The Circle

11 | Invitation

Stop overthinking. It's not good for you. 

'I already know everything I need to, what about you?'

 He knows that I'm lost, Kit sees right through me. There is a battle ranging inside my mind, thinking about the person I am and the one I ought to be. I've doubted myself ever since I can remember. I don't know who I am, but does anyone? Does he know who he is?

He was suffocating during class. There is no escaping someone sitting so close to you that your limbs touch. Every time his harm brushed against my own my heart stopped and made up double time. For the entirety of the hour, my feelings were torn between attraction, blind annoyance, and seething hatred. This whirlwind of emotions is making me dizzy, he makes me dizzy. I couldn't breathe around him. 

Once I left Chem it got better. My thoughts stayed relatively in check, but he still lingered in the back of my mind.

The lunch bell rang and I walked alone to the cafeteria. I grabbed my food without much thought; my mind still filled with static after several hours after my encounter with him.

That's the effect that he has on me.

And I absolutely hate it.

I place my tray beside Kaia and pull the chair out, sitting around the round table. I can see the school courtyard from my seat, and the beautiful golden leaves on the trees shine under the sunlight. A sudden gust of wind picks the fallen leaves and gently twist them on the air, and then they settle on the ground again. 

Selene appears to my left and then sets her tray down on the table. She eats her food without uttering a word. Bronte and Kaia continue their conversation talking, oblivious to Selene's arrival. She must be the quiet type around everyone. None of them mentioned the incident again, and it blew over as fast as the snow that melted from the ground.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you,"  Kaia turns towards me, a broad smile gracing her red-painted lips.

"What's up?"

"Well, sometimes we all go to my family's cabin, and we were planning to go there this weekend. I was hoping you and Alec could join us," her eyes shine expectantly. 

"Sure! I mean, I've got to check with my parents but I think that we'll definitely go," I return her smile and she claps her hands in excitement, and Bronte cheers along.

Selene and Kaia exchange a look that, and Selene's face grows grave for a split second and then her customary bored expression comes back.

"Where are we going?" 

Lucas crosses the table and sits diagonally across from me, looking at us curiously. He pops a grape into his mouth. 

"To the cabin," Selene answers and Lucas raises his eyebrows.

"Really? Sweet! We haven't been there since May," he grins, blue eyes alive with excitement. 

This must be a really special place of them. The trip must be tradition.

"Told them already?" Nicolas places his own tray besides Lucas', startling me. 

"Just did," Kaia takes a bite out of her mac and cheese.

"Kit! Come here! And bring Alec," Nick props himself on his forearms and lifts his body half way up, gesturing at them behind my head.

Great. The one moment of peace I had is now over.

I feel his shadow over my body and my body instinctively turns around to face him. His eyes flicker downwards and meet my own, then they stay trained on anything but me.