by Elena Monroe
My eyes slid over the group, putting names to faces when I realized he left out the guy sitting on the top step with his forearms resting on his legs and the red suspenders looking like restraints. His intense and impatient glare wasn’t directed at anyone in particular, but, in fact, everyone. He looked like he despised everyone equally.
Mental eye roll. A bad boy, mad at the world at his feet. I drew a line, thanking myself later for caging my wild organ. Otherwise, I’d be screwed. If my heart was free to swoon, it would have. I was going to ignore he existed. Pretend I hated him.
Austin started walking, and I followed along his side, wondering where he fit in to the hierarchy of high school. “What about you?”
Before I knew it, we had made our way through the dining hall and were only a few feet from the group you clearly needed an invite from to even speak to. That much was obvious when no one even attempted to sit near them, even at the tables. I never wanted to fit in that way—the kind of way that makes you compromise some part of yourself. I was content making people uncomfortable. It was easy being brave when everywhere was temporary.
“The queen bitch? My girlfriend.”
His voice was flat as he ambled over to her, leaning down, and proving it by having their lips meet with ease. I felt my jaw suddenly go lax with shock, when the guy sitting above everyone quickly got up, fleeing the scene. He breezed by me angrily, like the presence of two more people set him off. He didn’t say a word as he left us in his wake. I found myself twisting around, watching him storm off, stuck on his crimson suspenders and the necklace around his neck, hanging perfectly in the V of his shirt, of a ram.
How fitting. Aggressive, angry, powerful, and drawing me in, all at the same time.
I was so focused on him bolting from my presence that I didn’t notice every set of eyes on me. I turned back around, letting the noise creep in—a skill I was born with: the ability to drown out anything around me and focus. This time, it wasn’t on purpose and certainly not the best timing.
“New girl! Hey!”
The snapping of the Queen Bitch’s perfectly manicured fingers cut through the haze left over, making my head snap in her direction.
“It’s Arianna, not ‘new girl’,” I stressed the “not” even though I knew I hadn’t given out my name yet. She dropped her hand in her lap and smiled back at me placid, neither offended or excited. She was a tiger, lying in wait to pounce, completely unseen, but lethal.
“Okay, new girl. We aren’t the enemy. The guy who darted past you? Debatable.”
Austin purposely made eye contact with each person left sprawled along the stairs, when introducing me officially. I never knew someone to put so much value on eye contact, except parents, when they drove home the same unsolicited advice for the tenth time. Eye contact did not mean you were soaking in whatever they wanted you to. Words were messy. Meaning was a hurricane made of feelings, motives, and maybe some of your astrological sign feeding off the position of everything else.
“So what’s his problem?” I asked in pure curiosity, but a small part of me took it personal. How could I not?
Another guy, the one Austin total me was a total mystery spoke, and the group fell silent from their small chatter. “She doesn’t look that special to me, Austin. Purple hair, really? I’m out. I got better shit to do.”
He stopped in front of me, letting his fingers clamp around a runaway strand of my purple hair, giving it a swift tug, as he said, “Seriously?” directed to me.
Austin scoffed, with his arm around his perfect girlfriend, who had a reason to be a bitch. She was perfect on the outside.
That was the second guy to bolt from the room since I walked in. Was I missing something? And what did he mean special? Was I supposed to be? I raised an eyebrow, not sure how I fit in to this environment yet. Solitude was so much easier with a caged heart. I didn’t know why I was entertaining Austin and his insulting group of friends.
Actually, I knew why. I was filling the love that was hard to feel between continents and a parent whose love was something I had to drudge up past memories to feel.