Chapter Two

JADE'S POV

It's probably better off this way though, if he hadn't jolted me out of the day dream that had been my life, I might still be eating my heart out on him. 

Now that I know better than to be stashing my feelings on my childhood crush anymore. 

Okay, maybe I still am, but from a distance and it's safer this way. 

Not like it'll amount to anything.

The gap between our lives is so wide now, it can't be bridged.

He is who he is and I am........me.

It's lunch break now and I have to drag my lazy as fuck ass to that always crowded cafeteria of ours.

I sighed out as I entered it, my eyes roaming around, looking for Chelsea.

Yeah, she's my best friend now and I always sit with her at lunch, at the corner of the room and away from the crowd.

My eyes land on him.

He's here already, as usual, seated at the middle table.

The one that has always been reserved for the popular kids. 

Usually the jocks and the cheerleaders and the rich kids. 

He fits into two of that category, so no surprise there.

In the couple years since he came back, he's made it to captain of the football team, and his family is so fucking rich now, it's no news to anyone in this town.

He was mostly silent as everyone else around him chattered away about something or another.

The cheerleaders were making a show of gushing over the guys, as is their usual tradition at lunch, and the guys laugh obnoxiously,  clearly enjoying the attention they were getting from the fawning girls. 

Well, except him because he didn't look like he was paying any attention to what Lizzy, the cheerleader hanging on his arm, was saying.

Or to his food either. 

He just sat there, distant. 

I noticed all these because the line for food was moving ever so slowly today and their table is directly in my line of vision, not because I was intentionally seeking him out. 

No, thanks.

I drew my eyes away from their table and turned my attention to the crawling line and getting my food. 

His book is still with me, tucked away behind the safest zip in my bag.

I'd planned on returning it to him here, but when I remembered who his table mates are and what they can do to the likes of me, I decided to wait instead till after school and return it when he's done with practice and is alone. 

The back of my neck prickled like it always does when someone is looking at me and my mind springs immediately to the unopened note in my locker. 

What if the person writing and dropping them off is right inside here now, seeing exactly what I'm getting for lunch, so they can weave it into their next note and creep me out the more?

I take a quick look around but the only pair of eyes I find trained on me are his. 

They've never given me the prickle before, so I know it's not because of them. 

His green orbs were staring right at me and a faint red colored my cheeks in a light blush at meeting them with mine. 

Why do my traitorous heart have to betray me by picking up speed in its beat. 

He's too far from where I stood though, for me to make out the expression burned into them, but they seemed to be saying something. 

It's probably the usual, boredom coupled with an unpleasing dash of his forever present anger.

My nape still prickled as I broke the eye contact we'd made.

It's bad enough that I still don't know what had happened to sour him up so badly.

But to have him totally ignore me and block me out and then pining me with his eyes every now and again is just disconcerting. 

Plus watching him with all the girls that hang off him, worshipping him, at every corner hurts me more than it has any right to. 

"If you don't plan on getting any food then you can do the rest of us a favor by butting out of the line." The girl behind me says, and I realize it's my turn to order.

I finally see the reason why the line has been moving so slowly.

Sarah, the other older lady that helps serve food wasn't in today.

It was just Marie, the pretty lady that always has something to smile about, that is here today. 

She knows my usual and starts dishing it before I could ask. She returns my smile with one of her brilliant, calming ones.

I thank her as she hands me the tray containing my lunch and she waves me off calling for the next person. 

I could feel his eyes follow me as I made my way to my table.

Unlike the middle table, this one is for the nobodies. It's at the end of the cafeteria, closest to the staffs' wash room. 

I like it because it gives me the privacy I crave.

I turn to stare off his pitying eyes but he looks away then and doesn't look my way again until lunch is over. 

The chicken on my plate looks almost okay and not almost half green like last weeks'. 

I dig into my food, trying to finish up as fast as I can, wondering why Ches didn't make it to lunch today. 

My next class is chemistry and just like Mrs Beckham, Mr Baldwin is strict about punctuality to his class. 

I share it with Chelsea too, hopefully she'll be there.

I have to be in early if I want to avoid a repetition of what happened to me in math class in the morning. 

When I was done, I disposed the trash on my tray and returned my tray to Marie. 

The older woman graces me with her beautiful smile and says nothing other than a sweet,

"Thank you darling."

She's finally learned to stop arguing with me over this and telling me that I don't have to do this and can always leave the plastic on my table like the rest. 

'It's in my job description', that's her trump card that has never worked with me. 

I hate that she thinks it's our right to mess this place up, and her duty to pick up and clean up after all us 'high schoolers'. 

If everyone lifts a finger and helped her a little by doing the basics, it would better and easier on her poor old self. 

I used to think that the change begins with me but so far it's still been stuck with me. 

Caden must have left early because his spot on their table was empty and I thought about finding him now and saving myself from having to wait till he was done with football practice to return his book. 

I hope to catch him alone for a couple minutes before he is swarmed by his flock of friends, so I hurry out of the cafe. 

I go to his locker, not so far from mine. It's still the same one he'd used last year when he'd been in his junior year and I'd been a sophomore. 

I thought about trying his old combination, the one he's always used since I've known him, to see if it still worked.

It'd make this easier, so I don't even have to see him, just slip his book in and be done with it.

A mental image of how it would look if I was caught snooping in his locker stopped me before I could finish the thought. 

I resigned to leave and go early for my chem class. 

After practice it is then.

I'd barely taken a few steps away from his locker when his deep voice halted me in my tracks. 

"What are you doing hanging by my locker, Jay?"

He asks, finishing off with that nick name that he'd given me years ago. 

I felt rather than saw him come stand next to me.

So help me God but having him this close, alone, with that voice in my head, did things to my untried seventeen years old body.