Don't Promise Me

10- Ripper Collin

"Hey, what did the poor cucumber do to you?" Avery chortled from beside me after I stabbed the vegetable with a little too much force. Oops.

Instantly feeling bad for it, I mentally apologized.

"It's too dry," I said crunching it, not exactly lying. It could have been more juicy.

"Right." She laughed again, wiping her mouth with a napkin, "Seriously, though, he can't be that bad."

"Are we still referring to the cucumber?" I asked while trying to gather some lettuce with my fork, playing stupid.

She rolled her eyes, "Yes. The hot and popular cucumber."

I scrunched my face at that and she laughed. "Okay, this is getting weird. Is cucumber our code for boys now?"

"C'mon, quit stalling, Donny."

"Yeah, spill the tea. You just said Benson isn't a complete ass. So what's the deal, is he as arrogant as he looks?" Darcy asked from across the table, intruding our conversation.

Contrary to my friends' belief, I: did not make a big deal out of everything; wasn't moody because I was on my period; did not like Collin Benson.

After spending Sunday with the golden boy, I could see why everyone was so crazy about him. In an unfair addition to being extremely good-looking, he exhaled charisma and charm. Not to mention his million-dollar smile, which had all the potential in the world to make a young, naive girl such as myself melt in a matter of seconds. I probably would have, had I not made a complete examination of the guy and given him the staple of irritating nosy punk. That, and I wasn't naive.

And fine, I know it wasn't his fault if I hadn't slept the night before and was utterly tired, — not to say tired as hell, because I try to have manners most of the time — but a little heads-up wouldn't hurt anybody, would it? No; instead I was awoken by my dad saying a suspicious kid was outside waiting for me. That was lovely. I had to drag myself out of bed, brush my teeth, wash my face and try, to no avail, to tame my hair, which was also greasy from being constantly pushed back and tied up while I worked the night before. And let's not forget to mention the conspicuously hideous dark circles that seemed to have moved permanently to under my eyes. How convenient; showing up to the most coveted guy in high school looking like a raccoon that went for a swim on an oil pool. Not that I cared.

When I opened up the door, he looked fresh, clean and sure of himself. My wish was to slam the door on his bloody perfect face, but I managed to be somewhat polite as I clearly hinted that we wouldn't be studying in my house. However, the dude had other plans. The whole time I tried to be as nice as I could, (not that I did a great job) even after watching him inspect every little corner and baseboard in my home.
I won't judge, he said. My ass. I bet he was thinking of us as dirty and poor. Well, not everyone's father is a well-paid physician. And I only knew his was because ever since Kathy found out Collin was my partner, she started to go around school to dig information on him, along with Grace. I wondered if they didn't have anything better to do at all. No surprise their grades weren't exactly a model for anyone.

Right, maybe I am PMSing. So what?

"He's not arrogant per say," I answered, trying to calm down my nerves. The world didn't need to put up with my crap. And Collin wasn't a bad person, I just didn't like the cut of his jib, so to say.

"So what's the deal?" Darcy pressed again.

"Haven't I just told you guys?" I exclaimed, exasperated at the fact that nobody seemed to have paid any attention to my previous ramble. "It's just that he's... too meddlesome," I recalled the way he invited himself in and looked around my house. "And nosy."