"Kal, are you even paying attention to me?"
I zoned out again.
I met Leslie's annoyed glance with an apologetic one of my own. We were just sitting in one of the cafes across our school and he ordered some coffee for us to catch up. I didn't know where that sudden interest stemmed from, but I wasn't going to say no to free coffee. The aroma of Hart's Cafe was calming with families sipping on their drinks and kids twirled around the snow outside with their cute beanies.
"Sorry, didn't sleep much last night." Total lie. I did sleep and I dreamt of mysterious Asher. It irked me being in the unknown like that, it was going to change.
It was just that Asher Brenton was hard to approach, I saw that first hand when a girl, the popular one known as Brenda Torres, tried to hit on him in the parking lot and he avoided her like the plague. Why would a captivating guy like him ignore everyone in a school that he has been going to from a long time?
So many questions to be answered, yet all I could come up with was a certain incident or trauma was what made him ice cold.
"You're doing it again. What's on your mind?"
"I'm fine, how's your practice?"
Leslie grimaced, clearly not wanting to talk about soccer practice. His eyes darkened to the figure behind me and I twisted myself to see the sudden interruption. It was Jocelyn White.
With a malicious smirk and a confident pose beside the coffee bar, Jocelyn turned heads. She was not only the best writer in the country, but she was the epitome of evil with intense cobalt eyes and full lips. It was sad that her writings were alluring but her character wasn't as good. She had assaulted many people before, being the principal's daughter has worked in her favors all of our school years.
Destroyed school properties, locked in students in the stalls, damaged walls, and pick locked lockers was only the beginning of the list.
She waved at him and his jaw hardened at the dark-haired vixen. They had history together, and my theory that she cheated on him the next day was right at the spot when he came in the first semester looking exhausted.
I patted his shoulder when I got back to facing the drained guy in front of me. He held my hand and looked me in the eyes.
"Kal, will you go out with me to senior prom?"
It was unexpected — I wasn't even planning to go to prom because those things made me queasy and I wasn't the brightest social butterfly — like the well-built guy that was in front of me. I furrowed my eyebrows at him in confusion.
"I couldn't be bothered to go. You should take someone else. You know me Les, I don't go to these things," I removed my hand from his, "and I don't do rebounds." I pointed discreetly at Jocelyn behind us.
I was aware that his jock and guitarist ego deflated, but I wasn't the one to play around. He scratched the back of his head and wanted to object to my last statement.
"Kal, I-wait, does this have to do with the freak?"
"What freak?" I glared at him. He didn't have the right to question me like that. I propped myself forward, interested on the rumor that had my name on it.
"Asher Brenton?"
Chills erupted in the back of my spine as I tried to take a breath, going back to my previous position with my arms crossed as I acted like it didn't faze me.
"Of course not." I answered.
At my answer, I swiveled my head to the figure that walked in a flash outside of the cafe. It was him with Jocelyn behind his trail.