Ace of No Trades

Chapter Eight

Next day at school, I couldn't find myself to care about the polymerization reaction that Mister Mills droned on about. 

I struggled to concentrate on the reaction that he taught, while my eyes kept drifting to Ace. He was sitting beside the pretty girl he had been talking to yesterday, one that I now recognized as Viola Keen. As a manner of protesting against his rudeness, I had decided to keep his hoodie till he explicitly asked back for it. In a pathetic way, I felt like as long as I had his hoodie, he would have a reason to talk to me. 

The rest of the day, my mind was momentarily shifted from Ace when our teachers announced the start of midterms in a couple of weeks. I sighed and made a mental note to create a proper schedule so I could revise in time instead of staying up one night prior to the exam. 

Much to my shock, Ace spent the morning classes with Viola. I couldn't understand when he had gotten so close to her when to me she was a virtual stranger. Every time that he laughed or talked to her, my heart seemed to break a little. The poisonous ivy of envy took root in my heart, the green vines spreading through my chest and encasing me in its vice-like grasp. 

In an attempt to pretend like I had a social life outside of Ace, I decided to go and talk to Gus Burnwood and his friends. He had so far been nice to me, and maybe a part of me hoped that Ace would see me talking with him and feel just a little bit jealous. Which made no sense. Why would he be jealous?

I found Burnwood during the break near the entry of the cafeteria. He was leaning against the wall and talking to another guy from his swim team. He was surrounded by two more guys I had seen before but didn't quite know the name. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that a few feet away from him, Ace stood leaning casually against a pillar. His eyes were trained on me, as if studying me. Invigorated, I strode confidently over to Burnwood who gave me a friendly smile. 

"Hey, Spencer."

I nodded at his friends and grinned at him. "Burnwood."

"Good thing that you came along by the way," he straightened up and reached into his back pocket. A while later, he extricated a colourful sheet of paper, a pamphlet, and handed it to me. "It's tonight near the high way. You wanna come with us?"

I stared at the pamphlet which was essentially an image of a silhouetted crowd and a stage where a few tackily dressed people were playing instruments. A woman with way too many piercings stood in front as she yelled into the mic, her features contorted with what I assumed was passion. The heading simply read, 'Rave On.'

"Just what it says," one of the other guys spoke up. I gazed up to see that he was towering much above me. "A rave pit. Just some music. If you're free you should come."

I felt slightly nauseated with the idea of being in such a massive, noisy crowd. It would be a hassle, but maybe it was time I broke out of my shell.