I smiled at myself. Yeah, I know, I am supposed to rise above it and be better than her, blah, blah, blah. But I’d been putting up with her crap for way too long.
“That was a little out of character for you,” Alex commented, sliding away from me.
The space made me feel empty inside. “I think it was about time, though.”
“Was it?” he mumbled to himself.
He could be so weird sometimes.
“So you never answered my question,” he said, selecting a random book off of the shelf.
“What question?”
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“What your fascination with astronomy is?”
“Oh, that.” I fiddled with the edges of the pages of the book I was holding. I wasn’t sure if I felt comfortable sharing the reason with him. It was kind of personal, especially because it was connected so closely to the prickle. The first time I’d ever been truly happy was when I’d looked up at the stars.
But if I told him that, I might come off sounding a little strange.
“Well, I guess it’s because the stars are so peaceful and mysterious and beautiful.” I met his eyes, which made me lose my train of thought and I ended up babbling. “Sometimes I wish I could be up there in the sky with them.”
His face dropped in horror, and I instantly regretted what I’d said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Did I say something…” Weird.
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He shoved the book he had in his hand back on the shelf and stood up. “I think I…I left my phone in my bag.” Then he practically sprinted off toward the table area.
I swallowed hard .I never should’ve opened my mouth. I really, really shouldn’t have.
I hung out in the astronomy section by myself until the bell rang. Then I went over to the table, carrying a few books I’d randomly pulled off of the shelf. To my surprise, Alex was there. I thought he’d left, but there he was, his phone pressed to his ear.
“Yes. Uh huh. I will,” he said. Seeing me, he quickly added, “I have to go.” He hung up and shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans. “So how much longer do you think it’s going to take for us to get this assignment finished?”
I set my books down on the table and shrugged, slightly irked by his brush off 168/695
attitude. “I don’t know. Like you said, we really haven’t gotten much done.”
“No we haven’t.” He slipped on his jacket and zipped it up. “Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking. Maybe I should come over to your house after school so we can try to finish it up.”
Huh?“You want to come over to my house?” He wanted to come over to my house. My house. I’d never had anyone over at my house. Ever. Especially some gorgeous guy who had the gift of making my mind go blank just by looking at me.
“Yeah.” He spoke slowly, like I was slow, which he probably thought I was. “Is there something wrong with your house?”
“No,” I said, which was sort of a lie.
There was something wrong with my house.
For starters, Sophia was there. “It's just that right now my grandmother and I are going through a…weird phase.”
Weird phase? I sounded like an idiot.
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He cocked an eyebrow, seeming amused.
“What kind of phase?”
What kind of phase? What would be the best way to explain it to him? Tell him that everything was… strange. That Sophia and Marco couldn’t stand me. That we…“A yelling one.” I decided. It was too complicated to even try.
He laughed. “So is that a yes or no?” I sighed. “I guess it’s a yes.” I wrote my address down on a piece of paper and gave it to him. He told me that he’d come over around 4:30. Then he left to go to lunch. As I watched him walk out, I felt more alone than I ever had.
I took my lunch out of my bag and headed back toward my usual loner spot, desperately wishing that I wasn’t.
Chapter 9
Marco and Sophia weren’t there when I got home. I was so glad. If I was really lucky then maybe they wouldn’t show up until after Alex had left.
I cleaned up my room a little while I waited for 4:30 to roll around. I also had a temporary loss of sanity where I played around with the idea of changing into something different. I was wearing jeans and a black tee, and they suddenly seemed so plain. But then I realized, who was I trying to kid? It wouldn’t change anything. I’d still be socially incompetent, weirdo Gemma with the freaky violet eyes. And besides, I didn’t even own anything other than t-shirts and jeans
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I turned on some music and started on the essay to pass the time. I marked some pages with a highlighter and jaunted down a few notes. I’d made some real progress by the time I heard the door bell ring.
I trotted down the stairs and opened the front door. Alex stood on the porch, the hood of his jacket pulled over his head as snowflakes drifted down on top of it.
“Hi.” I opened up the screen door and let him in.
He stepped into the foyer, rubbing his hands together to warm them up as he glanced around at everything. There wasn’t much to look at, though; a small table with a few framed pictures of Marco and Sophia on it, and a large painting of a castle by a lake.
“So this is where you live,” he remarked.
“Yep, this is where I live.” I didn’t mean to sound so unenthusiastic, but I did. “My rooms upstairs and I figured we could go up there and work on the assignment.” 172/695
“In your room?” He squirmed around uncomfortably, which I thought was odd.
Then again, a lot of things he did were odd.
I gave him a strange look. “If you want, we could work on it at the kitchen table.” He shook his head. “No, your room’s fine.”
I raised my eyebrows. Okay. Whatever.I gestured for him to follow me as I head up the stairs.
My bedroom was very plain, particularly for a teenage girl’s room. I could only imagine what someone like say Kelsey Merritt’s room looked like. Or what Aislin’s looked like. There was probably a lot of pink, and a lot of photos hanging up on the walls. There was nothing on my walls. I had no rugs to cover up the boring off-white carpet. The only thing that gave it any character at all 173/695
was a bookshelf in the corner that held my CD’s and books.
“So what should we do first?” I asked as Alex glanced around at my stuff. I suddenly felt uncomfortable being up in my room alone with him.
He traced his fingers along the titles of my CD’s. “Should we get the report out of the way first?”
“Yeah, we could do that. But I’ve already got a lot of it done.”
He turned and gaped at me. “You already started on it.”
I nodded. “I worked on it while I was waiting for you to get here. I found a few good ideas and started putting stuff together.
Really, there’s not too much left to do.” He mulled over what I said for longer than what seemed necessary. “You know, it doesn’t seem fair for you to do most of the work on the report, and to also have to help put the map together.”
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“I don’t mind,” I told him. And I wasn’t lying either. I really didn’t mind. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. Plus, I loved astronomy.
He tapped his finger on his bottom lip.
“No, it’s not right. I think I’ll just work on the map at home. That way I can make Aislin help.”
Assuming he was hinting that he wanted to leave, I said, “Okay, if that’s what you want to do then its fine by me.” It didn’t feel fine, though. The thought of him leaving made my stomach kind of queasy.
“So…what do you want to do now, then?” he asked me.
“Huh?” Had I misunderstood him?
“What? Are you staying?”
“I was planning on it.” He cocked an eyebrow. “That is unless you don’t want me to.” Me heart had already been pounding because of the whole him-being-in-my-room thing, but now it was in supercharge mode, 175/695