It was nerve wracking seeing Isaac back at school, as well as now knowing that Erica and the newest member of Derek's pack Boyd were watching me like hawks. Since the week of my isolation was lifted it meant I was allowed back into regular classes, so when I sat down in French, the last thing I had expected was for Isaac to park his ass in the seat directly next to me. I stared at him, all colour draining from my face. Immediately I tried to move but as I stood up the bell rang and the teacher called for us to begin in French, turning around after finishing writing on the board. "Miss Powell, asseyez-vous. Sit down."
Slowing sinking back into my chair and accepting my fate, Isaac gave me a grin as everyone began to open up their books and notepads in order to begin the lesson. I could barely focus, knowing that there was a werewolf sitting right next to me and I couldn't be sure what his intensions were. A few minutes into class, a piece of paper folded over was slid across to my desk whilst the teacher had her back turned. I considered ignoring it but Isaac merely tapped it with his pen, signalling that he wasn't going to give up even if I simply disregarded his presence, so with a silent huff I opened the paper.
Immediately I recognised the handwriting as the same as what had been left on my nightstand. So he'd left the apology note last night. That was something, at least. Looked over the words, it took me quite a while to decipher them, the letters flickering and jumping about annoyingly but I vaguely understood the gist of what was written there: How are you doing? Seriously? That's his go to opening line? Some big bad wolf he is. Scribbling back I thrust the note across to him and pointedly fixed my eyes forwards, trying to listen to what the teacher was saying. Something about tenses.
As Isaac read my response, I heard a light, almost mute chuckle: I'm pissed.
The note returned to me: Sorry Derek got out of hand, he's got terrible people skills. How come there's no bruising around your neck? Pretty sure he hurt you pretty bad.
Makeup. I lied easily enough, however I knew that I couldn't keep up this little game of note passing. For one I took too long to read and soon enough the teacher was bound to notice. Also my writing was terrible. I mixed up letters and got some of them back to front, and I struggled to write in a straight line so if Isaac caught on to why my writing was so bad, it would soon be the talk of the school that not only could I barely pass my classes, but I could barely read and write as well. Isaac responded with anther message, asking if I wanted any help with French and offering to study with me.
I ignored that and simply scrunched up the paper and refused to interact with him from then on, though the boy didn't give up. "Are you mad? I said I'm sorry didn't I?" He asked with a smile in his tone, speaking low and quiet as not to be overheard. "Look, next time I promise I'll ask Derek to be nice. Or, you could always tell me what you are then he won't have to come back."
"I'm human. End of discussion." I hissed back at him, growing prickly and defensive though my heart stuttered at the lie, something I didn't know that Isaac could pick up on. He whispered to me, telling me that my heartbeat had jumped, meaning that he knew that I was lying. Holy crap…why didn't Scott warn me that they could do that? Heightened sense of smell, sound, they're like walking lie detectors. "How about this?" I finally turned in my seat, looking him directly in the eye with all the courage I could muster. "I don't trust you." This time I knew for a fact my heartbeat was steady as a drum. Take that wolf boy.
"Miss Powell!" Damn it. The teacher tore me out in front of the class for talking, making my cheeks flush from embarrassment so I ducked my head and did not lift it again for the rest of the class. I tried to bolt free the moment the bell rang, however the teacher ordered me to stay behind to talk. By talk, she meant tell me that unless I got a minimum 'C' on the midterm, I was going to fail her class and that she would not tolerate a lazy, self-absorbed student such as me giving her a bad reputation and ruining her pass streak. She chewed me out, telling me that I had better step up my game otherwise she was going to make my life a living hell. Not that it wasn't already.
By the time she was done, I was on the verge of tears but I hid them, becoming defensive and snappy as a means to uphold my self-imparted image of badass attitude. "Well maybe if the teacher didn't suck at her job, then I wouldn't have such a hard time understanding what came out of their mouth in French or English!" Her jaw dropped as I grabbed my purse and left, ignoring her calling my name to bring me back. I stormed out of there, pulse racing and I quickly sought out a place to be alone as I could feel myself crumbling by the second.
Ducking into a bathroom I rushed into a stall and quickly locked the door so that I could sink down onto the closed seat and cry. I tried to cry quietly and cutely so that I didn't ruin my makeup, but soon that was out of the window and I just let it rip. I hated how I'd been crying so much lately, usually I didn't cry for nothing yet here I am bawling like a baby. After a while I heard the door open and close, footsteps following me in until someone came to stand outside my stall. Not wanting to be found by anyone like this, I yelled. "Get out!"
"I heard what our teacher said to you." Isaac's voice sounded, making my head shoot up and stare at the door where I could see his shoes and shadow underneath. "You're not an idiot. At least, not as stupid as she was making out."
"Just go away, I don't want to talk to you right now."
"If you're having problems reading and writing, then why don't you just tell someone? You're only making life harder for yourself, you know." Oh great, now the werewolf was giving me life advice. Awesome. Just awesome.
"What part of 'I don't want to talk' do you not understand? Leave me alone! That goes for Derek and the rest of your little pack too. If you guys come near me, I'll scream." At least I'd learned one thing from the near death experience at the pool. My scream can hurt them. Since their hearing is so sensitive, the elevated pitch of my voice could seriously deal them some discomfort. "Why are you still here?!"
"Because, believe it or not, I actually like the fact that you're talking to me. Sure you're yelling a lot and telling me to leave, but it's better than all the times you used to ignore me." I frowned, using a tissue to dab at my eyes as I gradually began to run out of tears. What the heck was he going on about now? I couldn't have ignored him before, I barely even knew him. It was just an active choice to not interact with the guy. "Maybe it's because the bite has helped me gain some confidence now, but before I was kind of too nervous to come talk to you."
"Well duh, you're not my friend so why would I talk to you? You only just joined the lacrosse team this semester too, so it's not like you're popular or anything either." I mumbled, fully aware that he would be able to hear me. I expected him to get angry and leave me alone, but surprisingly he did neither.
"God, you are so full of yourself." He laughed, the door shifting as he leaned against it. "I have no idea why but I used to think that attitude of yours was so sexy. You've always thought you were a cut above the rest, it made you confident and fearless. I liked that about you." Wait, was he trying to get at something here? "I wanted to ask you out at the start of school last year, but I lost my nerve and asked Lydia instead." I think I actually remember that. We'd just started back at school after summer and some kid had walked up to us, pale as a ghost and stuttering slightly. He'd stared at Lydia and I before suddenly asking her out, but we'd just laughed.
"You're saying you had a crush on me?"
"Uh huh, have done since last year." He admitted freely without a care in the world, his voice light and oddly pleasant. I hadn't even realised it but I'd stopped crying in order to listen to him, oddly calm and relaxed. "But I'm over that now. Since I got the bite, I'm a better version of myself which means I can have any girl I want." Way to lay on the charm, idiot. Huffing indignantly, I cast aside all previous notions of maybe warming to him and instead tore off another sheet of paper in order to dry my eyes.
"What are you still doing here anyway? This is the girls' room."
"Actually it's not." Isaac slowly answered, the grin profoundly evident in his tone. "This is a boys' bathroom." Vaulting to my feet I unlocked the door and tugged it open, looking out with a face of horror and disbelief.
"You're kidding me." His grin stretched further as I saw the urinals on the other side of the bathroom to confirm the fact that I had actually rushed into a boys' bathroom by mistake. I blinked, stared, gaped then all at once, I started laughing. I laughed so hard that my sides started to hurt, overcome with just how ridiculous this entire situation was and probably also as a means to release all the constant worrying and stress I'd dealt with the past week or so. It felt so good to laugh, and as I leaned back against the door frame for balance I gripped onto Isaac to keep from falling to the floor in a fit of giggles, tears now streaming down my face again. "Oh god, I just can't catch a break."
As the tail end of my laughter began to trail off, Isaac suddenly moved closer to me, catching my chin with his fingers in order to lift up my face and before I could ask him what he was doing, he was kissing me. Shocked, my heart gave a firm ba-dump before it settled again, recovering from the surprise of Isaac's unexpected move. He stepped closer, pressing me into the frame of the door as I found my eyes naturally sliding closed, feeling the subtle shape of his mouth against mine and discovering that it was actually not that bad. As kisses go, I've had worse. I've had better too, but this was oddly…pleasant.
His hand gently trailed up from my chin to my jaw before settling against my neck, cupping it as his other arm lifted over my head to rest against the doorframe of the cubicle. Even though the kiss was nice and made me feel much better after such a sucky morning, I still couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. I mean, we were in the men's room and I was backed up against a toilet cubicle of all things. Not exactly a picture of romance, but when Isaac began to suck slightly against my lower lip, all other thoughts quickly vanished from my head.
Thoroughly enjoying myself, it wasn't until I needed to breathe that I finally pushed against Isaac's shoulder, moving him back so that I could gasp for fresh air. My lips tingled even after he stepped back, feeling cold now that his warmth mouth was absent against mine. My lashes fluttered, focusing in on that feeling of softness before gradually looking at him. I could see that he was smug and rather pleased with himself, but not in an overbearing and arrogant sort of way that I often saw on the guys I dated after they first secured a little action from me. In fact, I could actually see that Isaac was rather happy.
"What was that for?" I asked him, touching my mouth and frowning.
"You looked cute when you were laughing." He shrugged nonchalantly, stunning me into silence. "Also I wanted to see if you'd get turned on by me. Sadly, no such luck." Okay wait, so that was just all an experiment to see if I'd get aroused by him?
"So…you were testing to see if I felt attracted to you?" I asked him and he nodded honestly. Part of me wanted to laugh again, but considering his first answer to my question, I figured best not to in case we had a repeat of what just occurred. "Well sorry to disappoint, but I'm a tough nut to crack."
"I can tell you liked it though, you kissed me back." Isaac pointed out quite gleefully as I gathered up my purse and books, tossing away my damp tissues before heading over to the mirror and sinks in order to tidy myself up and redo my makeup, Isaac following me with a proud smirk.
"It was okay I guess. Not the best, though, so don't be getting too big for your boots. You really need to work on your timing. Next time you want to kiss a girl, make sure it's somewhere nicer than a bathroom." I advised him as I wiped away the black stains around my eyes from where I'd been crying, removing all the smudges and base layers of makeup in order to start again.
"Duly noted." Isaac chuckled richly, watching me as I finished removing my makeup with a wipe before I then started to rummage around for my liner and mascara. "You know, you're pretty enough without all that crap on your face." My hands stopped, surprised that a guy would ever make such an observation, let alone as bluntly as he'd just put it. "Your eyes are more noticeable like that." Appreciating his comment but disregarding it, I continued with my routine makeup, shaping my eyes and thickening the lashes.
"You know, only one other guy in my entire life ever said something like that to me." I informed Isaac as my expert hand had finished my eyes in a matter of seconds, allowing me to apply a fresh coat of gloss to my lisp as I pouted, running the shimmery pink over my lips before popping them to even out the layer. "And you know what?" Now packing everything away, I turned to Isaac and smirked, placing my hand on his shoulder and gave a firm pat. "He was gay." Laughing shortly I turned and strode out of the men's room with a fresh spring in my step.
Be what it may, but that kiss had given me the confidence boost I needed. I've never kissed a werewolf before, so that was definitely a new one on me, but as I headed out to lunch to find Lydia and Allison, I couldn't help but smile all the way.