Under his command

It was there again. Sitting on my math textbook was a pristine white paper folded in half. I didn't need to touch it to know that it was thicker than any paper I've held before or that it was rough to feel. Or that it held another threatening message. Dread washed over my petite body and I stood staring at it and wondering what I'd find inside this one. I've been getting this threatening, creepy notes since the beginning of this week and I won't lie and say it doesn't scare me. I didn't want to open it and read the fear inciting words I know I'll find written inside it, signed off with with a smiley face. Other students bustled around me, getting their books out and scooting off to their next class. I pushed the annoying piece of paper off my textbook and to one end of my locker. I took my text book out before shutting my locker with more force than was needed, causing it to make a loud bang and making the other students pin me with questions looks and raised brows. I took my book and went off to my next class silently muttering an apology. Recently, I've been getting this feeling that someone is watching me and then the notes started coming and they proved me right. Whoever this was knew what I did in my privacy, who I saw, what I ate and I don't even know what they f*****g look like. Goosebumps rose on the skin of my arms and I tried to rub them away with my palms as I took a turn leading to my class. I must not have been looking where I was going still pretty preoccupied by the white paper sitting in my locker, because next I knew I'd bumped into someone. More like a solid wall of muscles. I raise my eyes, an apology sitting at the tip of my tongue, only to come face to face with him. Caden Adam Jones. His deep forest green orbs are just as I remember them, dark, deep, endless, as they bore into my boring gray ones like he could see deep into my very soul. His grip on me tightened for a quick second till it almost became painful but I was too lost in his beautiful eyes to notice. It might bruise and leave a dark patch by tomorrow but it didn't matter to me in the moment. His hands that had stopped me from falling held my waist for several heart beats before he broke whatever spell it was that had held us together for longer than the few seconds it took to mutter our usual hi. Once he realized it was me and not some shapely, hot cheerleader in his arms, he pulled his hand off my body like it scalded him. "Jade." That was it and he walked right past me. I should be glad he still remembers my name. But I wasn't. It's not like I expected more than that from him though judging from his recent attitude towards me but it still hurt something deep inside me. He always acts like we were strangers now, maybe mere acquaintances, like all those years we'd been best friends didn't happen and I had not meant something to him once. I bent and picked up my fallen books. Beside my textbook lay a matte black book that wasn't mine. It had tiny silver lines running across its surface. It must have fallen off his hand when I bumped into him. And he'd been in too much of a hurry to get away from me to have noticed. The book looked smaller than your average note book and the cover, thick. It was just like he liked all his things- classic, masculine and black. I was tempted to open it. Hopefully, I'll sneak a peek of something from his new life, the one he'd shut me out of but I subdued the urge and shoved it between my books. Doing that would only serve to hurt me more than he already does. I realized then how many minutes I must have spent standing here, now I had to run to class. Shit, I'm really late this time. The class was already on when I ran in thanks to that beautiful distraction back there and then I had to endure a walk to the back of the class to the only empty seat and that was after a lecture on the need for punctuality from Mrs Stratton. I hate being put on the spot for any reason and being late to this one class is a free way ticket to that. I focused more on making myself invisible in the class than I did to what Mrs Stratton was explaining at the front of the class. The class went by in a blur and thankfully Mrs Stratton doesn't notice my absent minded self through it. I go through my other classes like this, worried sick about the person behind those notes and what they meant. It's not like I go around making enemies. I don't even think I should have any because all I've been doing since this junior year is try to be as invisible as possible. And the only person I don't want to be invisible to, the one person I wanted to look at me and see me happens to be the one who made me feel like it didn't matter if I existed here or not. It's probably better off this way anyways, if he hadn't jolted me out of the day dream that had been my life then, I might still be eating my heart out on him dreaming away reality. Now that I know better, I'm not stashing my feelings on him anymore. Okay, maybe I was but from a distance and it's safer this way. As far as he's happy, then so am I. That's what best friends are supposed to do, right? Be happy for each other even if you are now ex besties. I sighed out as I entered the cafeteria. He was there already, as usual, seated at the middle table. The one that has always been for the popular kids. The jocks and the cheerleaders mostly. He's the captain of the football team so no surprise there and he's also our School's resident bad boy. He was mostly silent as everyone else around him chattered away about something or another. The cheerleaders gushed over the guys as is their usual and the guys laugh obnoxiously,  clearly enjoying the attention they were getting from the fawning girls. Well, except him because he didn't look like he was paying any attention to what Lizzy, the cheerleader hanging on his arm, was saying. Or to his food either. He just sat there, distant. I noticed all these because the line for food was moving ever so slowly today and their table is directly in my line of vision not because I was intentionally seeking him out. I drew my eyes from their table and turned my attention to the crawling line and getting my food. His book is still with me tucked away behind the safest zip in my bag. I'd planned on returning it here but when I remembered I don't sit with him anymore, I decided to wait till after school and return it when he's done with practice and is alone. The back of my neck prickles like it always does when someone is looking at me and my mind springs to the unopened note in my locker and the person behind them. What if that person is right inside here, seeing what I'm doing, knowing what I'm getting for lunch so they could weave it into their next note and creep me out the more. I take a quick look around but the only pair of eyes I find trained on me are his. Caden's green eyes were staring right at me and a faint red colored my cheeks in a light blush. Why do my traitorous heart have to betray me by picking up speed in its beats out of excitement from that. He's too far from where I stood though, for me to make out the expression burned into his alluring orbs. It's probably the usual, boredom coupled with an unpleasing dash of anger and disappointment. My nape still prickled as I broke the eye contact we'd made, tired of setting myself up to hurt. It's bad enough that I still don't know what I did to make him loathe me so much as this but to have him totally ignore me and block me out for months and then pining me with his eyes at every turn now is just disconcerting. Plus watching him with all the girls that hang off him, worshipping him, at every corner hurts me more than it has any right to. "If you don't plan on getting any food then you can do the rest of us a favor by butting out of the line." The girl behind me says and I realize it's my turn to order. I finally see the reason why the line has been moving slow. Sarah the other older lady that helps serve food wasn't in today. It was just Marie, the pretty lady that always has something to smile about that is here today. She knows my usual and starts dishing it before I could ask. She returns my smile with one of her brilliant, calming ones. I thank her as she hands me the tray containing my lunch and she waves me off calling for the next person. His eyes follow me as I made my way to my table. Unlike the middle table, this one is for the nobodies. It's at the end of the cafeteria, closest to the staffs wash room. I like it because it gives me the privacy I crave. I turn to stare off his pitying eyes but he looks away then and doesn't look my way again until lunch is over. The chicken on my plate looks almost okay and not half green like last weeks. I dig into my food, trying to finish up as fast as I can. My next class is chemistry and just like Mrs Stratton, Mr Baldwin is very strict about punctuality to his class. I have to be in early if I want to avoid a repetition of what happened to me in math class earlier in the day. When I was done, I disposed the trash on my tray and return my tray to Marie. The older woman graces me with her beautiful smile and says nothing other than a sweet, "thank you darling." She's finally learned to stop arguing with me over this and telling me that I don't have to do this and can always leave the plastic on my table like the rest. It's in my job description, that's her usual trump card that has never worked with me. I hate that she thinks it's their right to mess every where up and her duty to pick up and clean up after all us 'high schoolers'. I think if everyone lifted a finger and helped her a little by doing the basics, it would better and easier on her poor old self. I used to think that the change begins with me but so far it's still been stuck with me. Caden must have left because his spot on their table was empty now and I thought about finding him now and saving myself from having to wait till he was done with football practice. I hope to catch him alone for a few seconds before he is swarmed by his flock of friends so I hurry out of the cafe. I go to his locker, not so far from mine. It's still the same one he'd used last year when he'd been in his junior year and I'd been a sophomore. I thought about trying his old combination to see if it still worked and slipping his book that I'd retrieved from my bag inside but a mental image of how it would look if I was caught snooping in his locker stopped me before I could finish the thought. I resigned to leave and go early for my chem class. I'd barely taken a few steps away from his locker when his deep, rich and damn sweet to the ears voice halted me. "What are you doing hanging by my locker, Jay?" He asks, finishing off with that nick name that he'd given me years ago. So help me God but having him this close, alone with that voice in my head, did sinful things to my untried seventeen years old body.