Chapter Four: Ghosts
"Bee? Is it really you?" Mike asked; astounded. "Wow. You're so…tall."
Swallowing my ridiculous anxiety, I stared at those blue eyes – so pleasantly framed by soft wisps of blond hair – and wondered at his changed appearance. If not for the hint of baby fat still clinging to his cheeks, I might not have realized it was him.
"Hey Mike, you got" – I struggled for a word, his infectious grin curling my own most genuine smile I'd made all morning – "stronger."
Shaking my head at how lame that was, Mike gleamed with such mirth that I almost forgot how the class had laughed at me.
"Ha! You're good," Mike praised, somehow enthused by my pathetic attempt at whimsy.
"No, no, I'm not," I teased in retort.
"Uggrhh! It's great to see you!" Mike exclaimed, squeezing me into a hug before I could protest.
Strangely, I didn't stop him.
"It's nice to see you, too," I nearly whispered into his neck; he held on so tightly.
Regardless of the fact that I wasn't one who enjoyed being touched, I melted into the awkward embrace and doubled it by giving an affectionate squeeze in return. He was warm and smelled like Irish Spring soap; clean and comforting. While it was jarring that his embrace didn't feel pudgy anymore, it wasn't unpleasant either. He'd clearly been exercising regularly since we parted two years ago.
The hug was so nice, in fact, that I almost didn't want to leave it. But, concerned at how easily people might get the wrong idea, I let myself slip away. Avoiding those blue eyes on purpose as I turned to face Mr. Mason (who was still waiting for an answer) and politely cleared my throat.
"Um. Yeah. It's – just – Beau, though. Thanks."
After a moment to look over the form, Mr. Mason signed it and pointed to one of the empty seats at the back of the classroom.
Ah, sanctuary, I relished to myself.
Yet, as I began to turn toward the back of the classroom, Mike plucked the sleeve of my flannel over-shirt to stop me.
"Come'on, I'll introduce you to everyone," Mike insisted, pulling my shirt by the wrist toward the giggling, pretty girls I'd planned to vehemently avoid.
Who, honestly, looked so dumbfounded at the interaction Mike and I shared that two of the four people beside us still had their mouths gaping open.
"Beau, this is Lauren," Mike pointed to the too-pretty-for-high-school blond, who sat there with no response, then the brunette beside her. "And Jessica."
Jessica immediately waved, giggled, and sputtered something that sounded like: 'hi'.
If a goat swallowed helium.
The urge to laugh was so strong that it took biting down on my tongue to stop it. Mike, however, could not.
He wheeze-snorted and poor Jessica's face flushed tomato red. She even sank her head down to try and hide behind her hair. Undoubtedly feeling the sting of both humiliation and Lauren's sneer of judgment beside her.
"Hi," I answered, awkwardly, to try and take the attention off of Jess for a second.
Which seemed to work, as Lauren directed those sharp eyes at me until an above-average-looking boy in skater clothes walked up beside us.
"Connor!" Mike addressed the boy I didn't recognize. "You remember Beau, right?"
Connor shook his head dismissively.
"You know," Mike pressed. "From the Little Spartan's League?"
The Little Spartan's League was a summer baseball camp 'thing' Charlie signed me up for when I used to stay here for the summer. In part because it acted as a babysitter for a few of the hours he was at work, but mostly I think he hoped I'd make some friends.
Perhaps even 'toughen me up' a little.
Connor furrowed his brow, undecidedly, not that I could blame him. I hadn't recognized him either. But then, Mike was the only person I really hung out with before I put my foot down and stopped coming up here.
"Hang on…" Connor shrewdly narrowed his eyes in recognition, then scoffed under his breath. "Bumble-Beau? That you?"
Was that what I was called?! No wonder I burned those summers out of my psyche.
Connor, upon catching the starch-white paleness of my horrified face, could not stop laughing. At first with genuine amusement, but this easy playfulness soon melted into thinly veiled contempt.
A contempt I didn't understand.
Desperately trying to remember pieces of a past I'd long since shoved into that black pit of unimportant memories, my mind drew a blank.
"Wow. Bumble-Beau. Been a long time," Connor said with such a tone to his words that I knew something worse was coming before it even left his mouth. "Can you walk and chew gum at the same time, now?"
Lauren and a girl in the row behind her with auburn hair, started to laugh at me. So hard the auburn-haired girl's baying giggle seemed to fill the whole classroom. Jessica also nervously laughed, but at least she seemed conflicted about it.
"Stop calling me that," I insisted, coolly. Forcing myself to hold eye contact with Connor to not appear weak.
"Or what, Bumble-beau? Gonna run to your daddy? Get me sent to Juvie?" Connor countered, bitterly.
My stomach tightened, twisting into knots, as the remnants of forgotten trauma bubbled at the surface of my subconscious.
Did I remember who Connor was now? Undoubtedly. But I refused to let the memory resurface. It had no right to dwell rent-free in my head anymore.
Mike, to my respite, narrowed his eyes at him. "Dude. He said: -stop-. So, stop it."
"Fff," Connor hissed in revulsion. A bit less eager to slew his venom on Mike than me.
"Boys!" Mr. Mason warned, like a splash of cold water. "Is there a problem?"
Connor shook his head and looked away from me.
That was all the incentive I needed to move to that seat at the back of the classroom before anything else could be said.
What I didn't expect was that Mike would follow me.
Just as I started to sit down, he pulled into the desk beside me and smiled. Muttering something I didn't quite catch under his breath, along the lines of: Can't believe he's still like this.
"Just ignore him. That's what I do," Mike teased lightheartedly, offering a reassuring shrug at the whole thing.
"I was planning on it," I assured, glancing just once toward Connor and the 'pretty girls' before Mr. Mason started class.
Relieved to have something else to focus on than whatever the hell just happened, I pulled out a notebook. Ready to take notes and doodle along the margins, I'd just turned to a blank page when Mike slid his hand over to me.
Curious of what he was doing, I watched him slide the sleeve of my flannel overshirt down past my wrist like tip-toeing spider legs. Revealing the bracelet I'd flimsily tried to hide beneath. I could only assume that Mike must have felt it when he tugged on my sleeve earlier.
Enamored, Mike grazed his fingertips over my silver, gold, and turquoise patterns. Studying its Navajo design with interest.
"This is cool," he looked up at me, to whisper. "Did you make it?"
Really not wanting to embarrass myself by saying my mom and I picked it out, I shook my head. "No. Just bought it. It is handmade though."
Mike kept staring at it, tilting his head like a curious puppy, enough that a few blond strands tumbled over his cheekbone a little. "Does this mean anything?"
I looked to where he was pointing. The gold symbols with a black background along the bottom of the bracelet. "Yeah. It's some legend or other. I don't remember which one right now."
That wasn't exactly true, I just didn't feel like getting into a spiritual debate during class.
"I like it," Mike said with a smile and I appreciated the warmth he bestowed on me. Enough that I really smiled back for the second time today. Content to forget Connor, Lauren, and their bitterness for the time being.
Outside of Eric and a slender girl with cream-colored oval glasses occasionally turning around to give me sympathetic glances, people seemed to ignore what happened for the remainder of class.
Mike spent most of the time trying to balance his pencil on his upper lip. So, clearly, I was still the brainy one.
Sometimes we amused each other with the occasional joke, but, otherwise, we were quiet. Well, I was quiet. Since I liked to focus on getting my work done and out of the way whenever feasible. He copied some of my answers, though, so I hardly thought he minded.
Once the bell noisily declared that the lesson was over, Mike asked me what class I had next. Frowning with disappointment as we didn't have the next three classes together and after lunch, in Biology, he already had an assigned lab partner from last semester.
"I'll see you at lunch, Bee!" Mike cheerfully promised as he stood, delivered a brief high-five, and headed out for his next class.
To my relief, Lauren, Connor, the auburn-haired girl who laughed at me, and Jessica were already gone. Having left the moment the bell rang.
Mike said he had a class on the other side of campus, so I was prepared to find my own way to Trigonometry. However, the luxury of solitude eluded me.
Just as I slid my backpack over my shoulder, Eric came to a stop beside my desk
"Hey, Bee, what was all that about?"
"Beau," I corrected, irritably. Did Eric think he could call me 'Bee' just because Mike did?
"Sorry," Eric backpedaled, though it seemed he was still too concerned about the 'scuffle' to let the subject drop. "I was just wondering if you needed me to get the principal or something?"
Did I look like a helpless bird? Holy crow.
I rolled my eyes, unabashedly. "I'm fine."
The girl with oval glasses finished zipping up a lavender backpack with an enamel ladybug pinned on the top handle, tugged it onto her back, and started our way. I followed suit, sliding one strap over my right shoulder.
"What happened between you and Connor?" Eric was really starting to annoy me, but I'd dealt with his ilk before. Just not in a school setting…
"Taking a leaf from Jane Fairfax' book, I answered as vaguely as possible.
"We used to play little league together."
Eric's eyes lit up with awareness. "So, you used to live here?"
The girl with cream-colored oval glasses (who was remarkably taller than me, at 6"1 or 2) gently smacked Eric's shoulder. Whispering his name just sharply enough to convey that she understood I was uncomfortable.
Eric looked at her with mild annoyance, then back to me. Concerned.
"The feature's dead, Eric," She gently reminded, as though to pull him back down from 'reporter mode'. "Give him the note."
"I will," Eric nearly snapped at her but continued to look at me, expectantly. Keeping his hands in the pockets of a lightweight navy hoodie, where I assumed this 'note' was.
"Just for the summers. Dad works all the time. Made sense to put me in summer school," I deflected, hoping Eric would get the point and let the matter drop.
He didn't, or so I thought until he elaborated:
"Connor's always been full of it, but if he does more than threaten you can always call one of us," Eric offered me a piece of notebook paper, folded two times, in a rectangle. I assumed Eric's number was on there, along with the tall girl's, and awkwardly smiled at the pair.
Caught off guard by the kindness, I didn't immediately throw the paper in the abyss of my backpack to die with whatever else stuck to the bottom of the bag.
It was strange, feeling the paper, as evidence of people looking out for me who weren't my mom or doctors was rare.
"Thanks," I finally murmured, struck by how quiet my voice had become as I tucked the note in my left jean pocket.
Staring, curiously, at the tall girl who shyly looked down at the floor. Which made her ponytail of dark hair resemble a little deer tail. It was endearing, really, and I found myself wanting to thank her, somehow.
"What's your name?" I asked and she lifted her dark brown eyes to look at me.
Eric playfully smacked himself in the forehead. Saying something that sounded like: 'gay-say'.
"I'm Angela Webber," she tentatively outstretched her hand to me, smiling nervously.
I grabbed it and squeezed hard enough to be encouraging. Two shakes of a deer tail, just like Charlie instilled in me.
"The best photographer on the paper!" Eric boasted.
"I'm the only photographer…" She insisted, a deep red beginning to mottle her face from the praise.
"Which makes you the best. Totally," I agreed, trying to mirror the cheeky grin splashed on Eric's mouth.
Angela's face flushed so red that I regret having a part in teasing her. Enough to deflect the conversation. If, also, because we were the only students left in the classroom…
"So," I tugged out my already wrinkled schedule. "Where's Jefferson's Government class?"
"This way!" Eric led the way, grinning too exuberantly, but somehow it didn't make me uncomfortable anymore.
Angela and Eric proceeded to lead me along to my next class, where Angela waved goodbye at the door. Curiously, I watched Angela until she turned the corner toward one of the L-shaped indoor staircases.
She must be insecure about her height, I rationalized as I watched her disappear. Since she didn't hunch over to appear smaller once we stopped walking together.
Did people tease her for being tall? They must have…
It seemed a silly thing to do, tease someone who might be able to jump clean over you, but bullies weren't generally known for being clever.
Government passed by in much the same way as English had, the difference being that Mrs. Jefferson didn't loudly announce my name in front of the class. She took the time to ask what I preferred to be called and if I wanted to introduce myself to the class before she signed my slip. For someone who looked old enough to be my grandmother, I suppose I'd expected the same look of scrutiny that Mr. Mason had delivered.
Relieved, I took an empty seat in one of the middle rows, by the windowed half-wall of glass that stood between me and the little 'courtyard' in front of the cafeteria.
Silly as it was though, since I couldn't be certain that a 'third eye' really existed, it felt like I was being watched.
Not the normal eyes of curious students turning around in their desks to look at me, or heads turning to the windows as they made their way to class, but something else.
Memories of being small, with my father, on his fishing trips fuzzily rubbed against my psyche. Notably, how Charlie reacted to losing sight of me for ten minutes in the woods. How panicked he was, angry that I hadn't 'stayed put' by their little boat with Jacob and a few other children I couldn't remember the names of.
Casting those brief flickers of danger from my mind, the feeling never left, but I kept looking out the window anyway. Searching through what I could see of the tree line behind campus for any sign of woodland predators.
Silly Beau, there's nothing there, I teased myself. Even so, for my next two classes: Trigonometry and Spanish, I purposefully sat away from any windows…
Focusing, instead, on learning everything I could about a thing I truly struggled with:
Making friends.
Which was how I found myself sitting with a group of people once lunch came around.
I chose a seat beside Angela and Eric. Not caring if it was the 'nerd table' in the slightest. I just wanted to be away from Connor's energy – as he glared at me whenever our eyes met – and a dark part of me doubted that Mike would sit with me like he promised. Mike seemed to be one of the popular guys now, and I didn't doubt that he had plenty of friends to amuse him better than I could.
So, it was with some surprise that I saw Mike and his tray of food coming for me. He didn't even give it a second thought; just sat down beside me and smiled brightly at Eric and Angela.
"Hey, Bee! How were classes?"
"Fine," I answered with more warmth than I felt, giving him a thumbs-up gesture.
Mike grinned and looked at Eric and Angela — who were both very surprised that he was sitting at their table today. So much so that Mike had to comment on it: "Beau and I used to play baseball together over the summer."
He seemed so proud, it caught me off guard. Surely I couldn't have made that big of an impact? I remembered being terrible.
"Beau told us," Eric enthused with an almost cheeky grin. "Little league, right?"
"Feature's dead, Eric," I parroted Angela's earlier words with a chuckle.
Eric roared with laughter, which Mike joined in with once he was brought in on the joke.
"Beau's totally baller! You wouldn't have enough room in the article," Mike insisted so confidently that I didn't know what to say about it.
Baller? Me? Seriously? He had to be either daft, sweet as pie, or some mixture of the two.
"I'm sure we can come up with something else to write about," Angela reassured with a soft smile.
"Maybe you could do another article on teen drinking?" Jessica's voice rang beside us as she carried her tray toward our table and sat down beside Mike.
Was Jessica on the school paper?
Not wanting to ask her why she hadn't sat down with Lauren at the 'popular table' and risk sounding rude, I ignored the creeping claustrophobia rising up my spine. Our little round table could only handle so many people without becoming uncomfortably clustered.
"You could do one on eating disorders?" I offered, just because I felt guilty about turning Eric down. Only to backpedal, because all the girls at the table suddenly stopped eating.
"Or um…speedo padding on the swim team?" Comedy wasn't exactly my forte, but I tried.
Jessica perked up so intensely that I pictured her with rabbit ears pointing straight at the ceiling. "Oooo, that's a good one! There's no way Jared's that big! It makes no sense. He's so short."
"Height has nothing to do with it…" I murmured, but I don't think Jessica heard me through her giggling.
Thankfully, no one else seemed to consider 'Speedo padding' a good idea for a feature, but I think we all had the presence of mind to pretend it was while Jessica sat here.
When the conversation slowly faded away from the paper to other topics, more people began to join our table. Particularly, Eric's friend Zach in punk-esque clothes, who I waved at politely.
In doing so, I noticed that Lauren, Connor, and the auburn-haired girl from English that I now knew to be Caitlyn, seemed to be upset that Mike and Jessica weren't sitting with them. As they kept sending our table irritated or disapproving looks.
After a while, I could pretend they weren't glaring at me.
Mentally drained from the myriad of conversations that had taken place this morning, the idea of being roped into an even larger group conversation made me avert my eyes from our table completely.
It was then, as I gazed at the corner tables of the cafeteria to avoid being roped into further conversation, that I saw them.
A distant group of four captivating strangers who were seated at the furthest possible table from us. None of them were talking or eating, even though each of them had a tray of some kind in front of them.
At first, I think it felt so nice to stare at them because they were the only people who weren't gawking at me. The longer I looked at their table, the more I was certain that not only was I not of interest to them – they could probably care less whether I lived or died.
It was refreshing to not be noticed. I felt a rush of relief in the knowledge that I was safe to explore the room without that fear of meeting another excessively interested pair of eyes.
Yet, it was none of these comforts that caught and held my attention.
They didn't look like any of the other kids at Forks High, for starters. One of the two guys seated at one side of the table was practically gargantuan. Hugely muscled, like a weightlifter, with short black hair. The other was exceptionally tall and slender. Sleek with blond, almost frizzy, hair that fell with unnaturally well-kept waves around his face.
The blond, I realized, looked incredibly uncomfortable and I couldn't tell whether he was irritable or in pain.
The two girls at the table were both remarkably opposite and similar to the guys sitting across from them.
The tallest girl was blond, statuesque, with a model's figure. Thick, golden, tresses crowned her head and shimmered down to the middle of her back. The blond wasn't just a beautiful girl: she looked like a movie star. An airbrushed magazine cover girl in the kind of expert make-up that made a person look like they weren't wearing make-up at all.
How was it that this Athena of Forks was here? And not some Hollywood actress who got lost on the freeway and wandered in here by mistake?
I was honestly puzzled by the knowledge that this blond wasn't the most popular girl in school. How was it that Lauren didn't take a hit to her self-esteem every time they were in the same room?
Despite their beauty, no one else at my table seemed to notice them.
No, that wasn't enough to explain the strangeness.
No one in the cafeteria seemed to be looking at them. Not the girls waiting in line, or the guys shouting digs at each other, or any of the people walking passed our tables.
Ignoring how strange that was, I glanced back to their table to survey the other members.
Beside the blond goddess sat a slender, petite, girl with black pixie-cut hair that flew away from her face in graceful wispy layers. She reminded me of Julia Roberts when she played Tinkerbell in Hook; with that same air of mischievousness nestled in her countenance.
As if this was not enough to mark her as being witty or artistic, the raven-head was incredibly stylish. As if she'd been plucked from a French foreign film and set down at the table impeccably dressed.
Despite each member of that table being curious enough to peruse in silence on their own, I realized that in some ways they were all exactly alike. Every one of the four people seated at the corner table was chalky white. The palest of every student I'd seen here.
No, that wasn't accurate enough. They were paler than every single person I'd seen in my entire life.
They all had very dark eyes despite the range in hair tones. Each one touched with dark, purplish, bruise-like shadows under their eyes. As if they all were suffering from a sleepless night without any of the swelling or unsightly puffiness that went along with it.
But even all these peculiarities were not why I couldn't bear to look away.
I stared because their faces, so different and similar, were all devastatingly beautiful. Unnervingly perfect to the point of making me wonder if they had indulged in some plastic surgery. I'd never seen faces so inhumanly perfect outside of Renaissance paintings or album covers.
If not for the fact that they occasionally moved, I would sooner believe they were cut-out portraits than actual students here.
For whatever reason, I had no appetite.
Whether it was being in the same room with Zeus' long-lost children, or I just didn't feel comfortable eating around an ever-growing group of people, my stomach was in knots.
Twisting and churning like a slow-spin washing machine turning delicates.
With no ability to eat or desire to let people watch me draw in my sketchbook, my attention stayed on them.
The table that could care less about anything, it seemed.
They were all looking away, I noticed. Away from each other, away from other students, away from anything in particular – like they all mutually decided not to talk or socialize in any capacity.
As I watched, the small fairy rose with her tray – still full of food – and walked away with a quick, graceful, loop. Ballet feet elegantly floating toward the trash cans to dump her tray and pause.
Why waste all that food? Was she anorexic?
She stayed, as though looking past the crowd during an opera performance, and almost looked in my direction before she glided out the door. Glancing back at the others, it amazed me that they had not moved despite the departure of their friend.
Unable to resist my curiosity any longer, once Mike and Eric walked off to the vending machines, I gently tried to tap Angela's arm and point to the corner table.
"Who are they?"
"Hmm?" She glanced up from her sandwich long enough to see where I was pointing before she averted her eyes back to me. "Oh. Those are Dr. Cullen and his wife's foster kids."
Drinking in this new information, as most foster kids I had met were never dressed so stylishly, I struggled to wrap my head around it.
Angela took my silence as an encouragement to continue and gestured to the empty seat. "The girl who usually sits across from the blond guy is Alice. The big guy is her older brother: Emmett."
My brain began to throb at the notion of that tiny slender girl and that massive bodybuilder being full-blooded brother and sister, but I supposed they did look a little alike.
Angela disrupted my reverie by pointing at the blond pair, one at a time. "That's Rosalie Hale and her older brother Jasper."
Angela trailed off then. Perhaps ready to wait and see if I had any questions before she answered them. Unfortunately, this courtesy didn't last, as Jessica had apparently been eavesdropping on our conversation.
Enough to scowl heavily and sigh.
"I wish they weren't all…dating," Jessica groaned.
Wait, what? Is that why people ignored them like the plague?
The comment raised too many questions. I had to ask, even if a part of me desperately didn't want to know. "What do you mean: 'they're all dating'?"
Jessica snorted bemusedly as she finished chewing. "Not as one group, perv!"
That wasn't what I meant, so I just narrowed my eyes in displeasure.
Jessica laughed once she finished her bite completely before pointing at Jasper. "The tall one and Alice hold hands, like, all the time. Our friend, Becca, swears she saw Rosalie and Emmett making out in their Jeep after school."
Staring back at the corner table, I searched for any sign of these facts not being true. They were a little too far for me to see under the table, but, once they started to stand I noticed that Rosalie and Emmett were indeed holding hands.
They looked happy. Satisfied. Like any other couple I'd seen at my old high school.
Besides, they were foster kids. So, they weren't actually related. Right?
"Well, if they're happy…" I finally murmured.
Jessica wrinkled her nose at me. "But they're all living together, it's weird. How are they not, like, all knocked up?"
Angela kept her eyes low, on her food, no longer willing to add to our conversation. I was content to let the subject drop, until a new voice piped up behind me:
"Dr. Cullen is like this 'amazing' surgeon-slash-matchmaker," Not recognizing the feminine voice, I turned.
Seeing Lauren – the gorgeous blond from English class – standing beside me, I froze from surprise. How long had she been standing there?
"When they moved here two years ago, we all hoped Dr. Cullen would adopt one of us for Edward. But, none of the girls here are good enough for him," Lauren 'playfully' commented, between taking sips from a can of Seven-Up.
It was obviously a thinly healed wound to Lauren's vanity, as her 'cheerful' demeanor began to become rancid.
Even so, I had to ask: "Who's Edward?"
Lauren and Jessica scoff-snorted together.
"Alice's younger brother. He's apparently brilliant," Lauren elaborated. "But don't waste your time trying to be his friend. He could care less about anybody else."
If only the conversation could have stopped there, but Jessica kept it going. Oblivious to the growing resentment oozing out of Lauren with every second that passed.
"No harm in enjoying the view, though," Jessica countered with a sly smile. "Like, how does he get his hair so, like, perfectly styled all the time?! It's unreal."
The hint of violence in Lauren's eyes put me off saying anything to this.
"What is even the point of looking nice if you won't talk to anybody?" Lauren sneered with just enough venom for Jessica to realize it was a sore spot.
Although, Jessica probably noticed she'd opened a can of worms due to the fact that Lauren was stabbing a plastic fork into her chicken Caesar salad with more fury than lettuce rightly deserved.
Maybe he likes guys, I wondered to myself. But I was not going to say that out loud and risk hearing an ugly opinion from Lauren.
It was one thing for a girl to feel slighted and take it out on someone superficially. Latching onto mundane things one could – in theory – control: Like a hairstyle or fashion choice.
It was quite another to have to sit next to people who might misinterpret someone's sexual orientation as a personal affront to their opinion of themselves and use that pain as a warhead to insult them for being homosexual.
Maybe I was being too hard on Lauren and Jessica and they weren't likely to make snide, cruel, comments if the idea of Edward being gay got into their heads. But, I didn't want to ask and know for certain. Especially if they kept trying to talk to me for the rest of the school year.
Curious of what Mike might think on the subject, I turned to look for him – only to realize that he hadn't returned to the table.
Turning around in my chair, I finally found Mike standing by the table where Caitlyn, who had her arm around Connor's waist, and a vaguely familiar guy – gorgeous, athletic, and glaring at me – were talking.
Mike looked concerned, like maybe he was trying to get them to be nice to me?
If not for yet another unnecessary glare from Connor, I might have gone over there to check on him. Worst case scenario: I could ask Mike about it tomorrow morning during English.
My gaze couldn't have slipped away from the corner table for longer than two or three minutes, but, when I turned back around the Cullens' were gone.
I stared longingly after their empty seats. Embarrassed at myself for having so easily been reduced to someone who missed people they'd never met, I glanced back down at my tray. Barely noticing that Angela had slipped away in my distracted state.
Focusing on trying to consume what little of my lunch I could stand to eat, it was no use. For whatever sensory reason, or even just being in a crowd like this, I couldn't eat anything.
Once Jessica and Lauren grew bored with the 'company' and fluttered back to Mike and their other friends, I took that as an opportunity to disappear. Genuinely relieved that Mike didn't reappear to drag me around to meet other, glaring, people.
Maybe there wasn't more than fifteen minutes left in lunch, but the temptation – nay, the desperate need – to excuse myself from the 'other kids' and find a solitary place to listen to music overcame me.
If there was a small part of me that wondered whether I might bump into this 'mystery Cullen', nothing could have prepared me for what would happen when I finally did…