Hello! This is my first time publishing on FictionPress! Though it's not really my first time writing, I'm a bit nervous about showing this story to the world. Please do tell me how you think about it!
If I didn't get out of the cafeteria now, I swear I was going to explode out of frustration. God damn it. He was looking at me again. Five days after class, or rather, that certain class, he wouldn't stop sneaking glances at me. I mean, really. I was flattered, because he was one of the cutest guys in the school—and I had to admit that. I totally had to admit it, and lots of girls liked him. But seriously, it was making my sanity splinter. I was self-conscious under his scrutinizing.
His name was Mason Taylor, a suiting name for his handsome countenance. His sister was head cheerleader, dating his best friend Daniel Ainsworth. They had the same flickering green eyes, sincere while delivering witty sarcasm, but he had the black hair that I would have loved to run my fingers through. And his hands—they were pianist hands.
Every time I met someone new, I would look at their hands, and his were beautiful.
If he could even play the piano, I'd want to have a duet with him to see how good our hands looked together.
But I digress—back to the point.
It had been health class, and we were learning how to resuscitate asphyxiating people. I guess you could say I was the dummy who got paired up with Taylor.
Good for me.
Good for him?
Not so much.
He kissed me for a full minute, and I was beginning to think that he wasn't trying to resuscitate me, but prevent me from breathing at all. He didn't stop till I tapped him on the shoulder, the jerk—that was my first kiss, damn it!
Now he was sitting with me at lunch. People stared at first as I embarrassedly ate my apple in silence, girls especially—some with envy towards me, some with longing towards him, and most of them just both. My apple was soon gone, and though people stopped glancing our way, my distraction was gone. It was time to break the tension. I decided to make the first move, since he looked like he wasn't about to speak any time soon.
"Hello," I said, a nervous smile gracing my lips.
Mason looked up from the table and into my eyes. I wanted to flinch away from his gaze, suddenly missing when he was still examining the cracks in the table. "You confuse me Lancaster. You confuse me greatly."
"I'm sorry?" I squeaked. "I didn't mean to…but, um, what exactly did I do wrong?"
He looked faintly frustrated. "I just don't understand. I kiss you—"
"Resuscitate," I corrected, willing myself not to blush. "We were in health class…"
"—and you don't even respond and break away after only one moment," he continued, as if I hadn't even spoken. "You're not very…conventional."
Did he take that personally? I officially lost his supposedly logical train of thought. He was upset. By the fact that I didn't kiss him back in health class. What. The. Hell. He was offended by the fact that I hadn't kissed him back? I didn't know how to respond to that.
"Sorry, but I couldn't breathe at the time. I was supposed to be resuscitated, you know. Not kissed while asphyxiating. I'm sure that would have cleared the airways efficiently," I replied.
He laughed. "And you can speak coherently to me. Most girls I kiss get all wrong in the mind."
"You didn't actually kiss me," I reminded him, sipping from my grape juice. "It was health class, not sex ed. Honestly, Mason Taylor—" I ignored the surprised look that he gave me by clearly pronouncing his name; "—not all the girls in the school want to kiss you. I'm sure that ninety-eight percent will go with you, single or not, but I have not one romantic bone in my body. The only thing I've ever remotely placed my lips on up until now is the rim of a grape juice Minute Maid bottle. I don't think you'd really want to kiss me anyway."
My god. Did I just really tell him that he shouldn't kiss me because I wasn't good enough? That was pathetic.
He shook his head at me, brushing his hair away from his eyes with those beautiful fingers. "That's where I have to correct you, Morgan Lancaster." He got up from his chair and walked around to my side of the table. "I do want to kiss you."
"There's a first," I remarked. Before I knew it, I was self-deprecating myself again. "You're the first boy besides my little brother. I'm honored."
Mason looked amused. "And not just to prove that normal girls don't break off a kiss with me. You're…interesting."
"I guess I'll just have to consign myself to my abnormal tendencies then…but really. Why me, of all people?"
He swept down and pecked me on the corner of the mouth. The entire cafeteria went silent. Maybe they were staring after all. When he straightened back up, he declared without embarrassment, "You taste like apple." Then he winked at me. "Delicious."
I blushed faintly. "Okay. You've gotten your kiss now…" And my dignity. "So can we drop this whole thing?"
I prepared to stand up, except he turned my chair about-face so I was trapped in his arms. A delicate frown appeared on his face, as if he were genuinely confused now at my insistence to forget all of this. He leaned close.
"Have you never been kissed before?" he asked softly.
"Never," I replied. Then, remembering health class, I added, "Well, never until five days ago."
"You counted the days?" He smirked.
"Hey!" I protested. "That was my first kiss, you jerk! I'm just not too big on kissing! And… And…" My cheeks were burning red now. "You've already gotten your kiss. That's the only thing you were curious about, right? Well, I've got to…run. To Chemistry class." I gently removed his arms from around me, my near safe haven—no, prison—and stood up to my full height. We were at the same height, and he stared unblinkingly into my eyes.
"Your eyes…are really, really grey," he told me, a smile playing on his lips.
"Listen…I'm just not…your type, okay?" I said, backing away and nearly falling over the chair. Then, with a really visible blush on my face, I rushed out of the cafeteria, leaving Mason. He was teasing me. I know it.
But I wasn't going to let him.