To Lie and To Love

Chapter Five

I could always side with Juliette Binoche and say that I didn't believe in coincidence as well, but bumping into my unofficial crush twice in less than a span of an hour is quite contentious, if you asked me. I muse at the reality of him finding it bizarre that some random girl he probably never saw until today, managed to bump into him recurrently. Honestly, that thought leaves me mortified to the gut. Even more hapless is the fact that the second time had to happen right in front of the entire school population. Talk about hard luck.

He looked somewhat taken aback when his eyes caught mine and in an instant a multitude of butterflies danced harum-scarum in my middle. The words were caught in my throat as his fiery gray-blue eyes pierced through mine like the s***h of a dagger.

I felt the juice turn sticky in my palms, the cold sweat making it even more sickening. My chest felt like it had been filled with lead and I found it demanding to perform the simple task of breathing every passing second. I couldn't look him in the eye any longer, regardless that I could feel his on my being, stifling and searing. Was he expecting me to say something?

It even got more awkward when I discovered that the entire cafeteria had turned insanely quiet. And still, he stood there, not saying anything; probably waiting for the explanation I could not even put together in my muddled brain.

“I'm... I'm sorry.”, I said indistinctly, not sure he could even make the words out. He raised an uncertain brow, looking over me as if hesitant about what to say.

Coming back to my senses finally, before I suffocated myself or did anything blameworthy again, I walked away from him in haste; my eyes looking down at my feet to avoid melting under the hot-blooded gaze of the other students.

When I eventually sat down at the table after what seemed like an eternity, I took a deep breath, noticing then that my eyes had been closed. I opened them inch meal, the lids stinging in response to the firmness in which they had been clinched shut.

“Okay... so can you explain what just happened right now?”, Yvonne asked wide-eyed, before handing me a paper towel.

“As you probably noticed, I kinda bumped into him on my way here.”, I replied simply, trying to pretend like everything was absolutely normal and concentrating intently on wiping the juice off my hands.

"Kinda?", Yvonne said incredulously again.

I was still attracting the unwanted attention of individuals around me and I could hear the incessant giggles and whispers which I duly ignored.

“Woah, tough luck you’ve got there.", Hunter laughed. "The nerd and the popular jock saga, let's call it.”

“That looked too intense to be something as ordinary as just bumping into him", Tasha commented.

"Yeah", Yvonne nodded. "It was like you guys were having some staring contest or something."

“Well,”, I said with a sigh “The thing is, I bumped into him earlier back in class too.”

At that, they all burst into laughter, though I didn't really see what was amusing about that. I in particular found it very embarrassing.

Pointing straight ahead, Yvonne added: “No wonder he looks so confused, Nova.”

I turned around slowly in my seat in the direction of her finger to find him seated with a group of people, who were probably his friends, at a table not too far from where our little collision had occurred. His girlfriend, Seraphina, was all over him, fussing about in a very exaggerated manner. I doubt that she had been in the cafeteria earlier when the incident had occurred, or else she would have come flying at my throat probably; and to be frank, I'm glad she wasn't.

He looked very nonchalant though,which made me wonder if that was his everyday stance. I saw one of his friends say something to him, to which he only shrugged in response and sat down. I dont know why, but I found myself secretly pleased at the fact that he was clearly ignoring Seraphina's antics though he didn’t try to stop her in any way either. All of a sudden, he turned around in the line of my direction and I quickly spun away, the heat in my face rising rapidly.

“Are you okay?”, Tasha asked, taking a huge bite off her sandwich. “You're turning a funny shade of red.”

Shaking my head at the thought of how stupid it was to wish that he would notice me again, I said with a shrug; “So I bumped into him; big deal.”

“Well, I doubt other people see it that way”, Yvonne said.

“Can we just forget everything and have an incident free lunch?”, I tried to sound cool and collected.

“We were, until you decided to ram into the most popular guy in front of the entire school.", Tasha said, as a matter of fact.

“Okay, okay, enough already. Let's end it there, shall we?"

Reisting the urge to look in his direction again, I tried to seem interested in what Yvonne was telling us.

What I didn’t realize was that I had completely spaced out yet for another time until the bell went for the end of the break. Impulsively, I looked that way again, hoping to catch a glimpse of him before he walked out of the cafeteria, but then he was gone; much to my disappointment. I caught myself as I felt my heart begin to sink, befuddled at the way I was behaving just after the incident.

'What is wrong with me', I thought to myself, as I picked up my tray and trailed after the rest to the next class.

Even worse, the next class was math, which we both had. Taking a deep breath at the door, I entered the classroom, only to spot him immediately, sitting at the far back, on one of the desks, chatting with some other guys I didn't really know nor bothered about. Praying he wouldn’t see me but all the same wishing that he would, I sat at the front, a considerable distance away from him. Yet all through the class I couldn’t help but wonder if he had, perhaps, noticed me or something. I wouldn’t know myself because my back was turned to him, of course.

Still, my heart was racing at the endless possibilities and, despite the promise I made to Miss Searls only a while back, I found myself slowly slipping away from the real world into one spawning from all my unseen fantasies.