Red Hair, Black Soul (Red & Black #1)

28 | Blunt scissors

Complement #34

Said to: Ms. Brownstone

I am a big fan of your sweaters.

***

Weeks pass by and my occasional run-ins with Jed become more and more sporadic.

Not once did I visit him at Caffair. Not once did I speak during the World Lit class. We are now in the middle of discussing The Old Man And The Sea and even though I love this book, I don't have it in me to raise my hand and say something smart. Neither I nor Jed switched places in the classroom, and so that one particular hour has become the worst in the entire week. I can feel his gaze drilling holes in my back for the entire forty-five minutes and it's driving me crazy. We enter and leave the classroom wordlessly and when we pass each other on the corridor, it's like we never even knew each other.

A few days back, Makena snapped and started threatening that if we don't stop acting like children, she's going to leave us both and go make friends with Jesse Carson. She's tired of having to play the role of our linker and having to divide her time in two.

"You're like a couple after a breakup." She said. "Soon you'll turn into your version of Mean Girls."

I told her I've never seen Mean Girls. I ended up having to watch it over the weekend.

Ms. Brownstone isn't much help, either. She claims that lately I've been acting grumpier than usual. And because she knew Ada-family relations were stable and that I still talked to Makena, it didn't take her long to put two and two together. Now she's smiling that secretive smile every single time she sees me, as if she knows something I don't. I take double effort gaining notes into my notebook, motivated by the idea of having to watch this smile just once a week. 

There's still some time left until Homecoming, but Mrs. Scottinson wants to make sure everything will be ready in time. Both Makena and I stay at school extra time, preparing the decorations and planning everything. There's an artistic group at our school responsible for decorating all the events but I don't mind helping them. I don't have much to do after school anyway and I'm tired of sitting at home doing nothing. Together, we came up with the idea of using all of the useless rubbish stashed in Mrs. Scottinson's storage. We chose to set old school as this year's main theme and most of the decorations are going to be made out of old newspapers. And as much as I'm not a fan of parties, I'm starting to get a little jealous of all the people who are going to have fun in this climate. There's still much to do left but I have a feeling the effects are going to be amazing. 

Right now, we're spending the lunch break on cutting different patterns from the newspapers. With Mrs. Scottinson's permission, we brought our lunches here and made some sort of an indoor picnic. There's just a few of us here - me, Makena, Josh, Sarah, Alice, and Conrad, the most engaged ones. Al didn't join us, excusing himself with a Calculus test he has to learn for. 

I laugh as Alice throws a piece of apple to Josh and misses, hitting Makena in the face. In response, she balls up a piece of paper in her fist and throws the missile back at Alice. Before we know it, we have a paper fight going on, our work and lunches forgotten. 

It's surprising, really, how easy it was to find something I entertain so much. Coming to the US, I never thought I was going to be this happy. Never expected to make new friends. Never considered myself social. 

And yet here I am, tearing up a piece of paper and throwing it at Conrad who just stole one of my sandwiches. 

Yes, I'm eating sandwiches. I actually let my Mum make me sandwiches and brought them to school, fully intending to eat them.