Out of Thin Air 2

The next morning as I walked toward my locker, I saw Maddie and Alex waiting for me there. As usual, Alex had one hand holding Maddie’s, while the other was stuffed in his jeans pocket. Maddie was grinning at me as I approached, but I wasn’t exactly in the mood to grin back at her. I slept like crap last night, and I didn’t like what I was wearing to school. Usually when I felt like my outfit sucked, my mood sucked.

Of course Maddie didn’t care about those sorts of things; she just went with the flow. Today she was modeling a flowing, flowery patterned skirt and a bright blue t-shirt, also adorned with about five necklaces and a black vest. She pulled it off.

Alex ruffled my hair when I reached them, opening my locker. “What’s wrong with you?”

I glared at him. “Don’t touch my hair.”

He shook his head, laughing softly. Alex always felt like he should give me a hard time about everything. I knew he was joking, but some days I just wanted to tell him to shove off.

Maddie gave him a look, and then brushed her fingers through my hair, combing out the knots. “Heather, what’s wrong?”

I turned to her. “Well, for one, I’m just having a bad day. Two, Rachel is coming over tonight, so that just screws everything up on its own. Oh, and yesterday, I almost got ran over by some crazy idiot that doesn’t watch where he’s driving. And to top it all off, my period is this week. So, Alex? Don’t mess with me.”

He put his hands up in front of himself, taking a step back.

Maddie looked at me, her eyes wide. “You almost got ran over?”

I shut my locker. “Yeah. It was some teenager; a hot headed jerk to be precise. And you know what the weird thing was? His truck wasn’t there when I looked in the street. There wasn’t any traffic at all, and then all of a sudden, this truck is about to hit me? Last night I was trying to convince myself I wasn’t going insane!”

Maddie glanced at Alex. “Maybe his truck just blended into the environment. It happens all the time.”

I shook my head, frustrated enough as it was. “Maddie, I’m serious. Can you not act like I’m being irrational here?”

She sighed. “Okay, I’m sorry. How about we go find his car and scratch it up with quarters? Alex and David can help, too. I’ve got some Chuckey Cheese coins left, too. Those would work even better.”

Despite my bad mood, I laughed. “As fun as that sounds, I’m going to pass.”

Alex rolled his eyes, mumbling something about how girls are ridiculous and have constant mood-swings. I ignored him. I swore inside my head as I saw David walking down the hallway towards us. I wished I would’ve spent more time on my hair this morning.

“Hey,” David smiled, nodding at Alex.

I pushed my hair behind one of my ears, hoping that helped my case a bit. “Hey,” I smiled back. I felt Maddie nudge me subtly with her elbow. I wanted to tell her to shut up, even though she didn’t say anything.

“What’s new?” he asked.

Maddie responded, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “The new kid’s coming today!” she said in a sing-song voice. I saw Alex roll his eyes, looking irritated. I would be to if the person I was dating was all excited about having someone attractive come to the school.

I had completely forgotten about the whole new kid arrival, and I was actually not looking forward to it. No doubt the person was going to be an overly pretty girl, or a super ugly guy, so it would just make my day worse. I sighed.

“Oh, yeah! I hope it’s not some creepy transfer student like last time,” David said, furrowing his eyebrows.

I couldn’t take anymore talk about that stupid new kid. It wasn’t even that big of a deal. Actually, it was, but I just didn’t feel like acknowledging that fact when I felt like shit. “Look, I have to go to class. I’ll see you guys later.”

David fell into step beside me. “I’ll walk with you.”

I felt a smile twitch on my lips. That made me feel a little better. “Thanks.”

When we reached my classroom door, he looked down at me. He was, in fact, about a half a foot taller than me.

“Are you okay today?”

I hesitated. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged, stepping sideways as someone walked between us into the classroom. “You seem kind of off.”

I looked down, shaking my head. “Nope. I’m just fine.” I would’ve felt stupid telling him I was angry that my hair didn’t look good, considering he was the one I made it look good for.

He looked at me for a few more seconds and then smiled. “Okay. I’ll see you in creative writing, then.”

I nodded, walking into my calculus class. I plopped my bag down on the floor next to my desk. As usual, I was one of the last people to walk in. I loved being stared at, of course. Not.

I felt kind of good and kind of awkward that David had noticed something was wrong with me today. That meant he somewhat paid attention to me. I held on to that good feeling.

Class was going to start soon, but I didn’t really care. So, naturally, I buried my face in a book. This one was actually quite good.

Mr. Connors had never really given me crap about not watching him while he taught. It was my ‘close-family-friend’ advantage. The quiet murmur of voices carried until the teacher came into the room. He rapped his fingers on my desk, the normal sign that meant, ‘Put your book away.’

“Fine,” I huffed under my breath.

He smiled at us. “Morning, my pupils.” And the hour and forty five minutes of trying to wake up and understand math at the same time began.

During the time he gave us to work on our homework, I sat in my desk, half-heartedly trying to understand what I was supposed to do from my math book. All that mattered to me was getting through the day, and trying to think about David too much.

I barely noticed when someone walked by my desk; I was too deep in thought to notice. But then I heard a voice.

“Is this uh—Calculus? With Mr. Connors?” it asked, unsure. It was a low voice; definitely a guy.

As annoyed as I was about everything today, a smile formed on my lips. New kid. I immediately thought of Maddie and her over excited emotions.

I tried not to be too obvious as I looked up to see if he was another dorky beanpole transferring to have better class choices. As I glanced around, I realized I was one of the only people who had noticed his entrance. Everyone else was still talking, or dare I say actually working on their homework.

The person standing in front of Mr. Connors desk was definitely not a beanpole. He was huge. Not in the overweight way, but in the tall-and-lots-of-body-mass way. Even Mr. Connors was looking at him oddly. Was he seriously in high school? My heart jumped.

I couldn’t see his face; his back was to the class. I had a feeling that any face of someone who had a body like that wouldn’t be harsh to look at. I realized I was staring and abruptly looked down at my desk. As much as I hated to admit it, this new kid was off to a pretty good start. He might even make my day a little better.

Turn around. Turn around. Turn around. I wanted to see his face! Mr. Connors was talking with him, showing him some papers. I tapped my foot in impatience; if this turned out well, I was totally going to freak out. I had a feeling Maddie would, too, even if she did have a boyfriend.

Suddenly, the new kid turned around. Holy. Shit.

My body registered two emotions at the same time, and I bet my face looked absolutely retarded. I was glad he wasn’t looking at me. First, I recognized him, and became angry. He was the guy that had almost run me over yesterday, with his macho truck! I couldn’t believe it! Also, I was upset because he was totally attractive. He had the whole tall guy, toned body, nice face thing going for him. I hated him almost instantly, because it is so hard to hold grudges against hot guys, at least for me. Even if they did practically crush you with their vehicle.

So to sum that all up, I was pissed. This guy had almost ran me over, screamed at me from his car, and was too good looking for anyone immensely close to my league, and that made it even worse. Today sucked.

To make it worse, when he walked passed me—I purposely had my head buried in my math book—he smelled good. I became even angrier.

This whole new student dream honestly had to stop. Either they would come and be a total waste of time, or in this case, they would come and totally not be a waste of time, but the problem was that they wouldn’t give you any time in their life. I was sure of it. I shook my head, flipping a page extra hard. I didn’t even care when I ripped it.

Other people had started to notice his presence, and they were watching him as he walked back to his seat. I wondered if he would even fit into his desk. I saw several girls look at each other, running their hand through their hair. Can you say pathetic? Then I realized that was a total hypocritical statement, because I had just been concerned about my hair with David.

I gave up trying not to stare at him, since the rest of the class was doing it. I took my time taking in his face. He had medium length hair that was stylishly unkempt, dark brown in color. His features were strong and bold, which was probably what made him look so much older. The best, though, was his eyes. And I wasn’t even making eye contact. They were a really deep blue, and I swore in my head because I was always attracted to guys with blue eyes. I watched as he pulled out his math book, and then ripped out some paper from his notebook. Some of the class had started talking again, which I thought was nice. Don’t make it too awkward, you know. The new kid looked up, and I immediately looked away. I didn’t want to be caught staring, and plus, what if he recognized me from yesterday?

I listened as he leaned over to the girl sitting next to him, asking, “What page is the homework on?”

I scowled. His voice sounded much nicer when he wasn’t yelling.

“Oh, it’s 356,” she replied. She made it sound extra sweet. I rolled my eyes. Who gives a crap how you say it? It’s just numbers.

But I was still curious, and I would feel lame if I turned around, so I stood up to sharpen my pencil, using that as an excuse to see who he was talking to. I saw her blonde hair and bright shirt, automatically sighing. It was Allie Elverson; why wouldn’t it be? If this was the first girl that hit on him, he was on a good start at our school. And it was only in his first few minutes, too.

She smiled at him. “So you’re new?” she asked, leaning on her hand. Yup, she totally thought he was attractive.

The new guy nodded once, not looking at her. Allie’s eyebrows furrowed for a millisecond, and then she leaned closer to him. I furrowed my own eyebrows in confusion. What the heck?

“I’m Allie, by the way.” She smiled when he looked up. I realized by now my pencil was fully sharpened, but I was suddenly having too much fun. This kid wasn’t giving her the time of day, and she was popular. He obviously had a problem, or he wasn’t interested in girls.

“Eli,” he responded back, smiling a little and then ducking his head back down. Allie let out a sigh, turning around grumpily. Rejected! This time I couldn’t help it.

I let out a bark of laughter, instantly regretting it. Mr. Connors was staring at me questioningly, along with the rest of the students who sat near the front of the class. I hadn’t realized how quiet the classroom actually was.

Oh, crap. I walked back to my desk, scratching the back of my neck. As I tried to work on my homework, I couldn’t help thinking, ‘What the heck?’ Where did this kid come from? He was so…put together and perfect. I bet every girl that has and will look at him today was going to have a mental break down. For a second there, I did.

I spent the rest of class trying to avoid showing my face. When the bell rang I rushed out, practically running down the hall to World History. All I wanted was to get away from Eli—it felt weird knowing his name, since I had been calling him either the jerk that almost ran me over, or the new kid—and get to lunch so I could tell Maddie what was happening.

To my dismay, as soon as I felt relief from being in a room where Eli was not, he walked into the World History classroom, moving to talk to the teacher. I looked around, thinking this was unbelievable.

“Are you serious?” I murmured to myself. Did God want to humiliate me until all that was left was my bones? I missed that class lecture, trying so hard to position myself so that he couldn’t see my face, and I couldn’t see his.

When we were finally released from our classes for lunch, I rushed down the hall. I spotted Maddie sitting at our usual table with her phone out, Alex sitting next to her. I sat down hard on the bench, dropping my bag lunch onto the table. I felt like I was going to explode with frustration. Maddie looked up abruptly at my noisy entrance, and immediately closed her phone.

“What happened.” She didn’t say it like a question.

I put my head down on the table for a second, muttering, “Oh my God, Maddie.”

I heard Alex mutter, “Here we go.”

When I peeked at her face from under my arms, she looked disappointed. “The new kid is a geek, isn’t he?” She rolled her eyes, grabbing a sandwich out from her lunch. “That’s annoying.”

I straightened up, shaking my head. “No, no. The new kid? Yeah, remember how I told you I almost got flattened to the pavement yesterday by some jerk? It’s him. The new kid is the person who almost ran me over!”

Maddie looked at me, with Alex raising his eyebrows next to her.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

I nodded furiously, absentmindedly grabbing the items out of my lunch and placing them on the table. “Oh, I’m serious. And you know what makes it worse? He is totally attractive. Like, in the hey-lets-go-make-out-in-the-dark-corner attractive.”

Alex barked out a laugh. “That’s a weird way to put it.”

Maddie scowled at him, and then turned back to me. “You’re not joking, are you?”

“No! And of course, the guy that practically mauled me with his truck has to be good looking! And that just makes it suck, because it’s harder to hold a grudge against him! I can’t hold grudges against hot guys! It just doesn’t work!”

I unhappily bit into the bagel I had, letting out a breath.

Maddie was surprised, staring at nothing in particular. “Oh my God, this is so cool. We finally have a guy that is hot! What did I tell you? Oh, man, my optimism totally paid off here!”

Alex sighed, looking at her in an irritated fashion.

I flicked one of her food wrappers at her, trying to bring her back to the issue at hand. “Um, hello? You are not helping my problem.”

She shook her head, laughing. “I don’t see what the huge problem is. You’re totally overreacting. So, he almost ran you over. So what? You’re still alive, no big deal, and he is good looking. That is all that matters.”

I groaned, leaning my head on my hand. “Whatever.”

She looked at me skeptically. “Heather, come on. You can’t honestly say you’re not excited that this kid is attractive.”

I sighed. “No, I am. But—”

“Did he recognize you? Was he all freaking out about almost running you over?” Maddie asked, interrupting me.

I bit my lip. “He didn’t exactly see me…”

She stared at me, looking disappointed. “What?”

I threw my hands into the air. “Well, come on! I didn’t want him to see my face and be like, Oh my God, I almost ran you over! Plus, you know I suck at conversations, so I would’ve been standing there like an idiot, just staring at him. That would’ve been totally embarrassing, and I kind of just wanted to forget about him, because that was just making my day worse.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “You seriously need help.”

I sighed heavily, cursing the world.

“So, what’s his name?” Maddie asked, making the conversation lighter.

“Eli.”

She scrunched her face, weighing the information. “Alright. I can see it…”

I scoffed, shaking my head. “You’re ridiculous.”

I scanned the cafeteria, while Maddie kept asking me questions I didn’t have answers to. I wanted to show him to her so she could see why I was freaking out. Suddenly, I saw the tall mass of him, standing by the lunch line.

Several people were looking at him out of the corner of their eye.

“There he is!” I said a little too loudly, immediately looking down, letting my hair fall over my face.

Maddie laughed at me, but then looked in the direction I had shouted, her face going slack in surprise. “Holy shit.”

I groaned. “I know, I know.”

Maddie continued to stare at him. “He can run me over any day.”

Alex shook his head. “That was the stupidest remark ever.”

I shoved her arm, scowling. “Will you stop staring? I don’t want him to see me!”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, the whole lunchroom is staring at him right now. And what’s the big deal if he does see you? The worst that will happen is that he’ll be like, hey, didn’t I almost hit you with my truck? And that’s not even a bad thing, because that means he remembers you. Definite plus.”

I looked over at him, feeling my heart jump again as I saw him. This was so ridiculous. Suddenly, he turned around and left the cafeteria, several heads watching him go.

Maddie looked over at me, her eyes glowing. “Let’s follow him.”

My facial expression turned to complete horror. “No! We are not going anywhere near him!”

Alex suddenly turned to Maddie. “Hey, remember me? I’m your boyfriend.”

Maddie looked at him. “Alex, come on. I don’t like him or anything. I’m getting excited about this for Heather.”

I scowled at her. I didn’t want to be dragged into one of their arguments.

“Well, then act like it! I hate every time this happens you always get so excited about some hot guy. Doesn’t the fact that you’re mine have any meaning to you?” Alex said, frustrated.

Maddie came back with some witty comeback, but I was sucked into one of my thoughts. Alex had called Maddie ‘his’. And I know that Alex was Maddie’s. But who did I belong to? The answer I came up with was disappointing. No one.

The moment I walked into Creative Writing, David was frowning at me, and asking me what was wrong. I looked eagerly around the room, letting out a sigh when Eli was no where to be seen.

“Heather?” David waved a hand in front of my face.

I immediately apologized. “I’m sorry! I just…today sucks.” That was a lame sentence in comparison to what was really going on.

David looked at me sympathetically. “Well, do you want to do something later? Maybe that’ll help you cheer up?”

All the stressful events that had happened during the day disappeared, and I looked at David. “What?”

He shrugged. “If you want to do something later, I’m game.”

Was he asking me out? I was having a mini heart attack inside my chest. I was about to say that I would love to do anything with him when I remembered that I already invited Maddie over. I didn’t want to push her to the side; she was my friend.

“Oh, David, I’d really like to, but I had already invited Maddie to stay over tonight. I mean…I’d feel kind of bad just turning my back on our plans.” I tried to make it sound as nice as I could. I didn’t want him to think I was rejecting him forever. It was just tonight.

He smiled. “No, it’s fine. Maybe this weekend.”

And my heart thudded faster as Mr. Bates started talking.

David and I walked to gym class together, and I couldn’t help but smile a bit. David had put me in a good mood.

“So, have you seen the new kid?” David asked me as we stood in the gym, waiting for warm ups to start.

I tried not to scowl as my frustration came through. “Yeah, I have. He’s…huge.”

David laughed. “Yeah, he is. Practically all the girls are in love with him already, too.”

He was smiling at me. I had a feeling he knew that I thought Eli was hot.

I shrugged. “He’s got some good genes.”

David laughed, pulling on my ponytail I had lazily arranged with my hair. I shoved him, smiling. I realized we were flirting. That made me grin wider.

As if on cue, to ruin my good mood, I saw Eli stroll into the gym. Are you serious? I thought to myself. David followed my glance, and watched the expression on my face.

“You don’t like him much, do you?” he asked.

I grimaced. “You could say that.”

Our teacher, Mr. Stout, assigned us into teams after we had run a five minute warm up, doing laps around the gym. We were playing soccer; I smiled. I was actually good at this sport, unlike every other one that existed on the planet.

David and I were on the same team, along with some other guys and a few girls that weren’t going to do anything because they were scared of the ball. Eli was on the opposing team, along with some other guys and a few of the sporty girls. I watched as they all quietly fought over who got the closest position to Eli. I rolled my eyes.

It turned out that all the girls on my team were too afraid of the ball to do anything, plus, they wouldn’t go anywhere near Eli. Probably because he was so huge, and in a sport he could probably take you down, but also because he was annoying attractive, and they were just shy. They gave him shy smiles after the shrieked at the ball, tossing it to someone else.

I found the whole thing quite annoying. I mean, seriously. It’s just a guy who’s really tall, and the ball is just a round object. But I guess I could understand, because both of those things sounded really scary.

“Come on!” I shouted at them, rolling my eyes. David shrugged his shoulders at me, understanding where I was coming from.

Girls were so stupid. I wanted to actually play soccer, not watch girls scream and run around like idiots. I moved closer to where the action was, nodding at David for him to pass me the ball. When it was in my possession, I dribbled down the field, dodging a few people. Then Eli was there, and I was fazed for a second. He was huge. I hadn’t been that close to him.

Suddenly I remembered what I was doing. I faked left and went right, but he knew what I was doing. As he tried to steal the ball from me, I tried to move, but failed. His leg collided with my shin instead of the ball, and I fell on my back, yelling out a few nicely chosen profanities. It did, in fact, hurt quite a bit.

I heard Eli murmur, “Shit,” to himself, and then he bent over me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking down at me, and then glancing at my leg. There was definitely going to be a bruise.

Inside I was inwardly swearing to myself. I couldn’t just lie here forever with my eyes closed. That would be weird. But I didn’t want to have Eli see my face. Maddie’s words popped into my head. Sighing, I sat up. I might as well get it over with.

Wiping my hands on the grass, I looked at him. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

He was even more gorgeous up close. As my eyes met his own, I became nervous.

“Are you sure? I kicked pretty hard,” he said ruefully.

I smirked. “I’m serious. I’ve been through worse.”

Eli ran a hand through his hair. “Good. For a second, with the way you were swearing, I thought I broke it or something.” He gave me a worried half-smile.

I pushed myself to my feet, looking up into his face. “I’m fine.”

He held out a hand, smiling a little. “Eli.”

I took it, quickly releasing it. “Heather.”

He stared at me for a while, and to avoid it being awkward, I watched David walking over to us slowly.

“Do I know you?” Eli asked suddenly, looking confused.

I opened my mouth, wondering what I should say. I decided on the truth. “Um, well, not really. But I saw you the other day…You kind of almost hit me with your truck?” I finished lamely, regretting that I even mentioned it.

Recognition crossed Eli’s face. “Oh, yeah. I guess…uh…sorry about that. It wasn’t a good day for me.”

I nodded my head. “Tell me about it.”

I suddenly asked myself, what was going on? I was having a conversation with him without acting like a person without a tongue. This wasn’t normal.

David stood next to me, now. “Are you okay?” he asked worriedly.

I smiled at him, then looking at Eli. “Yes, I’m perfectly fine. Don’t worry.”

David looked relieved. “Good.”

Eli nodded at me, and then turned around, walking towards the group of boys that were talking on the other side of the field. I hadn’t realized my heart was beating faster than normal, and had been throughout that whole conversation.

“Did he apologize?” David asked me, watching Eli walk away.

I nodded. “Yeah.” My brain was kind of frozen.

All I could think was, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.