Seven

The next day was better, even though I did have to turn off the alarm myself. Aunt Mo didn’t make pancakes, so I didn’t have to eat, so Katy didn’t get mad at me for being so slow, because I was outside first. Which meant I had time to prepare myself for the noise, which meant that it wasn’t such a shock (I was getting used to it already), which made my day better.

Of course, I also didn’t have the hopeful anticipation of becoming editor-in-chief, but that meant that I didn’t have the disappointment of finding my hopes to be in vain. And by this point, everyone was starting to feel the exhaustion of summer, so the exuberance level was down a notch or two. Besides, it was really hot—a point of irritation for me, causing my apparel to be an open button-down over a t-shirt, both black per my usual—and nobody really wanted to move or talk or, really, be in school.

During third period, as I was working on our first assignment of the year (write a poem using a simile or metaphor—easy), someone laid their hand on my arm. I turned in my seat to see that it was that Bane boy sitting behind me, a friendly and welcoming smile on his face. “Want to meet up during lunch—you do have second lunch, right? Ms. Moreno said you did—to talk about getting started on the magazine? In my old school, we started during the summer, but I didn’t meet you until yesterday, so we have to get working fast.”

I stared at his hand on my arm. It was bad enough that he had come in and taken my job, but now he was touching me? My nose wrinkled ever so slightly at his skin’s contact with my sleeve, as if it might melt away, leaving my arm exposed. Bane followed my line of sight, and pulled his hand away. That taken care of, I turned my eyes up to his. He had oddly blue eyes, for a brunette. They were a rather pretty color, I had to admit. “Want to meet over lunch?” he asked again.

I really would rather not have met with him over lunch. I had been planning on doing my French homework over lunch, so that I didn’t have to take my rather heavy book home that night. And, if the discussion of Brunette and Dirty Blonde yesterday was any indication, my sitting with Bane at lunch might lead to people asking me questions, and that wouldn’t be fun.

I nodded once, and turned back around.

My pencil was in hand again, but I couldn’t concentrate on my poem anymore. Bane had distracted me, and I couldn’t get back into it now. And, oh great, I had to have a “meeting over lunch”. Who called having lunch together “meetings,” anyway?

But maybe this would turn out to be good. Maybe I could explain things to him, and then he would leave me alone. I had trained the entire rest of the world to ignore me; why shouldn’t I be able to do the same with Bane. The thought was a comforting one.