27: not in that way

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27: CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

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27: CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"WHAT'RE you listening to?" Ethan leans over to look at the screen of my iPod.

"Borderline by Tame Impala," I answer him. I pause the song and remove my earbuds. I'm doing a Buzzfeed quiz and I shoot a sly look to Ethan beside me.

"This quiz seems fun."

Ethan looks up from his phone. "Yeah?"

"Come. Look at the answer I got." I'm just trying to get words out of him.

He crouches down and leans over me to look at the computer screen. His hands grip the back of my chair and he is so close to me that I can smell the scent from of his woody cologne. I swallow and discreetly inch away. He says, "Cool."

I am finally to breathe when he pulls away and stands up to his full height. "Yeah...cool." I'm disappointed at his unequivocal answer.

He sits down next to me in his seat beside me and scrolls through his phone. Ever since the whole incident last week, he's been closed off despite the fact that I already apologised. I don't know what to do to get his old self back. He's been rather distant.

"Hey, are you still mad at me?" I fiddle with my skirt.

Ethan looks up from his phone. "Mad at you?"

My cheeks heat up and I look away from his scrutinising gaze. He sure does have that effect on me. "Yeah, after the whole Annalise incident."

"Is that what we're going to refer to it as?"

I dismissively wave my hands. "Does it matter? I already apologised but I still feel like you're mad at me. Do you want me to apologise again?"

"Nah, you're good."

My chest deflates. He sounds so bored. "I don't know what I have to do for things to go back to normal," I mumble.

Ethan blinks. Then, "they are back to normal. You're just imagining things." And then he goes back to typing something out on his phone.

I sigh. "Well, then tell me what I can do to make it up to you."

"Maybe let me watch this video in peace." He sounds annoyed, now.

I bite down on my tongue and look away.

Before I can start to cry, a kid walks into the classroom with a bunch of papers in his hands. Our chemistry teacher grunts at him and tells him to pass the papers down to the class. Nala beside me slides a paper across and I look at it. It's a voting paper and my name is on it. I eye Nala from the corner of my eye and she ticks the box next to my name. I bet that everybody will vote for Annalise.

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