.:Chapter Twenty-Four:.
The Great Date Auction (1)
Stretching his arms over his head, Zack slumped down in his seat, resting his cheek on his arm as he waited for French class to start. Or end. At this point he wasn't really sure what time of day it was, he was so tired. Not that he had done anything different that day compared to all the others. Either that or his days off from school were really starting to catch up to him; where he would be able to stay up late, knowing he wasn't going to school the next day. Where he would put off whatever homework it was that he had due, and would spend his time talking to Sadie on the phone, or watching TV, or playing some sort of a video game to pass the time.
Or maybe it was stress from having moved, trying to adjust to living with his Dad for the moment. That was the great part; the rules that he had there were similar to the ones that he had with his mother back in the Tipton, but it was different because he didn't have to worry so much about the repercussions if he didn't do it. He didn't have the constant disappointed looks or the heavy sighs of irritation. He understood why he received them from his mother, but it wasn't helpful when he was trying so hard to turn his life around.
Still the adjustment was a bit harder than he anticipated, especially as he hadn't been away from his mother for more than a few days since he was born. Sure, she was just across the city, but it was still hard.
As hard as it was to keep his eyes open? Not quite, but it was getting to be as difficult.
Letting out a low sigh, Zack closed his eyes as he rested his cheek on his arm. Reaching behind him, he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt and brought it down over his head. Maybe the teacher wouldn't notice him if he stayed quiet throughout class? The only times he seemed to get called on, or had attention brought to him in any way, was when he was obviously not paying attention, or did something to specifically bring attention to himself. Like, throw a handful of spitballs at Cody's head. It helped that the normal French and AP French classes were held in the same room as there wasn't enough teachers or classroom space to hold them all at once. It was one of the biggest schools in the city with a medium-sized high school population, but there weren't enough teachers for all of them.
And the teacher for the French class just so happened to be Tutweiller, who was also his English teacher, and between the two languages, he wasn't sure which one of them she was better at teaching. Not that he paid as much attention to either one of them.
"So we're going to do a speed test," Miss. Tutweiller said as she slowly paced back and forth at the front of the room. "To go over the vocabulary words that we learned within the last couple of days. So everyone get out a sheet of paper and number the left side one through thirty and the right side thirty-one through sixty." The students did as they were told, Miss. Tutweiller taking her cell phone and navigating to the stopwatch function.
"Zack!"
Feeling a hard knock on his arm, Zack lifted his head and looked over at Max and Bailey, who sat around his table—which proved to be helpful since Bailey was in the AP class and she sat close enough for him to cheat off of when he needed to—and raised his eyebrows. Bailey lifted her eyebrows in response and motioned to the sheet of paper that sat in front of her before nodding her head over towards Miss. Tutweiller, who had started calling out the words. Nodding, he lifted his head and sluggishly pulled a sheet of paper out of his notebook and started to number it. He rested his chin in his hand and listened as the words continued to roll by, unsure if he was even getting the spelling right let alone the definition.
They were in the middle of the second column when he heard the door to the room open and Cody walked inside. Of course he somehow had managed to test out of needing to take any language classes, and filled the space working in the principal's office. Either that or he was trying to pad his applications as much as he could. Nevertheless, Zack watched with a raised eyebrow as his brother walked over to Miss. Tutweiller and handed her a note.
He tried to catch his brother's eye, to see if the note was about him, but Cody shook his head and the corner of his mouth turned up though he tried his best to hide it. Zack easily recognized the look that Cody was taking pleasure n something that he probably wouldn't normally have.
"What's going on?" Zack mouthed to him.
Cody moved a finger to his lips then pointed behind him and Zack twisted around and caught Sadie's eye. She looked back at him and smiled a flirtatious smile before giving him a finger wave. It made him smile, not only because she was obviously so into him, but also because he knew he didn't have to worry about the date auction that was going on after lunch that day. Not that he was especially worried in the first place, he was sure there were plenty of girls that would bid on him anyway; more that he wasn't sure how he would feel about it.
People could be really shallow at times; he knew that to be true as it was how he was around girls for a long time. I guess being in the hospital for a while managed to help me in some aspects, he thought with a wry smile.
"Miss. Grant you are being called to the principal's office," Miss. Tutweiller said, dropping the note onto her desk. "It seems that you've managed to rack up quite a bit of tardies this semester." She placed her hands on her hips and shook her head towards Sadie as the rest of the class turned to face Zack.
He widened his eyes as innocently as he could, failing to keep the smile from his face. "It's not my fault," he declared, knowing very well that the rest of the class knew he was lying. "I'm hardly here during the week." No. It was an all out lie. The things he had done with Max before class was something he didn't have to talk Sadie into. More often than not it was her that dragged him into the janitor's closet when they had a few minutes free. Not to mention their increasing amount of dates; every time he had a day off he was more than likely to be hanging out with her that night, and the small things she would bring for him.
Not that he didn't do things for her; he treated her just about every time they went out, sent her a good morning and good night text, and had flowers for her every now and then. But there were times he wondered if she was more into him for extremely superficial reasons than he was into her. And if that were the case, it'd be sweet karma finally rearing its ugly head and he could admit he deserved it in some aspects.
"Does he want me to go now?" Sadie asked, hugging her books to her chest as she hovered in her seat.
"Yep," Cody agreed. "He specifically asked me to bring you back to the office."
"Always got to be a teacher's pet, don't you Cody?" Bailey teased him. She then turned to Miss. Tutweiller and rattled something off in French that Zack didn't have an iota of what she had just said and chalked it up to wanting to one-up his brother. As the two always seemed to do. "I believe you were on question number forty, the word for cure."
"That would be guérir," Cody broke in with a smug smile.
His eyes flashed and Zack instantly knew what was going to happen next. He and Bailey always managed to get into a sort of pissing contest with each other. One moment they were hanging out as usual, the next thing he knew they were yelling over each other as they tried to prove they were the better one at whatever subject they were being tested on. It reminded him of the year before when their group were all studying for a history test by quizzing each other, it turned into a competition between Bailey and Cody to see who could get the correct answer first.
"Actually, in the context that this question is being asked, it would be guérison," Bailey said. She smiled at him then turned back to their teacher. "Right, Miss. Tutweiller?"
"And people wonder why we don't ever get anything done in class," Max muttered from Zack's left, making him laugh lightly. Miss. Tutweiller ignored the two students that were obviously vying for her attention and motioned for Sadie to come up to the front of the room.
The teen girl let out a light, exaggerated sigh as she walked towards the front of the room. "Well, if I'm already in trouble…" she stopped by Zack's seat and grabbed his chin in her hand, giving him a long kiss. She only stopped when Miss. Tutweiller cleared her throat over the loud cheers and catcalls from the other students.
"I'm awake," Zack declared once Sadie finally pulled away and left the room. He smiled as Max and Bailey both rolled their eyes, although they were laughing along with the rest of the class. He slumped down in his seat, tapping the top of his pen against the table.
"I'm sure you are, Zack," Miss. Tutweiller said with a light shake of her head. She motioned for Cody and Sadie to leave the room before going back to her lesson. Taking a look down at his sheet of paper, Zack shrugged and pushed it away from him, knowing that with most of the answers left blank he didn't have a prayer of even getting a C on it.
For someone that had wanted to go back to school so badly, he wasn't really doing a good job with making sure he was able to stay in school. But that was the most daunting part of it, having to work hard to stay up to date with all of his assignments on his day off was starting to kill him. He needed to go to school full time or else he wouldn't have the motivation to get things done, knowing he could laze around for most of the day.
Finally, after another half hour of pretending to have a conversation in French with Max and Bailey as the class was scheduled to do every day, class was finally over and Zack was headed to his study hall. He stopped by his locker to get his AP history homework that he still hadn't started yet. Going down the hallway he spotted Riley at her locker, pulling her own books out.
"Hey," he greeted her, walking over. "You guys weren't in class." She, Rhuben, and Crystal were in the AP class along with Bailey, while he and Max were in the regular French class. Tapeworm and Moose were the only ones that were taking Spanish while Cody had tested out of taking a language.
"I only just got here," she explained with a light bob of her head. "I had an appointment to go to." She shifted her gaze as Zack studied her for a moment.
"You're not, like, dying or anything are you?" He finally asked. "Because you all have been going to appointments and stuff a lot lately."
She glanced towards the ceiling for a moment before pulling her hair back from her face, which Zack suddenly noticed that she had dyed it the same red color it had been when they first met. "No, we're not dying, boofhead." She flashed him a teasing smile before stepping back and closing the door, taking a can of Red Bull off of the top shelf. "There's just been a lot of things we've had to do lately." She turned to him and raised her eyebrows. "Actually, you look like you could use this more than I do."
"Thanks." Zack took the can and downed it in one gulp, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and lobbing the can into the trash at the far end of the hallway. If he was able to do that with little effort, then the basketball season would come easier to him than it had before. "So what was the appointment for?"
"Nothing important, though that reminds me I need to go to the nurse. I heard that French class was something I shouldn't have missed." At his incredulous look, wondering how she had managed to know what happened if she had just arrived at school, she explained, "We ran into Cody and Sadie on the way in. Rhu and Crys say way to go, by the way. It's the bloody funniest thing that's happened in a while. I bet Tutweiller wasn't happy."
"Tutweiller needs a date," Zack declared. "Her bitterness is starting to make me realize why she hasn't had one in a while." He scratched the back of his head then cocked an eyebrow. "You didn't sound so happy to hear about it."
She shrugged, giving him a funny look. "Another day of you sucking face, mate. Cheers." She gave an overly exaggerated thumbs up, making the two of them laugh. "So what do you have planned next? Getting kicked out of school all because of a PDA scandal. If you want your name known, everyone's gonna remember you for that, yeah?" She shrugged. "Better than what they know you for now, right?"
That was very true. He already had lots of people associating with the headlines of 'that anorexic guy' or the 'bulimic basketball player'. It didn't help that eating disorders with guys weren't usually talked about much so he was now, essentially, the poster child of the whole thing. Not that anyone else needed to know how much it was bothering him. Though it was starting to bother him that he wasn't as good at keeping his emotions hidden as he thought he was.
So he changed the subject. "You're jealous."
"I'm not jealous."
"But you're not happy."
"I'm fine."
That was the way she always deflection attention off herself, by downplaying it with other things that may have been going on, or downplaying it to the point that everyone around her didn't see it. Did he notice her hands shaking, consistently pulling her fingers into make fists, moving her weight back and forth from one foot to the other? Or the bubbling cauldron of emotions that was moments away from spilling over.
"Right." He didn't say anything more, but the smug grin on his face irritated her.
"What do you want me to say?" She tilted her head. "That I'm not a bitch? I'm not out to break up your relationship? I want you to be happy?"
Now he was confused. "Well…that's good because the only reason I gave you your space was so you could be happy."
"Good."
"Fine." The two gazed at each other in confusion. It was not the way they expected the conversation to go. "Now that we have that out of the way I'm as confused as I was before we had this conversation."
"Zack, you're always confused."
With a light laugh, he scratched the back of his head. "I know, and nothing ever seems to get easier for me." He paused. "But you can't tell me you've never thought about it."
"Of course I have."
Probably too much if she were honest with herself. Letting him know everything she felt about him and how she thought they would actually be pretty good together. How she thought about reaching out and grabbing onto him looking into his eyes long enough to say everything that she wanted to say, without words, and kiss him.
She thought about that the most; what would kissing him feel like. Not those short kisses he had given her before, when they were younger, where a portion of her was disgusted and pushed him away the best she could, to scare him off so he didn't do it again. No, not like those. A real kiss. The kind where she would finally allow the moment to take her over, where she could hold onto him and hold the embrace until it naturally ended.
Yes, she thought about it many times, fantasizing how it would go. More likely than not it would be through some sort of an argument, a disagreement, they would have where she would mentally scream at herself that nothing mattered other than letting him know. He would intuitively know it, he always seemed to be able to read her emotions easier than anyone else, and would catch her in his arms before she even knew she had moved. Then his lips would be on hers and there would be fireworks and butterflies and weak knees and everything a great kiss was supposed to make someone feel. And she would know in that moment that all of her work to keep him safe from her and everything she had been afraid of wouldn't matter.
But Zack wasn't a cheater and she was not one to help someone else cheat, no matter how much she wanted it.
Her response clearly wasn't something Zack wanted to hear for he stared at her for a solid thirty seconds without blinking. Then he brought his hands up into fists, letting out a light growl. "Oh my God, you drive me crazy," he said before abruptly turning and walking away.
"What's bothering you, Z?" Her face screwed up in confusion, unsure of his reaction.
"What's bothering me is that I have a five foot red-headed pixie following me everywhere and making my life miserable."
She stopped in her tracks, tilting her head to the side. Miserable? Well, he didn't say it in a way that showed that's what he truly meant. No, she didn't make his life miserable in the way anyone would mean the word viciously. "I'm not following you everywhere and if you're not careful this pixie will fucking knock you right back to Neverland."
Zack let out a light chuckle but didn't turn towards her. Instead, he kept his gaze straight ahead, focusing hard on keeping his temper. "Tough talk for someone who's so adamant about not hurting anyone."
Riley's lower jaw dropped before she quickly closed it once more. Bringing a hand up to her forehead, she scratched at her hairline, expertly covering the crushed expression that appeared on her face. She knew he knew how much those words hurt her, how badly they tore through her heart after she had told him her fears in confidence.
Her temper immediately flared as she dropped her hand and glared at his back so fiercely she was sure he felt it. Rather than going with her first instinct to yell at him, the Australian teen took a deep breath, trying to keep in control. Proving him right wasn't going to help her case. But it was hard. As it was, she could feel the proverbial darkness starting to slide over her, starting to take control. The edges of her vision turned dark and she could feel her heart plummeting into its waiting grasp. It was one of the worst feelings, coming second to recognizing herself when she was seconds away from doing something she would regret.
Couldn't he tell how much he hurt her, by her silence? And yet, he still walked away from her.
Riley managed to take a deep breath, calming herself the best she could before snapping, "That's not fair, Zack!"
As if it being the secret password, Zack stopped on a dime and whipped around to face her. Judging by the clenching of his jaw, he was beyond angry. "That's not fair?" He repeated.
"No, it's fucking not fair! What I told you…I told you that because I thought I could trust you with it, to trust you with something I haven't told anyone else." She reached up and jabbed him in the chest. "And you threw that back into my face like it meant nothing to you! Like I mean nothing to you."
His nostrils flared as he glared down at her. "What's not fair is that you and I and the entire fucking school know I have feelings for you and all you do is lead me on."
The Australian teen's head jerked, taken aback. "I'm not leading you on."
"Yes, you are! You always do! You keep making me feel…like we have a something, like I finally have a chance that things will work out. But then you keep turning back around and put up a wall as thick as concrete to keep me from getting any closer to you. I can see it in your face each and every time. We'll have a good conversation, you finally start to treat me like I mean something to you and there's always something that holds you back. I can respect that and I always have respected that. I understand that no means no and I've always respected that, but there are always a few times where I think you'll change your mind and you'll let me know. And things have been great, Ri, they really have. We grew close and the whole flirting thing, that became our thing. I finally found a way for you to open up, to laugh, to smile and to actually act like yourself and we have fun together. In the back of my head I held onto hope that things may change and we could go on from there. I gave you your space. I moved on. I dated Max and now I'm dating Sadie, and you can't stand that so you have to start doing all of this all over again. You keep giving me mixed signals and making me think there's something that can grow there, which makes me feel guilty when I'm with her when I shouldn't have to. I know you're not doing it on purpose, as a matter of fact; I would probably hate you if you did it on purpose. But it still fucking sucks. "
He swallowed hard, chest having up and down as he fought for control. "And that, Riley, is not fair."
He turned on his heel and started to walk away again, only stopping when he reached the end of the hallway. He almost the turned the corner and walked away without giving a backwards glance, but he couldn't help it. Something forced him to turn around and when he did, he found her still standing in the position he left her, he head still angled towards the floor, shuffling her feet. Suddenly she appeared as tall as she was, compared to the image of reaching the top of the world with her projected confidence.
And as he watched, she lifted her head and met his gaze. His eyebrows furrowed together when he saw a glimmer in her eyes. "You're right," she finally said. "I'm sorry."
Zack pressed his lips together for a moment before covering his mouth with his hand, holding onto his jaw with his fingertips. He then dropped it, slowly walking back towards her. "Could you say that again?"
The Australian teen's eyes shifted and for a moment she smiled a humorless smile. "Which part?"
"The 'you were right' part, I don't hear that nearly as much as I should. From anyone." Zack paused then pointed at her. "Actually, hearing you say 'I'm sorry', too. I don't hear that a lot."
She bobbed her head back and forth, knowing it was true. "I can recognize when I have to, yeah? And I'm sorry for making you feel I was leading you on when it's not what I intended at all. I've taken you and our friendship for granted and I'm sorry." She took a deep breath. "I have something else I need to tell you." Zack waited as she started to twist her fingers together, gnawing on her bottom lip. "I'm scared."
His eyes shifted, confused. "Of what?"
"Of getting into a relationship…with you."
Irritation twinged through Zack's stomach and he rolled his eyes. "Let me guess; scared that I would hurt you? That I'd get bored? That I'd drop you for the next person that comes across my path? You know I'm not like that, Ri, I wouldn't do that. I may be a flirt, but I don't purposefully hurt someone like that. You know that."
"I do. And you're right, but that's not what I'm afraid of….I'm afraid of myself. I'm afraid of hurt you."
"…How?" The utterly confused expression on Zack's face would've been comical if it weren't for the seriousness of the conversation. "You're five feet tall and weigh, what, 105 pounds? You look like a gust of wind would knock you over…a gust of wind has knocked you over."
"I mean I'm afraid that I'll lose my temper and hurt you. That I'll get to the point where I unintentionally say something to hurt you. I'm afraid of what I can do, what I can turn into. I've seen it happen before and I don't want it to happen to you. I didn't want Robert to get to you, I don't…" she ran a hand through her hair. "I'm so fucking terrified of myself it's not even funny. I hate the way I am when I lose my temper and I'm tired of it being thrown in my face. I hate when people say that I'll get mad at a cloud in the sky and make it all a joke. I didn't even know I was intimidating until Cody told me…" she brought her hands up briefly pressed her fingertips against her temples before bringing her hand down and rubbed her arm. "I'm tired of being so scared."
Zack reached out and grabbed onto Riley, pulling her into his chest and hugging her tightly. Riley brought her arms up and hugged him back, pressing her face into his chest. When the hug ended he gave her a warm, reassuring smile before turning on his heel and leaving the hallway.
Riley watched him leave and right when she was about to go to her class she stopped, suddenly struck with a thought. More like a notion, of how much she truly did cherish Zack as her best friend.
Zack turned the corner and went to his study hall, arriving a few minutes after it had started. If he wasn't carefully, he'd be sent to the principal's office for tardiness as well. Though, settling into his seat he had a worrying thought; he wasn't sure if Riley had told him all of those things because she truly meant it or if there was something else going on—namely Robert's appearance—that had prompted her to say it in case something happened. It wasn't the time to finish the conversation; he didn't really know what to say as it was.
Nor was he prepared to face it if his suspicions were correct.
He pushed the thought out of his head and focused on his work for most of study hall until his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the text message.
Sadie: I got a stern talking to, but that's about it.
Zack: Better you than me, I think I'd be kicked out if I got sent to the office again. If not completely pulled out of school.
Sadie: :( Then I'd be sad. I'd have no one to hang out with.
Zack: You have the rest of the Drew Crew, you don't have to worry about not hanging out with anyone.
Sadie: Yeah…but they're not as fun. Lol.
Zack: I get it; you only want me around because I keep you from being bored.
Sadie: And because you're a good kisser. Don't forget that part. ;) I should be jealous because so many girls know that about you already, but I'm not.
Zack: Really? You're not? ;)
Sadie: Nope. Because I've got something better than what those other girls got. I got that really sexy pic of you. I look at it a lot, you know. LOL. ;)
Zack smiled a little, his ego effectively stroked. He thought for a few minute, trying to come up with the best response to her text. As he pressed send he sudden found the butterflies in his stomach had brought friends and there was a frenzy going through his stomach. Though of excitement or anxiety he wasn't sure.
Zack: Well, there's more where that came from.
Sadie: I was hoping you'd say that.
He didn't get a chance to reply before his phone buzzed a second time with an image text. He opened it and couldn't stop the perverse grin that moved over his face. Though to be safe, he bent his head towards the edge of the table so no one would be able to see what he was grinning at. A topless picture he hadn't expected to receive, but knowing she had done it while within the school made it that much better.
Sadie: Well?
Zack: Hot. Thank you. Now I have an even better reason to be sure my Mom doesn't look at my phone.
Sadie: I'm glad you like it. :D :D 3 3 It's just to reassure you that I'll definitely be bidding on you today at the date auction. And I'll beat out any other girl that tries to bid on you.
Zack: Don't do that, we need all of the money we can get for the senior class treasury and more people bidding on me will be great for the class.
Sadie: Fine. But I'll be jealous.
Zack: You don't have to be.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he got a hall pass to go to the bathroom and made sure that he went to the bathroom on the far end of the school. He barricaded it the best he could with the large trash cans that were inside. After taking in a few deep breaths, he stripped down to nothing, faced the mirror, took a picture, sent it, and then speedily put his clothes back on. He left the bathroom and went back to study hall with a certain swagger in his step.
Sadie: ;) :)