Page 16 of My Fake Date With My Childhood Friend
“It's nice to meet you all,” I said, finally finding my voice.
The entire table started talking at once, asking me about my life, what I did, and where I was from. It felt amazing to be surrounded by so many people who cared about me and wanted to know everything about me. It felt good for people to talk to me again. Nobody was looking at me like,Oh, Penny, the poor girl who didn’t know she was being cheated on.I was starting to think that maybe this was what it was like to have friends.
six
The bell rang loudlyat the end of lunch, echoing off the walls of the cafeteria. Alexander stood up, brushing the wrinkles out of his uniform, then held a hand out to me to help me up.
“Thanks,” I said as I got to my feet. I didn't really need the help, but I appreciated it nonetheless. Alexander just nodded in response, seeming almost embarrassed, although I couldn't think of any reason why he would be. He was acting like a perfect boyfriend.
We walked together to our math class, hand in hand. Alexander didn't let go once, even as we weaved our way between people. As we walked, I couldn't help but notice all the girls who were giving Alexander flirtatious looks. He deserved it — he always looked so perfect and handsome, and he was probably one of the most popular kids at school, which only made him more appealing to the ladies. But even though he and I weren't really dating, I was still a little offended that they were looking at him like that. I mean, they thought he was my boyfriend, and they knew I'd been cheated on before, and they were still looking at him like that?
“Relax,” Alexander murmured in my ear.
“What?”
“You're grabbing onto my hand so tight that I feel like my fingers are going to pop off.”
“Oh.” I loosened my grip. “Sorry.”
“You okay?” He asked in concern.
“Yeah,” I said. I shook my head and tried to ignore everyone around us. “Yeah, I'm fine,” I said. Even to me, my voice didn't sound convincing, but Alexander didn't say anything else.
When we got to class, I automatically headed to my usual seat in the back of the room, but Alexander had other ideas. He pulled me to the middle of the room and pushed me down in the seat next to him.
“Why here?” I asked with a frown.
“Because this is where I sit,” Alexander said simply. “And I want to sit with my girlfriend.”
“But I usually sit over there,” I said, jerking a thumb over my shoulder. “Which means somebody else usually sits here, and I'm taking their place.”
“Relax, it's just Kyle who usually sits with me,” Alexander said. He stretched his arms out and yawned. “He won't mind. I always move for him when he gets new girlfriends.”
Now that he mentioned it, I did notice that it happened a lot. Kyle always seemed to end up sitting next to a new girl every few weeks.
“Fine,” I sighed. “But if Kyle gets mad, we have to move.”
Alexander just laughed and leaned his head against my shoulder. We sat in silence for a few minutes, just taking in the noise of the room and the people around us. It felt oddly comforting, like I had finally found a place that was mine.
A minute later, Kyle walked into the class. He didn't even look shocked that I was sitting in his spot. He winked at us as he went by, then continued on to the back of the class. I turned around in my seat just in time to see him casually sit in my typical spot and start talking to the girl in the next seat over.
“Told you,” Alexander said smugly.
“Yeah, yeah.” I faced forward again and opened my binder. “I get it. You know everything.”
Alexander tugged on my hair lightly. “Could I get that in writing? Just to remind me when you're not there.”
I shoved his shoulder. “Shut up and get your books out.”
Our teacher walked into the class. Everyone adjusted themselves and stopped everything they were doing, and the class became silent.
“Okay, class, let’s get on with today's lesson,” he said.
He projected his laptop screen onto the whiteboard, and my eyes scanned the mess of notes scrawled on the mundane-looking image. He started droning on about some concept, but my mind immediately drifted, getting distracted by everything going on around me in class. Usually, when I was in a class, I easily focused on the teacher and what they were saying. But today, it was just background noise. I could hear the rustling of paper as people moved around, the occasional cough or laugh, and most importantly, Alexander's steady breathing next to me.
Two rows ahead of me, Sally was cutting out something that must have been for an art class. Kyle was whispering with the girl sitting next to him. She kept throwing her head back to laugh, which felt too showy and over-the-top to me, but hey, what did I know? Alexander was hunched over, writing so fast that I thought his hand was going to fall straight off his wrist. I looked between him and the board in confusion. There wasn't enough information up there for him to write that many notes. What was he doing?
I kept watching him for another minute before he finally ripped the paper out of the notebook, folded it up into a little square, and passed it to me. When I looked at him, not knowing what he wanted me to do, he mouthed, 'open it.
