Two Hours Away

Chapter Eleven

When I walked into Ms. Tyler's class on Monday, I sat down in my seat next to Austin.  It had been three weeks since Denise's passing and I was starting to feel better.  I had stopped wearing my black outfits and started acting happier.  I felt tired more often though.  I had figured that Denise would have wanted me to be happy.  Austin and I were still together and we were doing great.

"Hi Jenni," he said.  

"Hey," I said with a small, but true, smile.  I had started to smile more recently and they weren't those fake little smiles that were there right after, but real smiles.  

"You look tired," Austin said as he moved my bangs and tucked them back behind my ear.  They had grown out since I hadn't been able to cut them recently.  

"I am tired," I said, rubbing my eyes.  

"I'm sorry," he said.  He rubbed my shoulder and we sat in silence until Ms. Tyler began her lesson.

"Hello," she said, "Today we are going to be studying more in depth the Pythagorean Theorem.  I know that your Algebra I teacher started teaching you this stuff, but there's a lot that you guys don't know about it so we're going to study that today."  She began to write on the white board and continued to teach her lesson, "See, this year in Algebra II we are going to start learning more about this formula a squared plus b squared equals c squared-"

Before she could continue, the door banged open with a noise that is unfortunately familiar.  Kat stared to the front of the room.  This morning, she actually didn't cause anything scary.  She just walked in silence to her seat.  I was so surprised i could hardly speak.  Ms. Tyler recovered from her fright and began to teach her class once more.  When the bell rang, Kat simply walked and stopped at Austin's desk.

"Austin," she said, "It's not over."

I wondered what she was talking about, but I didn't do anything about it.  Austin wouldn't do anything with Kat.  I figured that she was just using her imagination to get me paranoid.  So I simply ignored Kat's comment.  I stood from my seat and after I started walking, Austin came up beside me and slid his hand into mine.  He walked me to my class despite the fact that his was nowhere near mine.  As we walked, several heads turned.

That had stopped bugging me.  That's just how high-school was.  Each time there was a couple, that was where people's eyes were.  When I reached my class, Austin leaned over and kissed my cheek quickly.  he let his hand slide from mine and then he hurried off to his class which he would be late for.  I constantly would remind him that he didn't need to walk me to class, but he ignored my reminders.  

I hated to break it to myself, but with Austin, I didn't feel that special fairy tale way that I was supposed to.  It had felt like a fairy tale with Alex, but that was over and I didn't want him anymore.  I wanted Austin, but with him, things weren't fairy tale-like.  I told myself to stop worrying because everything was going to be okay.