Whoops.

I sucked in a breath of air.

Alex blinked, breaking our gaze. Immediately, he flung his attention back to the front of the classroom. I watched him, confused and somewhat sad. Why I felt these things, I couldn’t tell you. Well, at least about the sad part. The confused part was totally understandable.  Electricity that buzzed between two people. What could be more confusing than that?

But which one of us was causing it? If I had to guess, I’d say it was me since weird seemed to be my middle name. Although, if I was the one causing it, why did I only feel it when I was around him?

“Alright, everyone go ahead and begin.” Mr. Sterling voice rose over my thoughts.

Great. Go ahead and begin what?

I casually peeked over at Aislin, trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing.

“Well,” she flipped open her book, “how should we do this?”

I stared at her blankly. Do what?

Sensing my confusion, she said, “We’re supposed to be working on the review questions as a group.”

“Oh,” I said idiotically. Note to self: start paying better attention. “Um…we could just divide the questions between the three of us, I guess.”

“Is that how you usually do it when you work in a group?” she asked.

“Sure,” I told her, holding back a laugh. Work in a group. The only time I ever worked in a group was when teachers forced me to. And since this class went by the sit-wherever-you-want-work-with-the-people-at-your-table option, guess what? I never worked in a group. Ever. Because I sat alone.

All the time.

“Why do we have to work together at all?” Alex interrupted, his voice as sharp as glass. He glared at me, his eyes so full of hate I nearly melted into the back of my chair.

“Alex knock it off.” Aislin hissed. “I mean it. Be nice.”

Well, at least I wasn’t the only one noticing his hatred for me.

He shook his head. “We don’t need to work together just because the teacher suggested it.”

My jaw dropped. Okay, so I know I’m a little weird and everything, but what the heck had I ever done to him? I mean, besides stare a little? Okay, well, maybe a lot. But hey, staring never hurt anyone.

Aislin leaned in toward him and lowered her voice. But I could still hear her. Hello, I was sitting right here.

“Alex,” she whispered. “I don’t know what your problem is, but you need to stop. Now.”

After that, it got quiet. And the awkward kind of quiet where no one speaks and the silence is almost maddening.

“You know what,” Alex said, slicing me with a glare, “I think I’m going to take off early.” He shoved his chair away from the table and got to his feet.

Aislin reached up and caught him by the sleeve of his grey thermal shirt. “Alex sit down.”

He yanked his arm away from her, threw his book in his bag, and hurried down the stairs. He went straight up to Mr. Sterling’s desk and said something. Mr. Sterling gave him a nod, and he left, bumping his elbow on doorway on his way out.

For a moment, I just stared at the doorway. There were so many different feelings pouring through me, half of them new. Hurt, anger, pain, longing. It was too much. My brain felt like it was going to explode from the overload.

“I’m so sorry,” Aislin apologized. “He’s just been moody lately with the move and everything.”

“Oh.” I tore my eyes off of the doorway and focused on her. “Okay.”

She frowned. “Are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“Huh?” I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.” I faked a smile, pretending like it wasn’t a big deal.  That I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up. That my heart didn’t feel like it was breaking. That a guy I barely knew who hated me wasn’t tearing me apart. But it was. It really, really was.

Chapter 4

So if I thought my life had been strange with the not-being-able-to-feel-prickle-up-the-neck-and-suddenly-you-can-feel thing (I really needed to give a name), then I had no clue what strange meant. Over the last few days the word “strange” had taken on an entirely new meaning to me.

First off, Alex did not like me. And that was putting it very, very mildly. When he looked at me, half of the time it was as if he was staring of into some far off place—like I wasn’t even there. And the other half of the time, the brightness in his eyes darkened with utter loathing.

It sucked.

Why he felt this way about me still remained a mystery. Yeah, I was a loner and everything. I had no friends.  I was quiet. Not to mention the violet shade of my eyes was beyond startling. But I just couldn’t see any of these reasons being the cause behind his dislike for me. Even Kelsey Merritt had never pierced me with such withering looks.

The only reason I could come up with, as to why Alex hated me so much, was that maybe he blamed me for the fact that every time he sat down at our table in astronomy, the electric sensation sparked up. But I still wasn’t even sure if he could feel the electricity.

So where did this leave me? Nowhere basically. For the time being, my brain had taken up temporary residency in the Land of Confusion.

Regardless of my problems, life still moved on. School moved on. Mr. Sterling started pushing more and more for group participation, like he could tell Alex and I were having issues and wanted to force us to work them out with each other. But how was I supposed to work out my issues with Alex when I wasn’t sure what the issues were?

It didn’t matter, though, because Alex wasn’t having any part of it. He refused to work on any of the assignments as a group, crossing his arms like a two-year-old and not doing anything.

It was Friday when things finally took a shift in a different direction. Mr. Sterling had passed out a deck of cards with the constellations printed on them in gold ink. Now, as a group, we were supposed to be holding the cards up for one another and trying to identify them, but doing so would have required all three of us to work together. Instead, Alex had half of the cards and was identifying them to himself. He looked exceptionally good today, dressed in a dark grey Henley and faded jeans, his hair scattered messily just like always. But I was trying my best not to focus on how good he looked. And, let me tell you, it was working out real well for me too, because how good he looked was all I could focus on.

Across the table, Ailsin sat, texting away on her cell phone, her pale pink manicured nails hammering away at the buttons as she disregarded the assignment entirely. Over the last few days, I’d caught on that this blasé attitude seemed to be a trend for her, like she didn’t care at all about her grades.

The rest of the cards were on the table beside my elbow. I’d been doodling an inartistic rose on the cover of my notebook, daydreaming for the last fifteen minutes about what it would be like to be normal, while the electricity flowed lightly across my skin; a continuous reminder that normal was something I’d never be.

It was amazing how unfocused I was today. Normally, I’d have been all over the assignment, probably already halfway through the deck of cards. Lately though, my concentration had taken a drastic turn down Inattentiveness Lane.

Somehow I needed to get my concentration back.

As I added the thorns to the stem of my rose, Mr. Sterling appeared by our table, holding a pink slip of paper in his hand. Startled by his sudden appearance—and the fact that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to—I dropped my pen. It rolled off the table and landed on the floor as I scrambled to grab a card and pretend I’d been working on the assignment the whole time.

He frowned disapprovingly at me and set the pink slip down on the table in front of Aislin. “This came from the office for you.”

She snapped her cell phone shut and flashed him an innocent smile as she gathered up the slip of paper.