7Turns out that I'm not dead... Okay.,. maybe a little bit. X_x but hey, if you're still reading, I've gotten the school confusion worked out and I have officially been accepted into the Academy of Art. So... you know.. .It's a good thing and I'm feeling a bit inspired. Let's see how far this takes me :D
y, e v e n
"Aidan, did you hear me?"
The nasaly voice snapped me out of my daydream and I had to suppress a groan.
It was another Wednesday at Peyton High School and I was just about ready to start banging my head into my desk. This was a common symptom of being crammed into a stuffy classroom with twenty-eight equally bored high school teenagers for an hour and fifteen minutes. It also didn't really help that the school's only Economics teacher was about as bright as a dead goldfish. Just as engaging, too.
And for some reason he kept. Calling. Me.
Jesus! You answer one question for the guy and suddenly you're his best friend.
Fortunately for me, this class was the last I'd have to endure before lunch period started. Then I was free to kick and scream out my frustration for the next forty-five minutes. Unfortunately for me, however, lunch didn't start for another twelve, meaning my sanity was seriously at stake.
I had to resort to drastic matters.
"Aidan, could you stop doing that, please? You'll hurt yourself."
I ignored the voice of Mr. Laurie and continued to slam my forehead into the surface in front of me. That was what... the eleventh time he'd said my name today?
"Can't hurt more than being in this class." I muttered into the desk top. A few of the students nearby snickered and I groaned. Glad to see my mental strain was amusing.
"Aidan-" Twelfth. "-please. I don't want to have to send you to the nurse's office."
I almost snorted. Was that some kind of threat?
After a few more moments of depleting my braincells, I'd decided that I was tired of hearing Laurie's voice for the day. Actually, I think I decided the moment I walked into the class. The real motivation was that my name count was getting pretty high and keeping up with the double digits was starting to make my head hurt.
Annoyance won out my attempt to cure my boredom.
Luckily, it wasn't long before Mr. Laurie announced that it was five minutes left in class before the bell would ring and advised us to start gathering our things. Well, that's what I think he said. After "five minutes left", his voice was drowned out by everyone rushing to pack up.
Those were the slowest five minutes of my life...
When the bell did finally ring, I grabbed my things and watched as twenty-eight teens shoved through an eight-by-four door. Some of the students actually shouted for joy when they crossed the threshold. I would have laughed if I wasn't so preoccupied with getting hell out of the classroom myself.
Once I was free from the prison that was Economics, I made my way down the hallway to my locker, careful of the random couples sucking face against other students' lockers and the groups of freshmen playing with their trading cards in the middle of the walkway. Yeah... Peyton High may have been the best high school in the district but that didn't make it any less weird. These kids were no joke.
I shook my head as I pushed through the hall.
It didn't take long to reach the end of the hall where my locker was located. I was only a few feet away when I heard my name called. It seemed I was popular these days.
"Tyler!"
While habit tempted me to turn around, recognition allowed me to ignore the voice and continue to my locker.
I shook my head. After enduring Laurie's class, I vowed that I'd enjoy the next forty-five minutes without any annoyances.
"Aidan!" the voice persisted as I made work of twisting the dial to my locker's combination.
"You know I love it when you play hard to get!" yelled the obnoxious idiot.
"Ugh." I grunted before throwing my books into the open locker. I didn't have to look at him to see the cocky grin on Tristan Asher's face when he finally caught up to me.
And to think, I was looking forward to not having to kick someone's ass this lunch.
I sighed and threw Tristan a sideways glance. "What do you want?"
"Nothing." he said casually. But there was nothing casual about his devious expression. "I was just thinking..."
I nodded with a sympathetic frown. "Hurt yourself?" I even went as far as patting his shoulder condescendingly.
My sarcasm didn't faze him. "That," he continued, leaning against the locker next to mine. "Friday's coming up and I wanted to know where you wanted to go for our date."
"Was that before or after you remembered that you're dating my best friend's sister?"
"'Dating' is a such an ugly term." he smirked, cockily.
I tilted my head slightly. "Tristan, has anyone ever told you to play in traffic?"
The cocky grin never left his face, much to my chagrin.
"Yeah, yeah." he waved. "So, Friday." I let out a frustrated breath and slammed my locker shut. "I was thinking movies, dinner, then back at my place for dessert." He winked.
I crinkled my nose in disgust.
Tristan propped his arm above my head and leaned in closer to me. This was one of the many times I wished I was taller. The way his six-one stature towered above my five-eight self was starting to make me feel uncomfortable.
Of course I'd never admit that to him. Tristan had a way of taking something completely unrelated to him and distorting it into a compliment and trust me, he didn't need anymore of an ego than he already had. Tristan was far from ugly but his personality wasn't the least bit attractive.
"Such a waste." I shook my head.
Tristan's smirk dropped and was replaced by a scowl. I raised an eyebrow. So insulting the guy's intellect (or lack thereof) was more offensive than blatantly telling him to kill himself? I'll never understand what anyone saw in this idiot.
I didn't have too much time to think about it because I was suddenly being pulled backwards by an arm around my waist.
"Be careful, Aidan. You don't want to stand too close to it; you might catch something." said a masculine voice over my shoulder.
I turned to the owner of the voice and grinned. So that's what's got Asher's panties in a bunch? Now it was my turn to smirk.
My savior was none other than Aaron Lucas. He was tall (compared to me, of course) standing at about six-three with a naturally sunkist tan that I was sure I wasn't the only one jealous of. His medium length dark brown hair was cut into a stylish mess of spikes and his handsome, angular face was home to amazingly bright grey eyes, as well as dimples you could die for. As if you needed anymore convincing that this guy was a male model, his body was just shy of being too muscular. Especially for someone not on any of Peyton's sports team. The boy had great genes. I should know, being best friends with the guy for years kind of adopted you into the family.
Surprisingly enough, Aaron wasn't as pig-headed as you'd expect for one of the most attractive guys at our school. Tristan could learn a thing or two from him.
Speak of the devil, Tristan was fuming enough that I thought that the daggers he was sending Aaron's way might stab me instead. I would have shuddered if I weren't used to Tristan's death glares. You don't really have a choice when you're always around the object of his hate.
"Anyway," Tristan spat, harshly. His eyes turned back to me and softened. "Friday. Think about it, because you know I'm just going to keep asking until you cave in and fall madly in love with me." He winked.
I rolled my eyes.
"So that's how you do it?" Aaron butt in, smirking. "You annoy them into dating you? Hey," he shrugged. "whatever works, I guess."
Tristan sent a wicked grin at Aaron then turned his gaze onto me. "Say what you will, but my methods are what got Leah in bed on the first date." He mimicked Aaron's careless shrug.
I watched Aaron, warily, only to see him roll his eyes.
"I never said my sister was the brightest crayon in the box." I applauded Aaron's calm exterior. If it were my little sister he was talking about, I'd probably be in jail for attempted murder. It's probably a good thing that I'm an only child.
"Maybe that's why I'm moving onto something more challenging." Tristan's eyes brightened and I didn't like the way they were aimed at me. "It won't be long until Aidan realizes how satisfying it is to be with a real man."
Aaron wrapped an arm around my shoulders and held me against him. He looked down to me with a seductive smile. I wanted to roll my eyes. "Oh, she already knows just how satisfying a real man is."
I sighed. Somewhere down the line Aaron decided that because I'd chosen to ignore Tristan's asshole-ish tendencies, he had to do the exact opposite. Like it was his duty to have the last word. This was going to turn into a pissing contest.
"Okay!" I said, throwing my hands up. "We're not going to do this. I refuse to be the bone between two dogs."
I grabbed Aaron's arm and pulled him towards the entrance of the hall, leaving Tristan at my locker and pointedly ignoring his, "It's funny that you mention 'bone'." comment.
I glared at Aaron.
"What?" He asked innocently. I gave him a look that said, 'You know what you did.'
Thanks to him my already unwanted visit from Tristan went even longer than I wanted it to. Now there was about thirty-five minutes left in lunch and I wasn't at all eager to be stuffed into another classroom so soon.
I groaned. "Why do you keep leading him on? You know that the more you flaunt our ''relationship'', the harder he's going to try to get into my pants. And quite frankly, I'm tired of being the bait. I'd love for him to hit on you every chance he got and see how you like it."
"Ehh... I'm not his type." Aaron smiled, once again wrapping his arm around my shoulder, no doubt for Tristan's benefit on the off chance he was still watching us. "I hope not."
I shook my head and sighed. It was hard to stay mad at someone with such deep dimples. Damn them.
"Besides, you should take it as a compliment."
I snorted, pushing the hall's door open. "Because the world's biggest man-whore wants to have his way with me?"
"Hey, it could be worse." said a redhead standing on the other side. "He could want to date you." She wiggled her fingers in a creepy gesture.
I nodded gravely at our eavesdropper. "You're absolutely right. That is worse."
Alex laughed and pushed my arm playfully. I grinned.
Alex Porter was, for lack of better word, perfect. She stood at about my height with vibrant red hair that ended just at the small of her back, warm hazel-green eyes and flawless cream skin. Alex was known for being smart, witty, confident, passionate as well as sarcastic, blunt... stubborn... a little hot headed at times... The list goes on and on. But above all else, she's known as Aaron's and my best friend.
"So now that we've sucessfully wasted-" I checked the time on my phone. "-seventeen minutes of lunch, can we please pretend to care for the shriveled remains of Aidan's stomach by filling it with cardboard pizza?"
I didn't bother waiting for the sarcastic remarks that were sure to come and walked ahead of my friends as they unsuccessfully hid their laughter at my expense. I rolled my eyes as I walked in my quest to save what was left of the lunch period.
And this was a normal school day in my extraordinary life.
Too bad that was all going to change soon and I could do absolutely nothing about it.
Hopefully I didn't disappoint with this chapter seeing as how I've been working on it for months. X_x stupid writer's block.
Extra Special Thanks to larkgrace, Holly Nicole, deonna18 and midnightsecrets for the reviews, favorites, and alerts! :D
-Stace :]