Riser (Teen Horror/Science Fiction) (Book #1 in The Riser Saga) ((Volume 1)) (5 page)

That’s when Ryan’s eyes unexpectedly met mine and he smiled slightly. I could feel my face flush and I quickly turned away. My stomach was doing back flips and I could feel myself break into a slight sweat. What was my problem? A guy who wouldn’t say “hi” to me in the hallway smiles at me and I’m completely falling apart. And to boot, I just realized that when I turned away I didn’t exactly smile back. I probably gave him some kind of look of disgust. Typical. It didn’t matter anyway, it’s not like Ryan would ever
like me like me
. He was almost certainly smiling at the fact that some moron was staring at him like a complete dork. I’m such an idiot. What was more annoying than that was the fact that I desperately wanted to look at him again. Was I a masochist or something? Don’t do it!

“What’s wrong with you?” Nancy whispered to me with a look of concern on her face.

“Nothing. Not feeling well, must’ve been breakfast.” I tried to cover up, but I could tell Nancy wasn’t buying it.

“Is it the study?” Nancy’s expression indicated that she really
did
know more than she was letting on. I could tell we were going to have a discussion about my gift very soon. And a part of me looked forward to it. After four years I could trust her. Besides, she obviously already put most of it together if she was picking up on my interest in the study.

“Yeah. We’ll talk,” I promised.

Nancy’s face changed from concern to excitement. Between her and Mr. Alaster’s enthusiasm I could barely concentrate.

Okay, I could barely concentrate because I desperately wanted to turn around and stare at Ryan. My brain was a mess. I couldn’t wrap my head around why I cared? I tried not to think of Ryan Vaughn all that often. In fact, after our tutoring time, I tried to block him out of my head completely for fear of becoming a stalker. But it was very hard to forget the rare moments when his hand brushed up against mine by accident and it would send tingles all the way to my toes.

IT WAS JUST A SMILE! STOP IT! I needed to clear my head.

I needed to focus on something else.

“Maybe Chelsan would know.” Jill’s voice cut through my inner hysteria.

Know what? Great. I hadn’t been paying attention
at all
.

“Chelsan?” Mr. Alaster smiled at me with eagerness.

“Yes?” I asked. I could tell Mr. Alaster immediately knew I had no idea what he was talking about. His face fell slightly as if he couldn’t fathom how anyone could not have been engrossed in his lecture.

“I think she was too busy drooling over Ryan to pay attention.” Jill laughed. And the class laughed with her.

Was I that obvious? Oh man, if Jill noticed my red face and sweats, Ryan
unquestionably
did. Thank goodness I had resisted my urge for a second sneak peak!

“I wasn’t drooling.” Did I
really
say that out loud?! I wanted to crawl under my desk and die.

“I see.” Mr. Alaster realized that this was a feud between teenage girls and didn’t want to have anything to do with it. “Let’s continue forward shall we? What religions took the biggest fall after Age-pro?” He droned on and the class quieted down from Jill’s outburst.

Nancy tried to give me non-verbal support in the form of an encouraging smile, but nothing would make me feel better. Nothing except making Jill feel just as humiliated. I searched the room until I found the perfect thing.

A dead fly on the windowsill.

I brought it to life.

I started slow, just an irritating fly buzzing around Jill’s face. She discreetly waved it away. Then I amped it up. I made it fly directly in her ear. SWAT! I kept the fly sitting in her ear as if her swat had injured him. This freaked her out to the point of standing up in class trying to rid herself of the fly now stuck in her ear. Everyone stared in amusement.

“Jill? What’s the problem?” Mr. Alaster asked.

Here goes. The fly raced out of her ear and flew around her face, up her nose, out of her nose, in her hair, in her clothes until Jill was flailing her arms and whole body in panic. She looked like a frenzied animal being attacked by an invisible force.

“GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME!” she wailed.

I made it land on her cheek.

WHACK! Jill’s best friend, Joan, hit the fly with her reader thereby smacking Jill directly in the face.

I made the fly fall to the floor, dead once more.

Everyone stifled his or her laughter for fear of Jill’s wrath, but I smiled as broadly as I could.

I win.

“Jill, you may want to go to the nurse, your cheek is looking a little red.” Mr. Alaster looked as though he was trying to hide his own amusement. A lot of the teachers in the school liked Jill less than I did. Her father’s influence in the government made it impossible to give Jill anything less than a B. Our Math teacher freshman year tried to give her a D and needless to say he was fired the next day and replaced with a teacher that let her pass with flying colors. The teachers that didn’t hate her simply sucked up to her any chance they got. Owen Forester (Jill’s dad) was second in command to Geoffrey Turner himself, which meant he had influence in over-population “perks.” Perks that included owning more than one hover-car, landscaping that fudged the “planting a tree every twenty feet” law, free passes to Virtual Reality Bars, just to name a few. And Jill’s favorite teachers always cashed in any chance they could.

Jill gave Joan a look that could kill and made her way toward the exit just as the bell rang for the class to end.

“Is it that time already?” Mr. Alaster seemed disappointed to let us all go. It felt like leaving someone in mid-sentence.

Everyone started getting out of their seats and exited the classroom.

“Wait for her to leave,” Nancy warned me and we pretended to gather our things a little bit more slowly than we normally would. “Okay, she’s gone.”

Everyone had left, including Ryan. I didn’t even want to think about ever seeing him again for fear of dying of embarrassment. Why did I have to open my big mouth?

Nancy and I headed for the door. “Do you like Ryan?” she asked.

I tried my best to act shocked and appalled. “No!”

Nancy laughed out loud. “You totally do! That’s cute.”

“Cute?” I said in exasperated disgust. “More like tragic. Guys like Ryan don’t like girls like me.”

Nancy rolled her eyes and practically guffawed. “Oh, please! Girls like you? Attractive, smart
and
have a personality? You’re right, you should just give up on guys right now.”

“Easy for you to say. You have money.”

“Ha! I’ll give you some. See how much it makes a difference in your love life.” Nancy smirked.

“Being friends with me is what’s messing up your love life. You may not care about money, but everyone else does,” I said. Which was true though Nancy didn’t like hearing it.

She opened the door and we entered into the crowded halls.

And that’s when I ran straight into…

…Ryan.

I hit his chest full force. How could I not have seen him? How could Nancy not have warned me? That’s when I saw the triumphant smile on her face and knew she did it on purpose. She had angled the door exactly so he’d be out of my view.

“Sorry,” I sputtered.

Ryan actually smiled. I wished he wouldn’t do that. It made my stomach churn in horrible ways.

“No problem. I actually wanted to talk to you for a minute. Can I walk you to class?”

My brain froze. What was that? Say something. Now would be the time to say something.

“She’d love to. Chelsan, I’ll meet you later for lunch, okay?” Then Nancy eyed Ryan with a knowing smile, “Unless you have other plans,” and she was off.

And I was alone. With Ryan. And I couldn’t make myself say a single word.

Ryan’s face seemed almost apologetic as if my silence was a reprimand for something he’d done. “You must think I’m a jerk.”

Really? Nothing? I couldn’t even make something up, like, ‘nice shoes.’ Anything?! It was like my mouth was paralyzed.

“Look. I’m really sorry I started ignoring you after tutoring last year. Jill’s crew made it difficult for me,” Ryan said sheepishly.

What was going on? Was this some sort of horrible prank where I’d start being nice to him and he’d laugh and tell me what a moron I was?

“Are you serious right now?” Wow. I really said that. And I said it so rudely. Ryan looked like I had punched him.

He shook his head and actually looked embarrassed. “You’re right. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

And he started to leave. To leave!

And I was still standing there, like someone had turned me into a statue. Come on! Do something!

“Ryan, wait!” Good. That was good.

Ryan turned around and he actually had hope in his eyes. Real, honest hope.

“I’m not used to people being nice to me,” I said with as much sincerity as I could muster.

Ryan’s face was immediately ridden with guilt. “I’m sorry,” was all he could say.

He said it so sweetly my gut twisted with sympathy. “It’s okay. It’s just that in the past when people have been nice to me, it’s been because Jill put them up to it to humiliate me in some way.”

“I’m sick of Jill and her team of morons.” Ryan practically spat out Jill’s name to my pleasure. “Can I walk you to class?” He looked at me with those big brown eyes and I hoped my face wasn’t turning bright red.

“Sure.” Was this really happening? I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. It had to be some kind of trick. I resolved myself to not get too excited until I was sure Ryan was on the level.

“Physics, right?”

He knew my schedule, which could be very bad or very good. Bad because Jill told him my schedule, so this would all be a part of the plan, or good because he
knew
my schedule… which meant he actually paid attention to what I was doing and where I was going.

“Yeah.” Good. Cool and not too desperate. Like I wasn’t about to vomit from nerves.

“Chelsan!”

I turned around to see Bill standing in front of Ryan and I like he was the Sheriff of Nottingham and Ryan was Robin Hood.

“Is he bothering you?!” Bill was actually angry. I had never seen him like this before. I was so surprised by his behavior I didn’t know what to say. Unfortunately, he took that as a yes.

Bill slammed Ryan up against a set of mahogany lockers, pinning him with his arm. “Leave her alone
.
” Bill was a couple inches shorter than Ryan, making him six-one, which was nothing to scoff at, but he was much more muscular and Ryan looked like a fly trapped by a spider.

My mouth had literally dropped. And as much torture as it was seeing Ryan wrongfully accused, it was almost a little exciting to see Bill so protective of me. I knew we were buds, but I didn’t realize how far he would go to keep me safe. He was actually being violent. The angriest I had ever seen him was when Jill rigged it for him to be Homecoming King, and even then he had barely raised his voice.

“Bill. He’s not bothering me, I swear! Let him go.” I finally found my voice.

“Are you sure? It looked like you were about to vomit.”

Seriously? That actually showed?

“I’m sure. He was just walking me to class.”

Bill let Ryan go with an apologetic shrug, but his eyes were still fuming.

Ryan, meanwhile, had let this whole event take place without so much as a peep or a struggle.

A crowd had started to form and everyone waited with anticipation as to what would happen next.

Ryan straightened his shirt and combed his hand through his hair as if contemplating what his next move should be. Then he turned to me and did something that made every fiber of my being melt and tingle all at once.