Tensed mood

I quickly looked away, shocked and was going red again. I stumbled over a book in the walkway and had to grab myself on the edge of a table and the girl that was sitting there smiled.

I had noticed that his eyes were black, coal black.

Mr. Banner had my slip signed and he handed me a book with no nonsense about introductions.

I could tell we were going to get along well. Of course, he had no option but to send me to the one open seat in the middle of the room.

I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by him. I was startled by the antagonistic stare he had given me.

I did not look up as I set my book on the table and took my seat, but I managed to see his posture change from the corner of my eye.

He was trying to lean away from me by sitting on the extreme edge of his chair and averting his face like he scented something bad.

Inconspicuously, I sniffed the scent of my hair. It smelled like strawberries, the fragrance of my favorite shampoo.

It appeared an innocent enough odor. I let my hair fall over my right shoulder, making a shady curtain between us.

I tried to pay attention to the teacher, unfortunately the lecture was on cellular anatomy, something I had already studied. I took notes carefully anyway, with my face pinned down to my desk.

I could not stop myself from taking an occasional glimpse through the screen of my hair at the weird boy next to me.

During the whole class, he never loosened his stiff position on the edge of his chair, sitting as far from me as possible.

I could see his hand on his left leg was clasped into a fist, tendons standing out beneath his pale skin. This is to show exactly that he never relaxed.

He had the long sleeves of his white shirt folded up to his elbows, and his forearm was surprisingly hard and muscular under his light skin. He was not nearly as slight as he had looked next to his burly brother.

The class seemed to last longer than the others. Perhaps because the day was finally coming to a close, or because I was waiting for his tight fist to loosen up? It never happened.

He continued to sit so still, it looked like he was not breathing.

What was wrong with him? Was this his normal behavior? I polled my judgment on Annar's resentment at lunch today. Maybe she was not as resentful as I had thought.

It could not have anything to do with me. It is not like he knew me from Eve.

I looked up at him one more time, and wished I had never did it. He was glaring down at me again, his black eyes full of contempt.

As I winced away from him, waning against my chair, the phrase "" if looks could kill"" suddenly ran through my mind.

At that moment, the bell rang out loudly, making me jump from my seat, and Alessandro Demetrio was out of his seat too.

Fluidly he rose, he was much taller than I had thought, his back to me, and he was out the door before anyone else could even stand up from their seats.

I sat back frozen in my seat, gazing blankly after him. He was so mean and that was not fair in any way.

I began putting up my things slowly, trying to block the anger that filled in me, for fear my eyes would tear up.

For some reasons, my temper was hardwired to my tear canals. I usually cried when I was angry, and that is a shameful tendency.

"Are you not Ariana Graison?" a male voice asked.

I looked up to see a cute, baby faced boy, his pale blond hair carefully set into orderly spikes, smiling at me in a friendly way. He obviously did not think I smelled bad.

"Aria," I sharply corrected him with a smile.

"I am Antonio." he said.

"Hi, Antonio."

"Do you need any help finding your next class?"

"I am actually headed to the gym, I think I can find it."

"That is my next class too." He seemed delighted, though it was not that big of a coincidence in a small school like.

We walked to class together, he was shattered, he supplied most of the conversations we had, which made it easy for me.

He had lived in California till he was ten, which means that he knew how I felt about the sun. It turned out he was also in my English class. He was the nicest person I had met today.

But as we were entering the gym, he asked me, "So, did you stab Alessandro Demetrio with a pencil or what? I have never seen him act like that since I knew him."

I winced. So I was not the only one who had noticed that. And, seemingly, that was not Alessandro Demetrio's usual attitude. I decided to play dumb.

"Were you the boy I sat next to in Biology class?" I asked guilelessly.

"Yes," he replied. "He looked like he was in pain or something."

"I do not know," I responded. "I never spoke to him."

"He is a strange guy." Antonio lingered by me instead of heading to the dressing room. "If I were fortunate enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you."

I smiled at him before walking through the girls' locker room door. He was friendly and clearly admiring too. But that was not sufficiently enough to alleviate my irritation.

Coach Clapp, The Gym teacher, found me a uniform but did not make me dress down for today's class.

At home, only two years of R.E were required. Here, P.E. was mandatory all through the four years. Barbourville was precisely my personal hell on Earth.