Happy first of December, everyone! I've had this done for a while, but I'm just now getting the chance to uploaded, since I haven't had a computer for some time. But here I am, with the latest chapter of Love Is All But An Illusion! I hope you all enjoy it, please please review! That's what keeps me writing. So if you want updates faster, I'm begging you. Reviewwwww. Anyways, I'm sorry this one is a little short, but I hope you like it anyway. :D
Spencer. Psst, Spencer.
Hanna had been poking me in the shoulder with the tip of her pencil for ten minutes now, and she was beyond getting on my nerves. We were in Physics class, and our teacher, Mrs. Maxwell, was trying to explain to us why airplanes were able to stay in the air. We were supposed to be writing it all down on a worksheet she had handed out at the beginning of class.
"What?" I finally hissed, refusing to turn my head as I scribbled away on my paper. "Hanna, what do you need?"
"What's the answer to number twelve?" my friend whispered back. "She's talking too fast, I didn't hear it."
I looked down at my paper, and that's when I realized I wasn't even doing the work. Instead of answering the questions, I had been doodling Aria's name repeatedly in the margins. And I hadn't even realized it!
"Spencer!" Hanna scolded, jabbing me in the forearm with her pencil tip again. "What's the answer?"
"Uh, lift," I answered distractedly after I had glanced down at my sheet again. Even though I wasn't paying attention, I knew the answer. I had taken a general science class over the summer, and Physics had been part of it. Besides, I had taken basic Physics years ago, back in elementary school.
"Thanks so much," Hanna mumbled, and I could hear her pencil tip scratching against her paper as she wrote the answer down.
Mrs. Maxwell finished going over the worksheet and then she turned to face the class, clapping her hands together to get our attention.
"Alright, class!" she announced loudly, her pointy violet glasses slipping slightly down her long nose. "Mr. Rex's Chemistry class will be over here any second. Each of you will be paired with someone from their class, and we're going to work on a project where we'll build aircrafts and try to power them with chemicals. We'll have a competition to see which team's creation flies the farthest."
My pulse skyrocketed, and I could literally feel my heart beating inside of my chest. Aria was in Mr. Rex's class! Maybe we'd even get to work on the project together!
Just then, there was a knock on the classroom door. Mrs. Maxwell went over and opened it, and Mr. Rex's class filed into the room. My stomach leapt up into my throat when I saw Aria's small frame huddled in the back of the group. She still looked tiny and mousy, even with her flashy red dress and bow.
She saw me right after I saw her, and came rushing over to my desk, her maroon-colored, lipstick-covered lips spread into an eager grin.
"Hi!" she squeaked, plopping down in the empty seat beside me.
"Hey," I greeted her back, quickly stuffing the paper that had her name written all over it into my folder. I could feel myself smiling brightly.
'I'm so happy our classes are getting to work together!" she chirped, crossing her short legs over one another. "Rex almost put us with one of the other Physics classes. I would've died."
"Oh, please," I giggled, twirling the end of my braid around my pointer finger. "You sound like Hanna."
Aria rolled her large hazel eyes, laughing lightly. "I do not!" She turned in her chair, gesturing towards the back of the room, where Hanna sat. "Speaking of Han, look at her and Emily. There's definitely something going on between those two. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to find out."
She was right, something was going on between our friends. Hanna and Emily were squeezed together in the same chair since there weren't any empty desks around Hanna's. Hanna had her hand cupped around Emily's ear, and I could see her giggling as she whispered to the other girl.
I opened my mouth to respond to Aria, but then Mrs. Maxwell spoke up again.
"Quiet down, quiet down," she cooed in an attempt to soothe the group of rowdy teenagers. "Mr. Rex and I have decided who will be paired with whom. Please don't pair up until we have finished calling out names."
She gestured to the shorter, fire-haired Mr. Rex, who was sitting on the edge of her desk. He raised the sheet of paper in his hands and began listing names.
"Noel and Tyler, Maggie and Paige, Spencer and Aria…"
Her voice was completely muffled after I heard Aria and I's names. We were together! I turned to her, and she was grinning as widely as I was sure I was. Moments later, I heard Hanna's cheer of, "YES!" from behind me, and I knew that she and Emily had been put together.
"This is so great!" Aria was leaning close to me, and I could smell her flowery perfume. It was making me incredibly dizzy. "We never get to work together."
I nodded, for it was true. Aria and I had been best friends since we were first graders, and our teachers knew not to put us together by now. But for some reason, they had paired us up for this project, and I was more than thankful.
"We should make some kind of complex fighter jet," Aria suggested, already scribbling designs down on her paper. "Or a really cool helicopter."
"Whoa, slow down there, Da Vinci." From what I could see of her paper, I could make out the nose of a plane and maybe half of a wing. "We need to create something that will stay in the air, it doesn't necessarily have to be gorgeous."
"But it'd be so much cooler!" Aria insisted, still drawing. "And if I get an actual picture down, we can add the dimensions and everything."
"Alright," I agreed, digging through my plain purple pencil case to try to find a sharpened pencil. "We can do that. Good idea, Ar."
She beamed, and her wide hazel eyes and the little dimples in her cheeks were probably the cutest things I'd ever seen. I just wanted to lean over and kiss her right then and there. I'm pretty sure she'd run away screaming, though, so I stayed put, shooting her what I hoped was a calm, gentle, smile. My stomach was a different story, however. It was all tied up in complicated knots.
An hour and a half later, Aria and I were at my house. We had decided to have Aria come over, so we could work on the project and hang out for a bit. We were both laying on my bed, Aria splayed across the end of the bed, and me lying up against the headboard. I had my Physics textbook on my lap and Aria was looking over my notes from earlier.
"Geez, your notes are so neat!" Aria exclaimed, turning her head to look up at me. Butterflies swam in my stomach immediately, Aria's mere gaze enchanting me. "These could be a work of art, Spence."
I rolled my eyes, flipping to the page in my book on friction. "They're not all that special. I just like to be able to see what I'm writing. Unlike a certain someone, whose handwriting is chicken scratch."
"Hey, my handwriting is fine!" Aria stuck her tongue out at me, giggling lightheartedly. "At least it's not like Hanna's, with hearts on top of all her I's."
I laughed, shifting my position on the bed so I could cross my legs. "Yeah, I guess not. She writes in a bunch of different colors, too. It's blinding, almost."
Aria nodded in agreement, uncrossing and then re-crossing her black stocking-covered legs. "Not almost," she chuckled, combing her fingers through her messy dark brown hair. "It is blinding." She smirked at me, and I could feel my cheeks flush. "Not that Emily seems to mind, though. I think she likes the way Hanna writes! I even caught her dotting her I's with hearts the other day."
I couldn't help but snicker. Like we had talked about earlier that day, Aria and I both knew something was going on between Hanna and Emily, and while we had a pretty big idea of what it was, we couldn't exactly pinpoint it.
"I think we just have to catch them in the act," Aria said suddenly, as if she was reading my mind. She set my notes down on the mattress and sat up so she could move a little closer to me. "Whatever they're up to, we need to catch them doing it."
"But what if they're not doing anything?" I asked, drumming my fingers against the edge of my textbook's cover. "I think there's something going on between them, but even they don't know what it is."
Aria chewed on her bottom lip, contemplating what I had said. "Maybe you're right," she murmured, twirling a piece of hair around her pointer finger in a way that made my stomach feel like it was bursting into flames. "But what could be going on?"
I opened my mouth to answer, when Aria cut me off and blurted out, "Maybe they like each other!" Her hazel eyes were wide, and her pink lips were opened into a tiny O.
I considered it for a second, before wrinkling my nose and shaking my head. "Nah, that can't be. Hanna's not gay. That's Em, remember?"
Aria giggled and shifted on the bed so she could fold her legs up under herself. "Of course I remember, Spence. But you never know, she could be into girls and keeping it from us."
Talk about the story of my life. Except I was the one in Hanna's position, and I was crushing on Aria big-time. I shrugged, hoping Aria couldn't see how uncomfortable I was. "Maybe. I doubt it, though."
Aria blew a lock of loose hair out of her eyes. "I don't know, I kind of have a hunch. And you know we all have secrets. When Ali said we share secrets, I don't think she knew what she was talking about. Our secrets are what our friendship is all about sometimes."
My phone let out a beep, and I pulled it out of my pocket, my stomach dropping as I read the text that had just come in. On the tiny screen were the words, "She's kind of right, what I said was wrong. But I knew EXACTLY what I was talking about when I said it's the secrets that keep us close. And if you don't tell her yours, I'll do it for you. –A"