Duality: Vol 1, Melancholia (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (9 page)

“Malcolm didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jasmine looked at me sideways as she joined me in the hallway.  “Hmmm, feeling a little defensive for Malcolm, are we?”

Doors opened and kids filled the halls.  We had to talk louder to be heard.

“No.  I’m just saying … it was all Kootch pretty much.  He’s the dope who picked you up and swung you around.”

“Yeah, well, I knew it would get him all riled up to mention the eye thing.  That always pisses him off.”  She smiled.

“Why?  Why is he so sensitive about it?”  A guy running down the hall bumped into me, sending me crashing into Jasmine.  She just ignored it and kept walking.  She gave no indication that she felt the energy that flows through me.

“I have no idea.  But it cracks me up to see him get his shit in a wad, so I mention it a couple times a year just for fun.”

“What happened?”

Jasmine shrugged.  “I don’t know.  It’s stupid really.  A few years ago … maybe five or six … I was standing out in my back yard, and all of a sudden this big-ass rock comes flying over the bushes and smacks me in the face.” She turned and pointed to the corner of her eye.  “Just barely missed hitting me in the eye and blinding me.  I’m scarred for life.”

“It’s really small.  I can hardly see it.”  I said, squinting for effect.

“Don’t tell Kootch that.  Next time we’re around him, make sure you mention how big and hideous it is.”

“You really like messing with his head, don’t you?”

“He’s been my next door neighbor for most of my life.  We used to play all the time when we were little, and then one day he just decided he didn’t want to anymore and that was the last time we hung out.”  She shrugged.  “He deserves it.”

“Oh, he totally does,” I said, nodding.  I was getting the sneaking suspicion there was more to the story, but I wasn’t going to push.  At least not today.

We were inside the main building now, in the area where several halls converged.  It was like the Grand Central Station of the school, and the crowds were flowing around us, pushing us down the middle hall and jostling us around.

“That’s my room just over there.  You’re down there and to the left,” said Jasmine, pointing down a perpendicular hall.

“So I’ll see you after Fine Arts?” I asked.

“Yup.  See ya.”  She left me standing there and disappeared into the crowd.

I followed her instructions and found my next class.  I spent the next couple hours avoiding looking people in the eye and changing the subject when teachers tried to engage me in conversation.  All I could think about was getting through my last class, Fine Arts, and then over to detention.  This was the best day I’d ever had in high school, and I didn’t want anything to ruin it.

The bell rang, and I stood, putting my purse strap over my shoulder.

“Do you need help getting to your next class?” asked a girl who’d been sitting next to me.

“No thanks,” I said over my shoulder.  “I have a map.”  I left her standing there, blocked in by students gathering their things. I could tell she wanted to walk with me, but she was stuck.  I shoved past a couple kids to make sure I could get away before she was free.

In my hurry to escape, I carelessly allowed my forearm to rub up against a large guy’s arm.  He stopped in mid-sentence and looked down at me.  “Hi.”  He smiled, revealing perfectly straight, toothpaste-commercial-worthy teeth.

“Hi,” I said, dropping my gaze to the floor.  “Excuse me, I’m just trying to get by.”

“What’s your hurry? Rae, right?”

“Yes, it’s Rae.  I’m meeting someone.”  It was a lie, but he didn’t know that.

“Who are you meeting?”  He shifted to be even more in my way.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“Or is it a big secret?”  His tone had gotten softer, and he’d leaned down to say it closer to my ear.

I leaned back away from him, trying to keep him from touching me again.  “No, no secret.  I just … can’t remember his name.”

“Well, I don’t want to get in the way of you and your meeting.”  He stood straight and turned to the side.  Stepping over his chair, he put himself in the next aisle over and gestured for me to go.  “See you later, Rae.”

I nodded and walked by, not making eye contact.

“Hey, Brody, what’s up?” asked a girl in a breathless voice.  She bumped into me from behind.  “Oh, sorry, Rae.  Didn’t realize you were still here.”

The girl who’d tried to walk with me earlier was there, pulling a chunk of hair out of her mouth.  She was smiling excitedly and breathing fast.

“Hey, Courtney, what’s up with you?” asked the guy - Brody, I guess.  “You got a secret meeting too?”

“What?”  She frowned at him.

“Never mind.  Ignore me.  I’ll see you later.  After school, right?”

“Yes, sure.  After school.”  She waved him off and then grinned at me again.  “Sure you don’t need some help getting to class?”

“She’s meeting someone, Courtney,” Brody offered.

“Oh.  Who is it?”

Uh-oh.  Rainbow alert. 
I could already sense the desperation settling in.  I had two choices here: I could either totally cut her off and be over-the-top rude or I could just shine her on a little and then play the avoidance game.  That was definitely the nicer way to go, even though it involved a lot of ducking into bathrooms and closets.

“I just need to get to Fine Arts.  It’s not a big deal.”

She grabbed my arm.  “You have Blakenship? 
I
have Blankenship!”  She looked like she was about to do a cheer, with pom-poms and everything.

“Oh.  Goody.”

“Come on, I’ll show you!  It’s so lucky we were in this class together, isn’t it?”  She was practically squealing she was so excited.

I didn’t bother answering because she’d just ignore the
No
I was going to respond with.

“Bye, Court.  See ya, Rae.”  Brody climbed back over his desk as we cleared the aisle.

“Bye,” I said, not nearly as enthusiastic as everyone else in our little party.

“Later, Brody!” said Courtney, pushing me forward.  “Come on, let’s go.  I want to get there early and help you find a seat.”

I rolled my eyes.  No way was I going to sit near her.

We made our way through the crowded hall and went into the classroom she pointed out. “That’s it right there.  Two-oh-nine.  Blankenship and the wonderful world of Fine Arts.  You’ll like him.  He’s an easy grader and hardly ever gives homework.”

We walked into the room, and Courtney stood with me next to the teacher’s desk as I waited to get his attention.

“May I help you?” he finally asked, looking up from a stack of papers.  Some of them were being held down with lumps of fired clay, most of them in the shapes of animals.  I quickly counted two ladybugs, one turtle, and something that might be a warped koala bear.

I handed him my schedule.  “I’m new today.  I’m in your class this period.”

He took the paper from me in a paint-stained hand and frowned as he read it through some reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.  “Hmmm…  Rae Livingston.”  He looked up.  “Our new valedictorian, yes?”

I shrugged.

“Oh em
gee! 
You are
not
,” gasped Courtney.  “Wow, that’s amazing. 
Ha! 
Jasmine thought she had that one in the bag.  I can’t wait to see her face when she finds out.”  She sounded way too happy about bursting Jasmine’s bubble.

“It’s probably not right,” I rushed to assure her.  “They haven’t transferred all my grades yet.  There are some low ones in there.”

Mr. Blankenship interrupted Courtney’s next words.  “Hmmm … okay, go sit down in the first roowwww …” He checked a page in a thin book on his desk.  “… Seat number eight.”

I raised an eyebrow at his organization.  This was the first class that I’d been in at this school with assigned seats.  Everything else on his desk was a complete mess, papers stacked haphazardly with some of them even on the floor in various piles.  His table at the front of the room didn’t look any better.  It was covered in lots of different paint bottles and water cans with brushes sticking out of them.

“I was kind of hoping you’d put her by me,” said Courtney, pouting.

“I’m sure you were,” he said, looking at her over his glasses.  “Find your seat, Courtney.”

She looked like she was going to argue, but then Malcolm walked in and I stopped paying any attention to what she was doing.

As he moved into the room, I stared.  I couldn’t help it.  His jeans fit him so well, and he somehow managed to make that green long-sleeved shirt sexy.  He was one of those guys who didn’t try at all to be hot, but just managed to be amazing anyway.  He wasn’t overly muscled, but he wasn’t a wimp either.  And his hair was messed up from either the wind or the stress of our awful gym class, completely unlike the artfully arranged and gelled hairdos of the guys around us.  He was cute and genuine and mysterious … maybe even a little dangerous; everything I should avoid in a guy.  And that just made me want to be near him more. 
This is not good.

“Take your schedule, Rae.  And please find your seat.”

Courtney had already left and was happily conversing with a group of girls near her table.  She’d gone from wanting to be my best friend to acting like a complete stranger in a matter of seconds.

Weird
.  Normally it took a lot more than a seat assignment to shake a Rainbow.

“Is this the first row?” I asked, pointing to the one to the right of his desk.

“Yes.  Seat number eight is at the fourth table down.  Next to Malcolm McNamara.”

I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across my face.

The teacher raised an eyebrow.  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”  He sounded a tad annoyed.

“Uh, no.  Thank you.”  I took the paper with my schedule on it from the top of his messy desk and turned to go down the aisle between the large, black art tables.

Malcolm was standing behind his chair, the one nearest the wall, and had dropped his backpack in front of him on the tabletop.  He was reaching into one of the pockets and pulling out a notebook when I walked over.

He looked up and stopped in mid-unpacking.  “What are you doing here?” he asked.  His tone was flat.

“This is my new seat.”  I pointed to the chair next to him.

“No it’s not.”  His expression went from bland to slightly panicked.

“Yes, it is.  Mr. Blankenship just assigned it to me.”

He glanced up at the teacher.  I followed his gaze over to the man who was standing at the front of the class looking out over the students distractedly.

“You can’t sit here.”  Malcolm pushed his bag over to rest in front of the aisle seat I was just about to claim.

I frowned, a little hurt that he was being kind of rude.  “Well, the teacher told me to, so I think I can.”

He sighed, almost angrily, before leaving the table and going to the front of the room.  When he walked by me, he seemed to be taking great pains to not touch me.

It made me want to smell my armpits, but I refrained.  I did blow my breath up into my nose, wondering if maybe I was all garlicky or something, but I didn’t notice anything wrong there either.

I stood there confused as Malcolm had an animated conversation with the teacher.  His arms were flapping up and down, making it clear he was upset.

The longer I watched, the more awful I felt.  He really, really didn’t like me.  He was like a Neutral who’d finally gotten sick of all the Rainbows smothering me and treating me like a princess.  But it so wasn’t fair.  He hadn’t even had a chance to see any Rainbows acting nutty, so why was he so angry at the idea of being near me?

The teacher shook his head no, so I took the liberty of pushing Malcolm’s backpack over to the seat where he had been standing, and put my purse down in the spot in front of my place.

I tried to catch Malcolm’s eye as he walked down the aisle, but he refused to look at me.  He walked around behind my seat and sat down in the one next to me, staring straight ahead.  I could practically feel the coldness coming off his body.  He really, really didn’t want to be near me.

The thought of it made me want to cry.  My happy bubble  burst, and now all I could think about was how embarrassing it was going to be having to be with him in detention for two whole weeks, plus sitting next to him here.

Maybe his behavior should have made him become ugly to me, but I wasn’t having any luck there either.  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, and my heart spasmed over how handsome his profile is.  There was some stubble growing on his face, but not enough that he could ever grow into a beard.  His lips were a dark red and just begged to be kissed.

My last experience with kissing a boy had been a disaster from the word go, so the idea of being able to do that with Malcolm was making me crazy.

I tried to stop looking and thinking about it, but it was very difficult.  Only the teacher launching our next art project saved me from making a fool of myself and saying something stupid.  It had been on the tip of my tongue to ask Malcolm why he hated me so much when he hadn’t even taken the time to get to know me.

“Take one of these and pass the rest back,” said Mr. Blankenship.

When the stack got to me, I took two watercolor papers off the top for both me and Malcolm and passed the rest to the guy at the next table.  My fingers brushed against his during the exchange, but he didn’t even flinch or look at me.  He acted like nothing had happened.

I slid Malcolm’s paper over to him without looking in his direction. 
What the heck is going on in this place?  Did I step into an alternate dimension or something?

I stared at my blank paper, considering everything that had happened over the last few hours.  Suddenly everyone was acting all weird, and after almost eighteen years of people acting exactly the same, no matter where I went or what I did, it was freaking me out.  I pretty much hated my life and couldn’t wait to change it, but that didn’t necessarily mean I wanted to be thrown in the deep end of a completely different one either; mainly because with my luck, it would turn out to be even worse then the one I was already stuck in.