The Cliche Gone Wrong

Chapter Thirty-two

I push the food around on my plate, already regretting not agreeing to go off campus for lunch today. But there was no way I could leave. This is some of the only times I get around her now.

I look across the cafeteria as I stare at Killer's table, watching her laugh and joke around with her friends. The smile across her face is nearly shining, her teeth sparkling as she bites into a sandwich gripped between her long fingers. She won't even look at me. I mean she has to feel me staring. God, how can she be this carefree? It's like nothing even happened between us.

"Earth to Jude." A light brown hand waves in front of my face, and I turn to see Connor's arm attached to it, before it wraps around the shoulders of a girl.

"Damn, you've been out of it man." He laughs, eliciting a giggle from the girl he's hugging to his side. "I mean you aren't even sitting on the table like you normally do! What happened, did someone kick your dog?"

I can't even summon up a weak smile at his joke as I look back at Killer's table. The boy sitting next to her bumps her with his shoulder and she laughs flirtatiously as she bumps him back. Their conversation is animated, both of them babbling on and on without giving anyone else at the table a chance to butt in. So no one else does, leaving them to their own devices. It looks like they're taking full advantage of that, the sounds of their whispered conversation barely drifting past their own ears, let alone to my table 15 feet away.

She has to be doing this to toy me. She has to know what this is doing to me.

As he drapes an arm around her shoulder a flash of rage courses through me. I should go over there and tell her to stop playing. I should tell her that this is stupid and she should just start fucking talking to me again! She leans into his embrace, a coy smile on her face as she whispers something to him.

"Fuck this shit, man," I grumble to no one in particular as I stand up abruptly from the table.

Ignoring all of the eyes that are suddenly on me I step away from the bench and grab my backpack, before walking out of the cafeteria. I don't even offer an excuse to my friends as to why I'm leaving, because if I'm being honest with myself, I'm not exactly sure why.

This can't be about Killer. There has to be something else going on. I mean, it's been 11 days since she blew me off at her house. It's an entirely new week! I should've bounced back by now. I've never been hung up on someone for this long. Maybe I'm sick.

I wander aimlessly down the hallway, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with me. God, I'm a fucking mess. I can't focus. I suck ass at Lacrosse practice that we've started having everyday. Coach even fucking threatened to take me off the start line up if I don't get my shit together in time for the season opener in two months.

I don't know how, but somehow my feet carried me to the back corner of the main building where the library is. I just stand there, in a somewhat shocked awe. People actually hand out in here? Most of the tables are occupied, with either groups of students chatting quietly around tables or single students with their heads buried in books. More than a few of my classmates look at me curiously, probably trying to figure out what I'm doing here.

Hell, even I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing here. I can count on both hands the number of times I've been in this library in the entire time I've gone to school here. I feel awkward just stand there so I start to walk around, looking at the overflowing, yet perfectly organized bookshelves as I waste the few minutes left until the bell rings for lunch to be over.

I pause in a section empty of all other students, the spines of the books as long as my forearms and as thick as three of my fingers. I look up to the ceiling, barely seeing the first book on the far right of the top shelf that says 1962. They keep a copy of all the year books in the library?