Wattpad Original

Original Edition: 03 | Eyes

49.1K 2.7K 1.7K
                                    

I'D HOPED THAT the attention would shift from my arrival, but the moment we enter the classroom, all heads immediately turn in our direction, the whispers beginning instantaneously and spreading like wildfire

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

I'D HOPED THAT the attention would shift from my arrival, but the moment we enter the classroom, all heads immediately turn in our direction, the whispers beginning instantaneously and spreading like wildfire. I steel myself, lifting my chin as I follow Zoe, keeping my eyes on the back of her head to keep them from wandering.

She takes a seat near the front of the room and I come to an abrupt halt when I realize there are no open seats next to her. She looks up at me apologetically, tipping her eyebrows upward.

"We have a seating chart," she explains, turning away from the front. "Yours is back there."

I follow where she's pointing with my eyes; an open seat near the back of the room. Giving her a stiff smile, I nod. "Thanks."

Reluctantly, I make my way to the seat, sighing as I slide into my designated spot. The boy beside me gives me a strange look I can't decipher, his jarring blue eyes digging into mine, and before I can process the intensity of his stare, the teacher enters the room and he looks away.

Feeling mildly frazzled, I set down my notebook and my copy of Hamlet on my desk. I focus my gaze on the teacher as he calls out a greeting to the class. He's a young man, most likely in his early thirties, and he's wearing trendy clothes paired with large, black-rimmed glasses.

"Good morning," he says, perching himself on the edge of his desk. "I won't waste too much time, let's get started by picking up where we last read."

The words send everyone into a slow frenzy, flipping through their books to find the right page, and I scramble for mine, a frown creasing my face as I follow the crowd in vain. I continue on like this for a while, long after everyone else has found the page and the teacher begins to read aloud.

I freeze when I feel eyes on the side of my face, my eyes darting up from the page. I slowly turn to my left, met with the same intense pair of blue eyes staring at me calculatingly. Somehow, the way he looks at me is in an entirely different league than the multitude of stares I've already received this morning.

When I don't break eye contact, he raises a thick eyebrow. "194," he says quietly, then returns his gaze to his book.

I nod gratefully, turning back to the book and flipping to the correct page, quickly matching what I'm seeing with what I'm hearing. It makes me feel a little more relaxed to be on the same page as everyone else, but I still feel unsettled by the gaze of the boy next to me, like an itch that won't go away, and it makes me squirm in my seat slightly.

I skim the words on the page, feeling unfocused, as I try to follow along.

Have you forgot me?

Lifting my eyes from the book, I look to my left tentatively, feeling distracted. He's not staring anymore, but with the way I'm feeling, he might as well be. I watch him worriedly for a while, until he notices and looks up. I don't look away, and his face is unreadable.

BlackoutWhere stories live. Discover now