Post by silent.lullaby on Feb 10, 2010 13:34:47 GMT -5
//We Run This Town//Chapter 011// Stupid, Pointless Infatuation
I sat alone in my room, laying on my bed with my eyes closed. I hated that I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Gavin I mean. His laugh, his smile, and admittedly, he’s incredibly good looking. Dark sandy hair, always messy. Dark sea green eyes with dark shaped eyebrows. And his lips. I smacked my own face and sat up. “That is more than enough,” I told myself walking across the hall and into the bathroom shutting and locking the door.
I bit down hard on my lip when I thought of kissing him. I stripped down and put the water in the shower on cold, I nearly screeched but the icy water got my mind of Gavin. I washed in record speed and was shivering and had my teeth knocking together by the end of it. Drying off and putting my hair in soft curlers I headed back to my room wrapped in a long plush sea green towel. The same green of Gavin’s eyes. “God damn it!” I shout kicking my door shut.
“Shut up!” I heard Sergio shout from down the hall.
“Fucking hormones,” I whispered this time but it didn’t loose the edge of anger. I threw on plaid shorts and a yellow tank for sleeping. I grabbed my MP3 player angrily and hoped into bed turning the music up loud and switching it from a sweet love song to You’re Going Down by Sick Puppies in attempts to drown out love sick thoughts.
Stupid attractions. Stupid smiles. Stupid teenage hormones!
I grabbed a book blindly off the bookshelf beside my bed and turned on my bedside lap. A good story would ease my mind, help me go to sleep. It always did. Looking at the cover of the book I blindly chose I felt my teeth grind against each other. A well read paperback version of Shakespear’s Romeo and Juliet in my hand. The story of the star crossed lovers, one of the great tragedies. “The world is fucking with me,” I muttered to myself before throwing the book on the floor. “The world is seriously fucking with me.” I grabbed my pillow from behind me and put it over my head as I flopped back into a laying position before screaming my hearts content into the pillow.
************
“You look like shit.”
I looked down at myself, I didn’t look my best, a black well fitting tank with a silver vest and red tie, I wore blue straight legged jeans and a well worn pair of red converse. “I wouldn’t go that far,” I responded to Gemma who eyed me critically.
“I don’t mean your choice in clothing,” she responded tisking before looping her arm with mine. “I meant your face.”
“Geeze thanks so much.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Gemma responded quickly pushing back a blonde curl. “I mean your eyes, the look all hollow and tired. Did you not sleep well last night.”
Last night. I sighed, “you could say that.” I spent the entire night either thinking about Gavin, or desperately trying anything to keep from thinking about Gavin. I promised myself that I would keep my hormones in check. I would not check out, or glance at, or even think about Gavin all day.
Gemma tisked again. “You should drink some green tea before bed,” she informs me with authority. “It always helps me when I have trouble sleeping.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I respond not putting too much faith into my cousin’s words. Gemma could sleep after drinking an entire pot of coffee, she wasn’t exactly an expert of fixing insomnia. She left me as she took a turn down to the west wing of the school to her first class while I went down the east wing toward Math. When I entered the room, it was a buzz with gossip. I sat down beside Lucia who was already talking to October who sat in front of her. “What’s going on?” I ask unzipping my binder and taking out last night’s homework.
“Don’t you know what today is!” October asked incredulously.
“Friday.”
“The first dance of the year. It sets up your social standings! Especially for people who weren’t here last year. The nines and transfers especially since they don’t have any credentials from last semester!” My jaw dropped a little, I knew October was all over the social scene, but I didn’t know she took it so seriously. “We need to get you a date. A really good one.”
I must have looked blank for a moment because Lucia waved her hand in front of my face. “Excuse me,” I said finally, “one, I don’t need to have a date, and two, you’re not setting me up with someone I don’t even know.”
“You probably know them, Lucia filled me in that you use to live here. I mean most of these people you have gone to school with before you left.”
“No.”
“Yes, we have to, I mean, do you really want to be on the bottom of the social totem pole?”
Part of me wanted to say yes. When you’re a Lombardi, being noticed and watched is bad news. Another smaller part wanted to say no. I wanted that normalcy of the only problem you have in high school is your social standings. I rubbed my temples. “I don’t need a date.”
“Already have one?” October asked excitedly.
“No, I’m going alone,” I muttered some curses in Italian, the only Italian I knew. Lucia looked at me sadly as if sensing my internal battle, probably because she felt the same way. She might not be a Lombardi, but sometimes being a DeLuca is just as bad.
October looked ready to protest when Lucia quickly interfered, “who are you going with October?”
October turned her heated attention from me, to Lucia. “Riley Rosenburg, he asked me yesterday, he’s super cute and on the football team.” October swooned. Class started and the conversations ended.
October and Lucia both had Spanish next they usually walked together but today I announced that I needed to use the rest room and grabbed Lucia’s wrist quickly before letting it go. “Me too,” Lucia said looking at October, “I’ll meet you in class okay?” October nodded and went in the other direction. We entered the bathroom and I kicked all the stall doors insuring they were empty. “What’s all this about?”
“You told me the other day that Brian Wetherill’s parents had a deal that went sour with Zarah.”
“Oh yeah, sorry I totally forgot to tell you didn’t I?” I nodded. “Lets go to the Jester tonight, I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Yeah, sure, meet you there around 4:30?”
Lucia nodded and walked out toward the stairs while I headed toward science class.
I sat in my assigned seat, which was right next to Gavin. We didn’t speak. I tried not to look at him, but I couldn’t help it as I walked into the room, he was already there. I got out my homework from the night before and passed it up with the other assignments from behind me. Mrs Wetherill collected them off all the front desks and grabbed a new stack for today and I sighed.
Struggling for half the class, as I gave up half way through, I wondered what it was that the Wetherill’s came to Zarah for. What they needed, what they wanted, and what went wrong. I knew that Zarah did some loan sharking, but it wasn’t a main part of the ‘family portfolio.’ The deal took over one part of my mind, the part trying desperately not to notice the woodsy notes in Gavin’s cologne, or the way his hair was even messier than usual today, or that his eyes were looking into mine. I quickly looked back at my science work my hair hopefully covering the fact that I was blushing.
The entire teenage hormones thing was just ridiculous. Most girls would swoon to their friends about their crush. It’s not exactly something I could do. Not when my crush was Gavin Burke. I thought of the devastating night when Preston came to the door and told my mother that my father and uncle Enzo had been caught. Those horrible feelings and fears are what I should link to Gavin Burke, not this stupid, pointless infatuation.