I gaped at Brendon's back for about ten minutes, not knowing what to think about all this. This boy is messing with my head. The hunter's become the hunted. Or something. Now who's messing with whose head? Finally I moved to lower the guitar back to the stand and opened the window again. I needed a smoke to calm my nerves, but when my thoughts weren't any clearer after that I just went to bed. I rolled around the bed for a while, looking for a good position, but finally I fell asleep to a restless dream in which someone pointed at me and laughed in annoying, chiming tone that seemed to fill my head and my body and made me feel like a complete idiot.
In the morning I woke up, startling, and half-expected Brendon to be long gone, but he was lying on his bed fully clothed and staring at the ceiling again. I turned to my side and reached my sidekick from the nightstand. It was seven thirty. Wow. I would be in the class in time for the first time - I didn't do school breakfast so I didn't have to go there first.
I glanced at Brendon who didn't even look my way. Psht, fuck him. I threw the cover aside and went to take a quick shower. I dried my hair with a hair dryer - yes, I have a hair dryer - and fixed them like before, to the mohawk-style ruffle. I lined my eyes with black and drew an irregular vine-pattern that from my other eye grew down onto my cheek and from the other climbed up to my forehead. It was fun to shock people every now and then, otherwise they'd get too used to me and I'd sink into the grey mass. Plus Brendon's expression was absolutely priceless as I stepped into the room in my make-up and with just a towel around my waist. Just as carelessly as before I dropped the towel onto the floor and took a pair of boxers from my closet, pulling them on, and then I reached for my socks. Stripy socks. Pink-striped socks. I heard Brendon chuckling behind me - well, at least I knew he was looking at me - and so I turned and threw the socks at him.
"What's so funny?" I asked, grinning. Brendon was lying on his side on the bed and laughing, holding the socks in his other hand.
"Socks," he managed to hiccup in between giggles. I snorted as if mortifiedly hurt and marched across the room the retrieve my socks. Brendon didn't let go at first, so I nearly half-climbed to his bed and pulled the socks with two hands. Suddenly I stopped in mid-pulling and dragging and stilled to look at Brendon who was lying on the bed, cheeks glowing from laughter and pulling the socks. Brendon let go of the socks and we sat there staring at each other for a while. I realized all the sudden that I was nearly straddling Brendon and I was wearing just boxers. Our eyes locked for a long moment.
Then Brendon turned his head to look away and the moment passed. As soon as it happened I could've smacked myself for letting such a perfect opportunity to slip past. I could've reached out my hand and pick him like a ripe fruit. But the moment, whatever it was, was gone and so I dropped back onto the ground and sat down onto the floor to pull on the socks that were guilty to the whole situation. Brendon got up, coughing awkwardly and went to the bathroom. I got up to pull my school uniform on and pushed the books I needed into my messenger bag. It was merely ten to eight and so I decided to go and snatch something to eat for once before going to the first class to amaze my teacher by being early.
I marched into the canteen and got some weird looks and whispers, but they all fell silent as I turned to look at them. I merely raised my eyebrows questioningly, and more than one pair of eyes looked down or turned away. I smirked - apparently they had nothing to say to me in person. Dan appeared from somewhere and seemed surprised to find me in the massive hall that early. I went to grab a cheese sandwich and not caring to stay in the canteen I marched towards the classroom where my first lesson would be. I arrived in front of the door about a minute before the bells rang, and I caused a surprised stir in the group standing there.
"You're early," Aaron said as I cast a questioning glance at them. I shot them a tiny smile, not being that amused about the situation, and bit into my sandwich. Soon our art teacher, Mr. Flicks approached from behind the corner, breathing heavily as he opened the door and let us in, and even he looked at me with an amazed expression on his face. Mr. Flicks settled down behind his desk and started calling out our names.
"Mr. Ross," he said when it was my turn. I looked up from my papers and nodded. "You're early."
I pouted.
"I'm afraid so, Sir. I've heard about it all morning, perhaps I should've been late again to avoid this gushing about it."
Mr. Flicks burst out laughing and motioned me with one chubby finger. "Come here for a second."
