The Catalyst

8. The Catalyst

8

The entire rest of lunch was full of us laughing and Violet trying her best not to be awkward...but she wasn't super successful.  After lunch when she went to throw her stuff away Greg leaned over to me and asked, "Is Vi acting weird?  She seems a little out of sorts."

"Oh...um...she's just feeling a little sick today.  No big deal." I smiled.

"Huh...well she didn't say anything about that to me."

"Why would she, it's not like you'd understand...you know being a guy and all." I said referring to the fact that she had her period.  She didn't, but he didn't need to know that.

He just rolled his eyes, "Even with that she would just straight tell me if she was having cramps or anything of that sort."

I looked at him surprised, "Really?  You guys are a lot closer than even I knew."

He laughed, "Yeah, well that's what happens when you're best friends since babies.  But back to the point, she's acting weird, and it's got me worried."

"About what?"

"That there's something she's not telling me."

"People can have secrets." I said and then quickly got up.  I couldn't stand the interrogation any longer or I'd spill everything...

I ran off to my fourth period and sat down quickly. 

Just a moment later the seat next to me moved and Andrew sat down.  "So what are you going to do about the secretly bitchy Gina?" He asked.

"I'm not entirely sure.  I mean I feel like I should tell Forrester what happened, but I don't want to give him more of a reason to break up with her because I don't want to get involved, but if she's going to be hanging out then there's not much I can do.  He'll probably notice the hostility anyways."

"Do you like him?" He suddenly asked.

"Excuse you?!" I screeched.

"Do you like him?" He repeated, looking me straight in the eyes.

"No!  Why in Zeus' name would you ask me that?"

"It's just that you and Forrester have gotten closer lately and really all you ever do anymore involves him."

"What? No it doesn't." I scoffed.  "That's just your point of view since he's another guy."

"If you say so." He shrugged. There was a pause and then he turned to me, "Do you want to hang out tomorrow after school?"

"What is it with you and totally random questions today?"

"I'm just asking to hang out, as a friend.  You're always hanging out with Violet and Greg, so I thought maybe for once we could just chill and actually catch up.  I'll buy some cheesy snacks and we can watch a stupid movie or play Super Mario."

I bit my lip nervously.  That honestly sounded amazing and was so ridiculously tempting I could hardly handle it.

"I'll let you be Mario." He smirked.

That was the final blow. "Fine." I sighed.  "Tomorrow after school."

"Great!  Sounds good!" He said excitedly.

Back when we were dating we would play super Super Mario all the time and would constantly get in fights about who would get to be Mario because we both always wanted to be him.  We'd play rock, paper, scissors but nine out of ten times I lost. 

The rest of the period we watched people do skits and chatted about random crap, but I kept thinking about the fact that I agreed to hang out with Andrew the next day...alone.  'What am I thinking?' I thought to myself.  I decided I couldn't tell Violet or Greg about it or they'd kill me.