Being subtle was not her thing. One thing Nicco hates Alanis is her inability to be subtle, always stating that her tongue is loose although she never really gets in trouble for it.
It's a grenade ready to go off, she remembers his words at some point in a conversation.
" Simple experiment today really," he says," you and your partner are going to simply build a circuit board and calculate the amount of current running through taking into consideration the number of resistors".
Placing the board on each table Mr Lonc heads back to his desk grabbing a few sheets, " and then you will write a report based on the data you get and its due next week Tuesday," looking at his watch he huffs, " and seeing as its Wednesday today I suggest you use your time wisely," he advised, " you may begin," then nods leaving the room.
Looking around the room, she sees students already moving around their boards and connecting wires, tying screws down to the boards. She looks down at their board and to her, she just sees junk, the kind you would find thrown away in the dustbin.
Her gaze falls back to the rest of the class and she's quick to notice that the partners two tables from theirs were already taking notes. Her eyes widen at their speed, finally coming to terms with how slow she really is, how she's still trying to tell the difference between a resistor and a voltmeter and yet she is awed at how they managed to set up a circuit board in under three minutes and still manage to take down notes.
She looks away only to lock eyes with Luca, who was already watching her. She feels her cheeks redden and her fists clench as she looks away knowing that he probably knew she didn't know what she was supposed to do. And her assumption is answered when she could see him from the corner of her eye trying not to smile and she couldn't help but sigh and roll her eyes in her defence.
" Do you want to start setting up the board?" his voice robotic.
She nods and watches as he picks up the wires and connects them to the metal rods on the board. She picks up two screws and stares at the board not knowing where they should go. She shakes her head and puts them down before picking up a small machine that has black and red dangling wires attached to it, again, not knowing what it is or what it does she puts it down.
" I think I should just write down the notes and you build the board," she sighs and fiddles with her fingers while he connects the last wire.
He looks at her with his pink lips pursed for a while before saying," you have no idea what's going on, do you?",
" I do, I just think it's better if I write and you work,"
" You mean I do the labour and you just analyse," he says with a smug look that she so desperately wanted to punch off.
"Yes-NO," she admits with a cringe, " I'm writing because I have better handwriting than you,"
" that's irrelevant to the conversation at hand," he shakes his head, his words a whisper in her ear, " just admit you don't know," he leans in and their noses almost touch as he stares right into her eyes and she looks away again.
Clenching her fist, she mutters under her breath, "you're irrelevant", her eyes widen at her statement and her lips tighten.
He stares at her, "you still do that",
"do what?"
"talk without thinking"
"and you still present yourself when you're not wanted", she shrugs.
He goes quiet watching her before he breathes in, turning to the board, " take notes".
She watched him build the circuit and watched how his eyebrows would furrow, how his nose would be twitch when something didn't seem to make sense especially when he would look over at her notes and back at the board. They worked in silence and by the time Mr Lonc came back to class they were done and the school bell rang.
" I'll come to your house tomorrow to start on the report," he grabs his jacket leaving the classroom to an exhausted-looking Mr Lonc.
Finding Nicco waiting at the tree he nods behind her and she turns to look at Zac and Luca having a conversation, " they've been talking ever since the bell rang. I saw Luca zig-zag through the hallway like he was late for something".
" He did leave physics in a hurry", she nods and pays attention to Luca as he clenched his fist and she somehow counts how many times he clenched and unclenched.
1
2
3
4
but as if feeling her gaze, he looks at her from across the parking lot.
The blue fades into his eyes clouding the yellow vibrate colour that existed but a moment ago and he shakes his head looking back at Zac saying something before getting into his car.
" Do you know what they were talking about?", she asks Nicco, not taking her eyes off his fading vehicle.
" wolfs-bane still in your system?", nodding she turns to lock her arm with his.
" I kept getting beats and pieces," he shrugged, " couldn't make sense of it like they were talking a different language".
'Odd,' she thought.
The walk home was dreadful for Alanis, she had all of a sudden got a massive headache and Nicco had to carry her the rest of the way while he talked about what happened in his history class. She looked at her neighbours' home, as they passed it and a frown made its way on her face.
It was still empty.