Thin Lines

Eat

Xela

"A project." I say to Max and Annie, when Max told me he saw Ryder leaving my house last night.

"Girl I swear that boy has it for you" Annie says, nudging me with her arm. "No he doesn't." I argue, sliding my english books into the top of my locker before shutting it. I turn and lean my shoulder on it and face Max and Annie who are standing right next to it.

"So are you guys like... friends now?" Max asks. "I mean I don't know if you could call it that" I say.

"Ouch that almost hurt my feelings." The sudden voice startles me from behind. "What the heck!" I give Ryder an almost playful shove. "What she meant to say is that we are best friends." Ryder says smugly. I open my locker and take out several pieces of papers, all with some notes I did during English on our project since my English class is the most boring thing in the world.

"Here are some notes for the PowerPoint I figured we could add." I say, handing them to him to look at. He gives me a disgusted look, so I shove the papers into his hand before he can tell me he doesn't want to read over them. "We are going to the cafeteria, you coming?" Max asks me, his arm draped over Annie's shoulder.

I nod but before I can speak Ryder chimes in, "We actually have to work on our project" he says. I turn and glare at him, "No we—"

"Let's go blondie" Ryder cuts me off, his hands gripping my arm and nearly dragging me towards the library. "What the fork, dude" I shake his hand off of mine once we get into the library. His eyebrows raise, "Fork?" He teases me, sitting down at an open table towards the back of the deserted library. "I'm trying to stop cussing." I mutter, sitting next to him. 

My Dad never liked cussing, which sucks for me because I have a mouth like a sailor. Not anymore. Xela is a cuss word free gal from now on.

"Yeah all right." Ryder says sarcastically. "We are perfectly on schedule for our project I don't know why you dragged me here." I complain, unzipping my backpack and pulling out one of my folders. I toss it onto the table so it makes a loud slapping noise then give Ryder a bored look.

"We haven't even started the sculpture and this is due next week." He tells me. "We are not going to build a sculpture in the library are we?" I groan. "No but we can finish the other parts so that all we have to do tonight"

"Or we can just finish it on Friday like we planned to do." I argued, really not in the mood to do work right now. I forgot to eat breakfast, scared that Paul would sneak up on me, so I haven't eaten since yesterday morning. The fatigue is catching up to me, like it always does.

"The bonfire is Friday" he says like it's obvious and opens my folder. Shi—shoot the bonfire.

I completely forgot about that since I was told about it by Max and Annie. "You are going to that?" I ask, surprised since he doesn't seem like the whole 'school event' type.

"Everyone goes, now let's work." He says, annoyance clear in his tone. I can tell he is growing fed up with my arguing against working. "Fine, nerd" I mumble, taking some paper out of the folder and starting the work he is so imminent on doing.

"Thank goodness" I cheer when the bell rings. "See it wasn't that bad." Ryder tells me as he packs up his stuff. I rolled my eyes, "It was terrible." He just laughs. "Did you not eat anything?" He asks as he throws out the trash of the sandwich he ate while we worked. I stand up and toss my bag over my shoulder, "I forgot to pack a lunch." I say, which is somewhat true. I don't tell him I've 'forgot' every day this year.

I turn to walk, expecting him to come right next to me like he always does but instead I just hear rifling through a backpack and turn to see him tossing me something. "I'm fine, Ryder." I tell him, looking at the protein bar in my hand. He starts walking and I follow him, offering it back. When he glares at me, I just sigh and take the bar, figuring I could eat it in my next class.

Ryder and I have sixth period together, so we walk the whole way there and find our usual seats at the back. I peel the wrapper off the bar and take a bite before realizing how amazing it is. It is like chocolate but coconut and somewhat a wafer type texture. "You like it?" Ryder looks at me, a smirk on his face. I try to say 'not at all' but it's muffled from my mouth stuffed with the bar. He rolls his eyes, the smile not fading from his lips.

The bell rings, engulfing us into an hour long lecture by Ms. Carter. Before I know it, class is over. I'm up and out of the room as fast as I can, I'm not sure why. I've always done this to try and avoid conversation with Ryder, but now I think I'm doing it to mess with him instead.

"You have got to stop doing that" I feel an arm on my shoulder, belonging to Ryder. "Hm?" I turn to him innocently. We arrive at my locker where I need to get books for my next class and Ryder leans against the one next to it, "So tonight I'll come over around nine?" He asks.

I pause and look at him. What makes him think we are just working at my house? Especially after last night where he literally got kicked out by my yelling parents. And why so damn late? "No."

"What do you mean 'no'" he protests. "Do you want to be screamed at by my step dad again?"

He seems to take a second to process that Paul is my step dad, "This time we won't get off topic, we can just do work and only work."

"He won't care, he doesn't even believe me that we did any work in the first place." I say, wishing he could just drop it. "My house doesn't work." I say firmly.

He sighs in defeat, "We can meet at a coffee shop then? At 9?"

"Why the he— heck would we go at 9?" I say, nearly catching myself cuss. He makes a face at that before actually answering my question, "I have work until 8:30, that's the earliest I can meet."

"Fine." I say, shutting my locker. "I will text you the address?" He asks. I shake my head, "I don't have a phone."

His eyes widen at my words, "You're so difficult." He mutters, quickly writing down the address of some coffee shop in town and handing it to me. I just wink at his words before leaving to get to class.

The timing of our little meet up could not be worse. It leaves just enough time for me to need to get food and go home, which I don't need. I put my big girl shoes on and step into my lovely home, meeting my mom and Paul in the kitchen talking.

"Did you think to ask me?" My mom argues with him, until his eyes find mine and all attention is now on me. I awkwardly smile, taking a step back to leave. "We need to speak to you." Paul says. "We are having a visitor in this house" he tells me. What? Who would want to come and stay in this house, let alone with Paul.

I'm not sure how to respond, so I just nod and start walking to the stairs. "Where do you think you're going?" Paul questions me, standing up. "To my room." I answer coldly, walking past him and up the stairs.