I stepped out of class twenty minutes later, finding Jase leaning against the wall with a smile.
I stopped and looked at him for a moment.
He just smiled.
“How did you race to me so fast?” I demanded. “That wasn’t normal.”
He just smirked. “I was right next to you.”
I glared then. “Stop… stop that. You were not just next to me. You were fifty feet away and then rushed over to me quicker than light.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a smirk. “I was right beside you the whole time.”
“Stop…” I said then, glaring, “you’re gaslighting me.”
He just tipped his head to the side. “You aren’t suggesting I’m not human… are you?”
I breathed uneasily.
“Do you know how crazy that sounds?” he asked me with a dark smile. “I think maybe you have a fever. Why don’t you go to the nurse’s office to get checked out?”
I kept breathing slowly. “I don’t know what you’re doing… but you’re making me very uneasy. And I don’t trust you. I don’t think I ever will. You are not good for me, and you scare me.”
His smile remained. “I can change your mind.”
“I don’t think you can.”
Because every word he said was calculated to scare the crap out of me, and I suspected he knew this.
He watched me curiously now.
“I’m going to class,” I said then, pushing past him.
He glanced back at me. “Looking forward to that date tonight.”
Yeah, right.
Like I was going.
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*****
“What was that about?” Lizzy said as I sat at my desk, and she toppled over on my bed, smirking. “He was all savey-pants on you, and his face was inches from yours!”
I kept scribbling lines into my sketchbook, feeling my cheeks burning as heat swarmed me at the memory. “I don’t really know, Liz.”
“Are you sure you aren’t attracted to him?” she said then, rolling onto her stomach. “Because your body language says otherwise.”
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t, but I’d also be telling the truth if I said he scared me very, very much.
He could speak to my mind, and he could bury me in fear… and he knew very well how to do it.
Not only the fact that he shot toward me at an instant to catch me, with inhumane speed.
I scribbled harder into my sketchbook.
I wasn’t going to let him get to me, though. I knew he wanted that.
“Well… maybe if you want to take your mind off things…” she said then, “I invited Pierce and Twilight to a walk about old town. You should join! Twilight looks interested in you! And with all your patchy places with Jase, he might be a good substitute!”
I sighed and stared down at my paper.
I wasn’t really interested in Twilight, though. He might’ve been nice and all, but he wasn’t really my type.
Maybe it was because there seemed to be nothing wrong with him, and I had trust issues when people covered their secrets with glitter and confetti. With him, though… I just wasn’t into him.
But I needed to get out of the house and take my mind off things, and this was the most perfect way to do it.
“Maybe as friends,” I said then “… totally as friends.”
Lizzy giggled and clapped her hands.
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