Chapter 2: Racing Heart

“Hey babe,” Carter greeted. I laughed quietly to myself and ruffled his hair.

“Babe?” I questioned. I raised an eyebrow at him. Carter just laughed and threw his arm around my shoulders. “I heard about your terrible time in first period today,”

“How? That happened not even three hours ago!” I slammed my locker door shut, causing some of my magnets to crash at the bottom of it. The ring of the magnets hitting the metal stopped and Carter smiled at me. He tightened his grip on my shoulders as we walked down the cluttered hallway.

“You know how fast things spread in this god-forsaken school. But, you’ve eased up on your rambling. It doesn’t come out as frequent anymore.” He grinned. I slapped his rock hard chest and instead of it hurting him, it hurt me.

“Ow,” I mumbled. “That’s what you think; I rambled at least three different times in first period. Even in my thoughts I was rambling!” I confessed. I looked around the hallway, and there were a lot of people staring at me. Great. Rumors do spread like wildfire in this school, but I wonder why they’re staring at me. I wonder if it has to do with my long explanation on why I was late, or if it had to do with Shane.

“You know I can always drive you to school in the mornings, so you won’t be late all the time.” Carter offered as we walked down the stairway to the cafeteria. Before I could reply, someone grabbed my arm.

“You let Shane Collins touch you!” Grace shrieked. She was another one of my friends, out of our group. Our little group consisted of Grace, Carter, Sierra, and I.

“He what?” Carter dropped his arm from around my shoulders. Obviously he had only heard about my rambling at the beginning of class, not the rambling about my personal bubble.

“Yeah, I’ll explain that later; after we get our food,” I said. Even though I was slightly nervous, I never rambled when I was with my close friends. Carter gave me a confused look and then he walked off to our usual lunch spot. Our usual table was in the back of the cafeteria, by the windows. It was a pretty secluded area.

I got in one of the three lunch lines with Grace, she was still holding my wrist; cutting off my circulation. We were at the end of the line, so we had plenty of time for me to tell her all about my little Shane incident.

“Spill it,” She said. She loosened her grip on my wrist, eventually she let go allowing it to drop back down to my side.

“Well… you’ve probably already heard about my rambling when I first entered class; about why I was late,” She nodded.

“But, that’s not what I want to know, I want to know about this,” Grace pulled her white iPhone out of her pocket and went to her Facebook app. There was a picture of me and Shane in first period, his hands were on my waist and it looked like he was kissing my ear.

“Who took this?” I asked, I scrolled through the comments on it. Whoever posted it hadn’t bothered to tag me in it… or Shane.

“Who do you think?” She eyed me. I handed her back her phone and looked at the wall.

“Ryder,” I mumbled. “What an asshole! He’s the one who cheated on me! Now he has to get all jealous and posts pictures of something I didn’t even want to happen! I didn’t even know what was going on when this picture was taken! I didn’t want Shane to touch me!” I screamed out in frustration, earning a few weird looks from people.

“Kaelyn, calm down, you’re making a scene.” Grace gestured to all the people who were staring at us. I took a deep breath and nodded.

“Let’s go back to our table,” I muttered. I walked off, with Grace not trailing far behind me. I couldn’t believe Ryder would do that. I know he’s a jerk but, the caption he put under the picture just added to my hate towards him. ‘Oh look at Kaelyn and her new boyfriend. I won’t be surprised when he hurts you, just like he does to all the other girls. Then you'll come crawling back to me’ Was what the caption read. That boy really gets under my skin. And to think I actually spent six months of my life with him; pathetic. I would never 'crawl' back to him and I’ve never even talked to Shane until today… well unless you count the few run-ins we’ve had in the hallway. I have literally run into him a few times, because me being the klutz I am wasn’t paying attention. Let’s just say that I’d never been so scared in my life. I mean- who wouldn’t be? It’s Shane Collins we’re talking about. He beats up at least one person a day.

I sat down at the table next to Sierra, who was sitting across from Carter. They were both eating their lunch; I wasn’t in the mood for food anymore.

“Why aren’t you eating? And why are you in such a pissy mood?” Sierra asked innocently.

“Haven’t you heard about her little incident in first period?” Carter asked her.

“No… What happened Kaelyn?” Sierra turned to me. “From the beginning please,”

“Shane Collins happened,” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Then Ryder happened. That jerk.” I mumbled the last part but, I’m pretty sure everyone at our small table heard it.

“Details?” Sierra asked as if it was a question.

“Well, like always, I was late for first period… Mrs. Sealock gave me detention!” Carter’s eyes widened.

“Well, well, well, is Ms. Goody Goody turning bad?” He winked. I rolled my eyes and continued my story.

“After that the only seat that was left in the class was in front of Shane, so I had to sit there. Everything was going fine until he put his hands on my waist and leaned over his desk, so he could whisper something in my ear. So naturally, I turned around and started to ramble about how he can’t touch me because I have my own personal bubble,” This earned a laugh out of my three friends. “Then I told him to ‘butt out’ and then I thought that I was thinking it but I actually said, ‘oh my god I bet I just put myself on his death list’ out loud.” I said a bit too fast for them to comprehend. But, I’m sure they understood the concept. Grace and Sierra stared at me with blank faces, while Carter was laughing his ass off.

“That’s my girl, you tell him Kaelyn,” He laughed. Grace smacked his arm for me.

“Shut up,” I said.

"B-but Shane never has touched a girl like that in the middle of class before... why would he do it to you?" Sierra asked. I shrugged. I'm pretty sure that he's done that to other girls, maybe not in the middle of class... but, I could be wrong.

I looked around the cafeteria, and saw him. He was sitting on the other side of the cafeteria, laughing with his friends, Kyle, Gage, and Vincent. I saw that Shane was looking in my direction as well ; he winked and then turned back to his buddies.

Why did that simple gesture make my heart race? All he did was wink at me… Now I know how all the other girls felt when he did it to them. No Kaelyn. He couldn’t have been winking at you. There are plenty of other girls in his line of sight, he would not be winking at me.

I pushed all of my thoughts aside and joined in on the new conversation that Grace had started.

“So, who’s going to the game after school? Sierra? Kaelyn?” Grace asked. I shook my head.

“I have detention,” I gulped. But, Grace knew that even if you had detention you would still be able to make it to the basketball game. She already knew why I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to see Ryder play. He was captain of the team and he would be getting a lot of attention. Which means if he was getting the most attention, out of everyone on the team, he would be the one I would have to hear about every two minutes; and I don’t want that.

“I have to go,” I mumbled. I knew that Grace wasn’t trying to make me sad, but it just happened. Despite their protests, I quickly grabbed my backpack and went out the door that led to the front yard. I sat down on a bench and put my head in my hands.

“I hope I can make it through the rest of the day,” I mumbled.