CHAPTER 6

Josh

I’ve gotten through the rest of the day without seeing the girl again. I’ve mentally flogged myself for opening my stupid mouth at lunch. If there was a reason for it, I might cut myself some slack, but the girl really didn’t seem like the helpless type. Maybe I was just trying to stop her from making enemies of those bitches. Maybe I just wanted Sarah to shut the hell up because I know she’s better than that. Maybe I just wanted the girl to look at me again.

The halls are already emptying out as I push my way towards the back of the school, against the flow of the rest of the students. I want to get to the theater wing before they lock the doors so I can pick up my level. I left it there earlier and I need it this afternoon. Plus, I won’t leave it overnight, anyway. It’s mine. It was my father’s. It’s old and wooden and archaic but I won’t use another one and I won’t take the chance that it’ll disappear if I leave it here; so I go back to get it. When I get there, it’s sitting where I left it on one of the unfinished shelving units I’ve been working on all week. I check my progress and run my hands along the edges. I’ll be done with the whole thing by next Wednesday. I could drag it out until Friday, but I’m hoping Mr. Turner will be done with the preliminary procedure crap before that. I’d like to get back to shop and work on something more interesting than shelves. I grab the level and head back out to the parking lot.

I’m almost to my car when I hear my name.

“Bennett! Josh!” Drew corrects himself almost instantly because he knows he sounds like an asshole calling me by my last name. He’s standing in the next row of cars and he’s not alone. He rarely is, so it’s not surprising to see a girl standing next to him as he leans against his car in the pose I have grown accustomed to seeing; the one where he tries to look casually indifferent while he works out the path of least resistance into a girl’s pants or down her shirt or up her skirt. Whatever the case may be.

What’s surprising is the girl he’s talking to. It doesn’t take more than a glance to know who she is; crazy-long black hair, tight black dress that barely covers her ass or her chest, black spike heels, black shit all over her eyes. Eyes that are turning to glare at me right now. As I get closer, the blank expression she usually wears changes. It’s subtle and I doubt most people would notice, because the change is mostly in the eyes, but I can see the difference. It’s not blank. She’s pissed, and if I’m not mistaken, she’s pissed at me. I don’t get much of an opportunity to examine it because she’s walking away before I even reach them.

“Call me!” Drew yells over his shoulder to her, laughing as if this is some sort of joke.

“You know her?” I ask, laying my books and my level on the hood of his car. Most of the parking lot has emptied out by this point. For as slow as the traffic moves into this place in the morning, the afternoon exodus takes no time at all.

“I plan to,” Drew responds, not looking at me. He’s still watching the girl walk away. I ignore the innuendo. If I had to acknowledge every thinly-veiled sexual suggestion that comes from his mouth, we’d talk of nothing else, which would probably make him happy.

“Who is she?”

“Some Russian chick. Nastya something I haven’t learned to pronounce. I was starting to worry that I was losing my appeal because she’d never talk to me, but apparently, she doesn’t talk to anybody.”

“Are you surprised? She kind of screams antisocial.” I pick the level up off the car and turn it over in my hands watching the water shift from one side to the other.

“Yeah, but it’s not that. She doesn’t talk, period.”

“At all?” I look at him skeptically.

“At all.” He shakes his head, smiling with warped satisfaction.

“Why not?”

“Don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t speak English. But then I guess she could still say yes and no and shit.” He shrugs as if it’s of no consequence.

“How do you even know?”

“Because she’s in my Speech & Debate class.” He smirks at the irony of that fact. I don’t respond. I’m trying to process the information, and Drew can keep this conversation going on his own. “I’m not complaining. Gives me a chance to work on her every day.”

“Not a very good sign if you have to work on her. Maybe you are losing your appeal,” I reply dryly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says in all seriousness, looking down at his watch. His smile returns. “It’s 3:00. Better get your ass home.” And with that, he hops in his car and drives off, leaving me standing in the parking lot, thinking of pissed off Russian girls and black dresses.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 506