had only met him for one day, so it wasn't too difficult.

I quickly bonded with Faye. We had the same teachers, so we helped each other with homework whenever it didn't make sense to one of us. We laughed and giggled at every opportune moment over silly things. We became the closest of friends.

I completely forgot about Brian.

Then came Monday morning. Ugh. I never liked Mondays, and this morning was already going terribly.

First off, I had overslept. I looked at the clock- which I had somehow forgotten to set the alarm to- and nearly screamed. School would start in a half hour!

I yanked on the first clothes I saw and stumbled out of my room. I threw all my books and notebooks into my backpack.

My stomach growled, and I remembered I needed to have breakfast. In record time, I had checked my blood sugar and given myself my shot, all the while toasting bread. I glanced at the clock.

"Dad!" I yelled. "I need a ride to school!" Thankfully he didn't need to leave for work yet, so transportation was available.

With the piece of toast, I grabbed a cereal bar and ran out the door and into the car.

The ride to school felt incredibly slow, even though we were only five minutes away. Meanwhile, I impatiently nibbled on my toast.

With a quick "love you, bye!", I sprinted towards the school when the car came to a stop.

A glance to the clock told me I had just less than two minutes to get to class. I sprinted faster and started nibbling my cereal bar.

I finally rushed into the room the second the bell rang. I sighed and continued eating my cereal bar.

"Excuse me, dear Michaela, could you spare a pencil? I seem to have forgotten mine."

I looked up to the voice- and nearly choked on my bar. I immediately had a coughing fit.

"Brian?!" I spluttered.

"Who else? Now, uh, do you still have that extra pencil?"

The nerve! He suddenly appears after disappearing for a week, and pretends nothing happened. And of all people, he asks me for a pencil!

"Why, no I do not. Why don't you ask someone else?" I snapped.

Unless he gave an explanation of why I shouldn't believe he tried to drop out of high school or move towns in the next ten seconds I was going to have to be a real jerk to him.

"What's wrong, Michaela? You seem cranky. Is your blood sugar okay?" I scowled at him.

"My blood sugar has nothing to do with this. So far my day's going horribly, and you're not helping one bit."

He put his arm around my neck, and I elbowed him in his ribs. He didn't flinch.

"What did I do to make your day worse? And I'm sorry, if it means anything."

I rolled my eyes. "Right. On the first day of school, everything's great. Then you completely flip out at lunch and run away. You disappear for a week, letting me assume you've either dropped out or switched schools because of me. Now you tell me, what's wrong with you?"

He scowled back to me. He opened his mouth to reply, but the teacher interrupted us.

"Michaela, Brian, please take your seats unless you want to owe time after class."

I found an extra pencil in my backpack that was left with barely any eraser and shoved it at him.

"Have your freaking pencil."

We continued glaring at each other until he turned and walked to his seat. I sat down in mine.

The second the bell rang, Brian was out of his seat and out of the room. I made sure I was the last student out.

Since Brian was absent the first week in chemistry, he had to find the seat he was assigned on the second day of school. Which just happened to be two seats away from me. On the first week of school, I would have been thrilled. Now I was contemplating a way to make time go faster.

Unfortunately, we had a lab where we had to work with the partner next to us. My partner was out sick, so I had to put up with Brian.

That went well.

We worked silently and without making eye contact, as independently as possible.

It was a painfully slow lab that required a lot of patience that I didn't have.

Finally, when the bell rang, I felt like jumping for joy. I ran to English, while Brian ran to Spanish.

My next classes were torturous, but not as torturous as it could have been if Brian were in them.

I dragged myself to lunch, where I joined Faye at an otherwise empty table.

"So, is the rumor that a certain Mr. Brian Cullen is back in school?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Then it's confirmed: it's true! So, what's the story?"

"I don't know, but he's acting like nothing happened, like he wasn't gone for a week, and like he totally didn't freak out on me when I checked my blood sugar."

"So, like he still likes you. I guess that's good, am I right?"

I sighed. "That's the problem: I don't know. I guess it should be, but I just can't forget about his behavior. I kind of overreacted in Algebra 2 when I saw him. I just kinda flipped, and asked what his problem was. It went downhill from there."

Faye laughed; I looked at her in shock.

"Girl, don't be hard on yourself. After a week, he still went to you. You must be something special, 'cuz he's usually long gone with the other girls after a week. Ooh," she giggled, "speaking of whom. And look, he looks like he wants to take part in a friendly chat, instead of tearing out your throat."

I groaned and buried my head in my arms.

"Hello girls, mind if I join you?" Despite my growling and dark glares, he still sat down next us.

"Fancy meeting you here, Faye. It's disappointing not having any classes together this year, after having PE and Spanish last year."

Even though I had more classes with him, I still felt a pang of jealousy. I ignored it.

I took out my kit so I could start eating. This time I didn't care if Brian ran or not. I picked my left ring finger (my finger of choice), and pressed the poker against it.

I was about to push the button when Brian suddenly gripped my wrist. I winced and looked at him to ask what his problem was. His harsh glare faded to an almost pleading look.

"Can't you do that... Another time?"

"What is your problem, Brian? Can't you just, look away or hold your breath or something?"

"It's not that... simple. Can't you just, please?"

I sighed, and put the poker back into the kit.

"Fine, but if my blood sugar gets all weird, it's your fault. I guess I can just check it before Spanish starts."

He smiled at me, then looked at Faye. She clearly looked like she was in the middle of an argument, and it was really awkward for her.

"Uh, I think I'm gonna get a smoothie or something. Be right back," she said, getting up.

I looked shocked and pleadingly at her, but she looked back apologetically. Brian chuckled.

"Now that we're alone," I glared at him. He ignored it. "Maybe we should forget everything happened. It's the first day of school, and lunch never happened," he murmured softly.

I randomly noticed his eyes looked more brownish now then I remembered. I figured it was probably just the lighting in the cafeteria, or the lack thereof.

I glared at him. "I don't know what you're talking about." He grinned at me.

He removed a pencil and a piece of paper from his backpack. I watched with a shock as I realized what he was doing.

He drew a nice big heart, and added two letters to the heart. He then handed the pencil to me.

"I think you do."

I gasped. I took the pencil, and slowly made two small cross marks between the letters, almost against my will.

I stared at my hand, then the paper. What in the world possessed me...?

He leaned over, and kissed me softly on my forehead.

"I knew you'd remember," he whispered. "See you in Social Studies," and then he was gone.

I blinked, dazed and confused as Faye walked up sipping a berry smoothie through a neon yellow bendy straw.

"You look like... I don't even know how to describe your look. Maybe like... no, words don't even fit. Wait, are you blushing? Oh my gosh you are! I'm gonna go on a crazy limb, and say he kissed you. Am I right?"

I looked at her, still dazed, and slowly nodded.

Faye gasped. "Michaela, you lucky girl! Don't you see what that means? He's totally all yours! He's asked out practically half the girls, and apparently none of them deserved a kiss except you! That's huge!"

"Faye! It's no big deal. It's nothing, so stop making it sound like it should be on the newspaper headlines."

"Look, all I'm saying is that something makes you different than over half the girls in this school in his eyes." I rolled my eyes.

"Oh, sorry to suddenly ditch you Michaela, but I gotta get to Algebra 2 early so I can finish the homework."

"That's fine. By the way, there's a pop quiz on chapter 1, just forewarning."

"Thanks!" she yelled as she ran off.

I sighed and shook my head to clear my mind.

Something caught my attention. I looked at the second door and saw Brian staring at me. The bell rang, and he winked at me before disappearing with the crowd.