by Dean Murray
Chapter 10
The rest of the afternoon finished up on a quiet note. After I went back to my table, Rachel worked on some homework for a few more minutes, and then gathered up her things and slipped out.
I decided the new guy wasn't a football player when he started gathering up his books. No athlete in my experience ever took that many books anywhere. Not only that, he gently placed them in his backpack like someone who viewed the written word as his friend rather than as a necessary evil that interfered with the hero worship due him from the masses.
I was so busy watching him that I forgot to look away when he stood up, and he caught me staring. I expected annoyance, or possibly some of the disdain I'd endured off and on for the last forty-eight hours.
I didn't get either. I couldn't really interpret the look, but he held my eyes for several seconds, until I finally looked away, my face heating up. I tried to run through the entire range of possible emotions, to pin that look down to something that made sense. It wasn't attraction, it'd been too neutral for that. Envy, fear, friendship, none of them fit.
Whoever he was, he quietly left the room while my head was still whirling. I looked up to find Britney frowning at me. "What is your deal? I don't think I've ever seen Isaac notice anyone other than his girlfriend. He isn't like Alec, who notices everyone but is too good to actually speak to any of us. Isaac's just so caught up in whatever is going on inside his head that he doesn't realize any of us exist."
Britney slammed her book. "First Brandon decides he has the hots for you, and then you crack the ivory tower. There's absolutely no justice in the world."
I so wasn't looking forward to the ride home. Past experience had pretty much established that when Britney got like this there was no reasoning with her. Trying to explain that she hadn't seen the look from my end, that Isaac most definitely hadn't been attracted to me, would be useless.
I was pleasantly surprised when Britney's annoyance seemed to have blown over by the time we left the building. Before we'd even made it out of the parking lot, Britney was once again chattering about everyone else in the school and what they were or weren't doing lately. Considering that I still couldn't put a face with most of the names she was tossing around, the gossip wasn't just uninteresting, it was a near ordeal.
It wasn't until I looked over at the speedometer that I realized we really had been driving longer than normal rather than the gossip just making it seem to take forever. Britney caught me registering the fact she was driving under the speed limit for the first time I could remember, and broke off recounting Amy Stevens' supposed fling with one of the football players just long enough to blush.
"I figured I should be more careful of how fast I drive. You know, my dad keeps threatening to take away my car if I get any more tickets. With everything else going on right now he just might do it."
It was actually pretty plausible. I probably would've believed it if not for Rachel's description of the new rumor floating around school. Britney was trying to cater to my supposed fear of being in a speeding car. Only, my supposed fear was actually a very real fear, just not for the reasons Britney thought.
