Kissing Galileo: Dear Professor Book #2
Page 25
“How does the ocean say hello to the beach?” I asked myself, quietly supplying the answer, “Gives it a little wave.”
The stupid joke helped loosen my throat and I cracked a small smile, laughing lightly at the present predicament and scolding myself.
Don’t be stupid. This is no big deal. Whatever.
The first fourteen—soon to be fifteen—years of life had taught me many valuable lessons. One of the most important was that the magnitude of disappointment was directly proportional to the magnitude of expectations. I’d known this for a while, but the concept had finally solidified in my mind this year during physics class when we’d learned about Newton’s third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Right?
Well, it applied to life and hopes and dreams and expectations, too.
First mistake was coming to rely upon the chorus room. Second mistake was allowing myself to look forward to this moment all weekend. Eating lunch in a quiet, air-conditioned place was a luxury. Free of people, free of bugs, free of people who behaved like bugs. Now I had nowhere to eat my lunch that wasn’t free of bug-people.
“Come on now, Scarlet. You know better,” murmuring to myself, I rolled my eyes and stiffened my spine. “It could be worse. It could be the first month of school.”
My crack of a smile widened, and I sighed, thankful it wasn’t the first month of school as I turned to the tricky zipper of my bag. I needed to be careful. If it was unzipped past a certain point, it wouldn’t re-zip and I’d go the rest of the day with my books and papers falling all over the place.
Plus, I’d have to find a new zipper to sew inside and that would be difficult. Blythe Tanner, who was usually my source for clothes and such items in return for help with can and glass recycling, wasn’t speaking to me ever since my dad threatened to disembowel her dad two months ago. Her father owned the junk yard and my father wanted to store stolen cars in his junk yard. Mr. Tanner—being not a criminal—refused.
A shiver raced down my spine and I promptly chased it—and thoughts of my father—away using a trick I’d picked up at ten years old: rephrase a situation as a scripted comedy TV show. Good old dad, always threatening disembowelments. What a character!
Yeah. I talked to myself a lot. I told myself a lot of jokes. I even had inside jokes . . . with myself. I guess folks needed to talk to someone, and it was mostly just me around for conversation. So, there you go.
Closing my eyes, I knelt on the ground and placed the bookbag carefully on the linoleum floor so I could gently tuck my food inside. With my eyes shut, sounds that were usually background noise sharpened and increased in volume. The rumble of students talking and eating became a roar, trays being set on tables, soda cans opening, laughter.
My stomach sunk, but only for half a second. Squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin, I immediately demanded that my stomach turn itself around and return to my middle. I did not have time for sinking stomachs, especially not over something so silly.
Lunch would be over in forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes is no big deal. I’ll figure it out. Pretending to fiddle with the front pocket of my bag, just in case a teacher happened by, I debated my options.
The lunchroom was not a possibility. Two choices awaited me within: try to sit with the other Iron Wraiths kids, or try to sit with anyone else, because there would be no empty tables. Green Valley was bursting at the seams, too many kids and too few seats.
I couldn’t sit with the Iron Wraiths kids. They’d most likely let me, seeing as how my father was the Club president, but I couldn’t bring myself do it. Prince King would probably try to do something horrible to get my attention or make me angry, and then Carla Creavers would do something to get Prince’s attention—maybe flirt with Cletus Winston—and then there would be a fight and we’d all get detention.
But I couldn’t sit with anyone else. No one wanted to be my partner for class projects—ever—and I honestly didn’t blame them. Firstly, who would want their kids hanging out with one of the Wraiths kids? Especially not the president’s daughter. Secondly, I was under no delusions about the state of my clothes and appearance. Clothes and appearance in high school are everything, and my nickname since eighth grade had vacillated between Smelly Scarlet or Sweaty Scarlet. It didn’t take a genius to comprehend that none of the “normal” kids would want me sitting at their lunch table.
Another option was the hallway just off cafeteria, but I quickly dismissed this possibility. Principal Sylvester had forbidden students from the corridor during lunch since last month, after Cletus Winston and Prince King had gotten into a fist-fight. Now it was off limits and heavily patrolled.
A noise snagged my attention, the sound of a toilet flushing, and I turned my head toward it. A few seconds later, two girls exited the bathroom, deep in conversation. I lowered my eyes to my bookbag and redoubled my pretend-fiddling while they walked past, paying me no mind. As soon as their voices faded, I returned my attention to the girl’s bathroom door.
Of course!
With my lunch tucked safely back inside my backpack—and the zipper closed—I brought the bag to my shoulder and stood, my decision made easy by the obvious choice.
“What did one toilet say to the other?” I muttered to myself, walking toward the bathroom and answering in my head, You look flushed.
My lips curved at the joke and I chuckled. “You look flushed. That’s funny. Or maybe it could be, you look pooped. Or how about, you look pissed.” The last punchline had me laughing and shaking my head at myself again, muttering, “Good one, Scarlet. I should write that—”
I was so lost in my punchline options that I almost collided with the boy’s bathroom door as it unexpectedly opened, missing a door handle to the groin by jumping backwards and to the side. But my quick thinking meant that my shoulder and chest collided with the boy who was exiting the bathroom, which meant that I fell backwards on my ass.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. As previously noted, this law applies to life, hopes, dreams, expectations, and masses traveling at varying velocities, especially when one of those masses is a huge boy, and the other mass is me.
“Are you—” the boy started, taking a hasty step in my direction, but then stopped speaking and moving just as suddenly.
I froze, a renewed spike of dread in my chest, fighting to keep the grimace from my face, and not just because my tailbone was going to be sore for several days as a result of my graceless fall. I didn’t need to look up to know this boy who’d accidentally knocked me down was none other than the star quarterback of the Green Valley football team, every girl’s fantasy boyfriend, and my secret crush since forever, Billy Winston.
Oh, also? He hated me.
So . . .
“Scarlet,” he said, and then released an annoyed huff, his voice flat. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, keeping my eyes on his feet, waiting for him to leave.
But he didn’t. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like he was about to leave, but he didn’t.
“Here,” he said gruffly, his tone laced with impatience as he reached out a hand. “Let me help you up.”
Instinctively, I tucked my chin to my chest and sat frozen, heat climbing up my neck and cheeks.
Just leave, I wanted to say. Just freaking go!
A moment passed and eventually his hand dropped. Another moment passed and I heard him exhale a sigh. Without another word, he walked around me, and I listened as his footsteps carried him away, until the sound was swallowed by cheerful cafeteria chatter.
Then and only then did I allow myself to breathe, but I would not allow myself to think about what had just happened.
“No. Nothing happened,” I said. “Nothing happened. I tripped and I fell. He was never here. Nothing happened.”
Almost believing my new version of events, I pushed all those pesky, achy feelings into a dark corner and decided to tell myself another joke.
It was one of my favorites and usually made me laugh, or at least smile. But not today.
** END SNEAK PEEK **
Pre-Order Beard With Me Coming September 2019
ATTRACTION: Book #1 in the Hypothesis Series
Chapter One: Atoms, Molecules, and Ions
Quiet, silent, muted, hushed, stilled, reticent… I moved my mouth, breathed the words—soundlessly—from my hiding place.
This game comforted me, calmed me, settled my nerves. Yes, recalling synonyms while anxious was a bizarre coping strategy, but it worked. And very little usually worked.
The voices from beyond the cabinet grew louder and were accompanied by the click of heels and the dull echo of tennis shoes. I held my breath and strained to decipher how many sets of feet were represented by the approaching shoes. I guessed two, also because only two voices were audible.
“…think that he’s going to want to fuck you? After what happened last Friday?” The words were a hiss emanating from an unknown male voice; I tensed at the use of vulgarity.
“I’ll get there late. If you do your job then he won’t even remember it,” came a feminine reply. The female was closest to my hiding spot in the chemistry lab cabinet; her words were, therefore, much clearer.
“Shit,” he said. I tried not to huff in disgust at his foul language as he continued. “I don’t even know how much to use. I’ve only used it on bitches.”
“I don’t know either. Just…double it. Martin is, what? Like, twice the size of the girls you usually dope out?”
I tensed again, my eyes narrowing. The name Martin, in particular, made my heart beat faster. I knew only one Martin.
Martin Sandeke.
Martin Sandeke, the heir to Sandeke Telecom Systems in Palo Alto, California, and smartypants in his own right. I also came from a notable family—my mother was a US senator, my father was the dean of the college of medicine at UCLA, and my maternal grandfather was an astronaut. However, unlike Martin’s family, we weren’t billionaires. We were scientists, politicians, and scholars.
Martin Sandeke, the six-foot-three modern day physical manifestation of Hercules and captain of our university’s rowing team.
Martin Sandeke, unrepentant manwhore extraordinaire and kind of a jerk-faced bully.
Martin Sandeke, my year-long chemistry lab partner and all-around most unobtainable person in the universe—who I never spoke to except to ask for beakers, relay findings, and request modifications to the heat level of my Bunsen burner.
And by Bunsen burner I meant, literally, my Bunsen burner. Not the figurative Bunsen burner in my pants. Because I hoped Martin Sandeke had no idea that he affected the heat levels of my figurative Bunsen burner.
He did affect them. But, obviously—since he was cosmically unobtainable and kind of a bully—I didn’t want him to know that.
“He’s about two twenty, so…yeah. I guess,” the male responded. His tennis shoes made scuffing sounds on the linoleum as he neared my hiding spot.
I rolled my lips between my teeth and stared at the crack in the cabinet doors. I couldn’t see his face, but I could now discern he was standing directly in front of the cabinet, next to the unknown girl. Maybe facing her.
“But what’s in it for me?” the cuss monster asked, his voice lower than it had been, more intimate.
I heard some rustling then the sloppy sounds of kissing. Instinctively, I stuck my tongue out and mocked gagging. Listening to public displays of affection was unpleasant, especially when lip smacking and groaning was involved, and most especially while trapped in a chemistry lab cabinet that smelled heavily of sulfur.
The next words spoken came from the girl and were a bit whiny. “Money, dummy. Martin’s loaded—well, his family is loaded—and they’ll buy me off. All you have to do is give him the stuff tonight in his drink. I’ll take him upstairs, record the whole thing. Bonus if I get pregnant.”
My mouth dropped open, my eyes wide, unable to believe what I’d just heard. The awfulness, rustling, and lip smacking continued.
“You dope him and I’ll rope him.” The girl’s pleasure-filled gasps were audible and rather ridiculous sounding.
“Oh, yeah baby—touch me there.” These breathy words were accompanied by the sound of a beaker crashing to the ground and a zipper being undone.
I winced, scowled. Really, people had no manners or sense of decorum.
“No, no, we can’t. He’ll be here any minute. I need to leave,” the girl pleaded. I noted she sounded the perfect mixture of regretful and hurried. “You need to make sure he stays at the house for the party. I’ll be there at eleven, so give him the stuff around ten thirty, okay?”
The zipper came back up, the man backed into the cabinet. I jerked at the resultant bang of the doors. “How do you know where he’ll be all the time?”
“We dated, remember?”
“No. He fucked you. You never dated. Martin Sandeke doesn’t date.”
“Yeah, well, I know his schedule. He comes here on Fridays and does…hell if I know what with his ugly little lab partner.”
Ugly?
I twisted my lips to the side, my heart seized in my chest.
I hated the word ugly. It was an ugly word.
Ugly, unsightly, gross, misshapen, repelling…I mentally recited. For some reason, the synonym game didn’t help me this time.
“His lab partner? Wait, I’ve heard about her. Isn’t her dad an astronaut, or something?”
“Who cares? She’s nobody. Kathy or Kelly or something. Whatever,” the girl huffed, the heels of her shoes carrying her farther away. “Forget about her, she’s nothing. The point is you need to stay here and make sure he comes tonight, okay? I gotta go before he gets here.”
“Bitch, you better not be playing me.”
The girl responded but I didn’t catch the words. My back itched and while tucked in the cabinet, I couldn’t reach the spot. In fact, it would be a difficult spot to reach even if I were standing in an open field. Also, my mind was still reciting synonyms for ugly.
I didn’t think I was ugly.
I knew my hair was unremarkable. It was long, wavy, and dark brown. I always wore it in a ponytail, bun, or clip. This was because hair, other than warming my head, served no purpose. Mostly, I ignored it.
I rather liked my eyes. They were grey. It was an unusual color I’d been told on more than one occasion. Granted, no one ever said they were pretty, but no one ever said they were ugly either. That had to count for something.
I was no supermodel in height or size, at five foot seven and a size ten. But I wasn’t Jabba the Hut either.
My teeth were reasonably straight, though I had a noticeable gap between the front top two. I was also pale—the color of paper my best friend, Sam, had once said. My eyebrows were too thick, I knew this. Sam—short for Samantha—often remarked that I should get them plucked, thinned out.
I ignored this advice, as I didn’t care about thick eyebrows so long as they never became a unibrow like my aunt Viki’s.
I glanced down at my comfortable clothes—men’s wide-leg, navy cargo pants with torn-off cuffs, worn Converse, and an oversized Weezer T-shirt. I might be plain, unremarkable, or even mousy. But it’s not like I was a horrible beast who turned people into stone with a single gaze. I was just…low maintenance.
That was okay with me. I didn’t need attention, didn’t want it. People, especially people my age and especially other girls, made very little sense to me. I didn’t see the value in spending hours in front of a mirror when I could be playing video games, or playing the guitar, or reading a book instead.
But sometimes, when I was with Martin and we were calculating particulate levels, I wanted to be beautiful. Really, it was the only time I wished I looked different. Then I remembered he was a jerk-face and everything went back to normal.
I gave myself a mental shake an
d gritted my teeth. Straining to listen, I pressed my ear against the cabinet door and waited for signs the unknown male was still present.
The itch in the center of my back was spreading and I didn’t know how much longer I could stand it. On the itch scale, it was quickly moving from aggravating to brain-exploding torturous.
But then the sound of shuffling footsteps approaching from the hall snagged my attention. They slowed, then stopped.
“Hey man. Whatsup?” said the mystery cussing fiend.
“What are you doing here?” Martin asked. I guessed he was standing at the entrance to the lab because his voice was somewhat muffled. Regardless, it made my stomach erupt in rabid butterflies. I often had a physical response to the sound of Martin’s voice.
“Wanted to make sure you’re coming to the house party tonight.”
I heard more footsteps. They were Martin’s. I’d know that nonchalant gait anywhere—because I was pathetic and maybe a little obsessed with all things Martin Sandeke. But the difference between my obsession with Martin and the other girls’ obsession with Martin was that I had absolutely no problem admiring his finer features from afar.
Because Martin really was kind of a jerk.
He’d never been a jerk to me, likely because I was an excellent lab partner. We spoke only about chemistry—and he liked acing assignments—but I’d seen him in action. He’d lose his temper and then BOOM! he’d go off on whatever poor soul he happened to believe responsible.
If it was a girl, they’d leave crying after coming in contact with his razor wit (and, by razor, I mean cutting and wound inducing). He never called them names, he didn’t have to. He’d just tell them the truth.
If it was a guy, he might only use words. But sometimes he used fists too. I’d been a witness to this once—Martin beating the crap out of a slightly shorter but also slightly broader jilted boyfriend of one of his one-night stands. At least, that was the rumor that went around after both of them were escorted out of the dining hall by campus police.
Martin was an equal opportunity jerk-face and therefore best avoided outside of the chemistry lab.