Chapter Four: Your Own Personal Stalker!

       “So, he came down there, just like that?” Piper asked, stuffing her face with a sliver of fried potato.

       “Yup,” I nodded gently, glancing down at my own lunch of vegetarian lasagna that had appeared about twelve times more appealing ten minutes ago when I had bought it. I wasn’t hungry anymore.

       Most medias portrayed high school cafeteria food to be about as edible as a piece of clichéd cardboard. With my school, that simply was not the case. To be perfectly honest, the food that our cafeteria served was probably the best thing in the whole damn school. The food was good. The contents ranged from the ever so minimal pizza to gourmet chocolate chip cookies, and the occasional lobster or caviar dishes every once in a while. Oh, the limited advantages to attending a private school…

       “Why?” my best friend asked, her question muffled by the mouthful of mashed up starches she had inserted into her mouth.

       “I have no idea,” I said, staring down at my lunch. I was in one of those moods when any form of nutrients wouldn’t fill the void. Anorexia wasn’t a word that ever crossed my mind in regards to my eating habits, but, sometimes, I just wasn’t in the temperament to eat.

       “He’s, like, a senior, though,” she commented, trying to make sense of my day so far.

       I had told Piper of how Luke randomly came down to the library, and then spent the rest of the morning with me. Not wanting to socialize with the human race, I tried to ignore him and draw. Once I got into the right mentality, it wasn’t a challenging task, but there was something about my disregarding him that he was bothered by. It was an odd situation, to say the least.

       “Yeah,” I shrugged.

       “And then when it was time for lunch, all you said was ‘bye’?” her face grew puzzled.

       “I just told you that,” I rolled my eyes, wondering why she had the need to recount every little detail I had told her. It wasn’t like we were in a book and the author had fast-forwarded, requiring the information to be conveyed through Piper or something ludicrous like that.

       “I know, but still,” she sighed. “So, let’s get to the real stuff. Is he as hot in person as he is on Facebook?”

       “You should ask him—he’s coming over to us, anyways,” my voice held an amused tone, as Piper rapidly turned her head to view the one and only Luke Daniels, who happened to be walking straight in our direction.

       “It’s like you have your own personal stalker! This is so cool, Livy!” Piper exclaimed, regaining her previous posture.

       “Or creepy,” I muttered dully, my eyes glued to Luke’s scuffed-up shoes as I saw his feet continue to near us. After an elongated few seconds, two, black, aged Converse came to halt right below my vision.

       “Hi,” a distinct voice belonging to the boy who had spent the morning with me greeted.

       “Holy fudge cakes! You’re Luke Daniels!” was Piper’s brilliant reaction to the unadorned, two-lettered salutation. My head snapped up, a smirk playing at the edges of my lips in response to Piper’s bluntness, as I regrettably locked eyes with the individual to whom she had been addressing.

       “And, I believe, that you’re Piper Kent,” he said, his eyes still locked with mine.

       “Livy, Luke Daniels knows my name! Oh my golly gosh! Now this, is something worth putting in that diary of yours!” she blabbed away enthusiastically.

       “It’s not a diary,” I mumbled firmly, wondering how many times I had had to correct her on the small fact. My notebook was not a diary. Diaries were what wimpy girls had to jot down all their feelings about boys and drama. To put it simply, my notebook wasn’t.

       “Mind if I sit down?” Luke inquired, averting his eyes to look at Piper, flashing her a smile I was more than sure he deemed “charming.” What. A. Tool.

       “Livy, Luke Daniels just asked to sit with us!” Piper squealed as if the boy to whom she was referring hadn’t been less than a foot away. Luke coughed, trying to make his presence known once again to a slightly flustered Piper, who tried to conjure up a coherent answer. “Uh, no, n-not at all!”

       Piper pulled out the seat next to her, indicating for him to sit. Being the absolute prick that he was, he decided to do things the hard way and leisurely make his way over to my side of the table, sitting next to me. Jerk.

       “So, what were two just talking about?” he asked casually, suspending an arm over the back of my chair.

       “You!” Piper gushed. Luke exposed a satisfied smirk, the comment probably boosting his unhealthy ego more than should have been legal.

       “Can you leave?” I requested, managing to falter his expression momentarily, and replace it with complete and utter confusion.

       “Livy!” Piper scolded, ogling the bad boy wannabe who, for some unknown reason, was sitting with us at lunch. “Don’t be rude!”

       “Yeah, Livy! Don’t be rude!” Luke mocked.

       “I wasn’t try to,” I said honestly. “Now, can you please leave?” I hated manners. There was something about them seemed so… fake! Why go through all the bullshit of dressing words up all ornately, instead of saying what you really meant, straight up? Etiquette was one of the many things in life and society that never truly made a whole lot of sense to me.

       “No,” Luke said, slouching slightly in his seat, as he propped his feet on the edge of the wooden table.

       Piper’s eyes grew wide with shock, as I shook my head, his activities not fazing me the slightest bit. “Chill, Pipes, he’s just a poser,” I said in a hushed tone, though loud enough so that Luke could hear the last four words as clear as could be.

       Immediately following my attempt in consolation, the said “poser” shot up. He was towering over me, as an emotion that could only be described as fury was portrayed throughout his entire stature. Well, someone wasn’t happy. It was amazing how some people had the talent to go from being serener than a sloth at one minute, only to do a complete one-eighty the next, as Luke had so kindly demonstrated.

       “What did you just call me?” he demanded loudly, seeking not only my attention, but also that of every other person with ears within a ten-foot radius of our table in the great, arched eatery. His narrowed eyes were filled with an intensity directed solely to me, as he repeated the question: “What did you just call me?” What. A. Drama. King.

       “A poser,” I retorted, my voice surprisingly calm as the eyes of a few others were on me, as well. I hated attention, to be perfectly honest. If I had a choice to be in the metaphorical spotlight or not, I’d  most definitely opt for being on stage crew, behind the scenes. I liked being imperceptible. I wasn’t the type of person who fed off of attention, or had a need to be the focus all the time. Invisibility was what I strived for most days, though it was harder to achieve than most expected.

       Luke began to clench and unclench his fists, as a detached laugh exited his mouth. “Babe, I don’t think you understand who you’re talking to.”

       “Of course I do,” I said evenly, not even marginally alarmed by his sudden change in mien.

       “So, you think I’m a ‘poser’?” an amused smile met his lips, though his eyes told a different story. He was angry—absolutely furious.

       “Let’s see, you go to a private school that costs more than most people’s houses, wear leather jackets as if they would help to up your rep, and put on this badass façade for some unknown reason,” I listed. “So, yes, I do think that you’re a poser. Do you have a problem with that?”

       “Actually, yes—yes, I do,” rage still seethed in his pupils.

       “Oh, and why is that?” a lack of humor was inserted into my tone.

       “Because, Ross,” he broke my first rule, “you’re a poser too.”

       “I’m a poser?” I gaped in disbelief.

       “Yeah,” he drew a step closer to me, “you are.”

       “And what makes me a ‘poser’?” it was my turn to interrogate him in regards to why he thought that I was “fake.”

       “You pretend to be this depressed—” I opened my mouth to instantly object, though he continued, “loner who acts all rebellious and shit, because you’re just looking for something different than you’re perfect life—”

       “My life is not perfect,” I interjected cogently.

       “Wake up, sweetheart, you’re living in a fairytale and are in denial about it,” he let out a dark laugh. “You have two parents who make a crap load of money, which enables you do just about anything you want, and the only thing you could make any argument for complaining about is the weather.”

       “I’m not a poser,” I said through clenched teeth, shooting up.

       “Neither am I,” he neared yet another step closer to me.

       “Prove it,” I challenged.

       A wicked grin met his lips, as he opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a new voice, which instantly drew my heart rate down, relaxing me in the process. “Livy! Pipes! My two favorite girls! Oh, and it appears as though Luke Daniels has joined us today!”

       “What is he doing here?” Luke snorted, as Preston came behind me, wrapping both his arms around my waist before I had time to object.

       “The real question is what are you still doing here?” I corrected, trying to squirm out of Preston’s taut hold. “Preston! Let go of me!”

       “Aw! But it feels like I haven’t seen you all day!” Preston whined, not yet releasing me.

       “Yeah, that’s because I’ve been stuck in the library with Brenda,” I muttered, continuing to struggle.

       “And Luke!” Piper added happily, though it only increased Preston’s firm grip on me.

       “Oh? Coming onto my girl, were you, Daniels?” Preston asked lightly, slinging his arm so that it was over my shoulder, and not squeezing me half to death.

       “I was coming onto Olivia, if that’s who you mean,” Luke glared at Preston.

       “Actually, he was stalking me,” I corrected.

       “I wasn’t stalking you!” Luke protested.

       “Sure you weren’t,” I rolled my eyes, managing to extract myself from Preston’s grasp.

       Then, as if the situation wasn’t already muddled enough, yet another individual who I had never seen over the course of my entire existence decided to abruptly appear, attacking Piper’s face with his lips as he sat down beside her. Well, that definitely sealed the deal on not eating lunch. Seeing Piper make out with a random guy? Yeah, not exactly the most appetizing thing in the world.

       “Who the hell are you?” I demanded after ten seconds too long of trying to avert my gaze away from their very public display of “affection.”

       “Oh, I am so sorry!” Piper apologized meekly, pulling away about as fast as a stoned turtle. “Livy, Preston, and, uh, Luke, this is Matt, my boyfriend!”

       “Hi,” the guy said, sending a large grin to the three of us. Ah, so this was Piper’s current boyfriend.

       My eyes traveled from his feet to his face, and I quickly deducted that Piper had chosen a boy from the “All-American” category for the week. He looked like the type of guy who lived for baseball and apple pie. Messed up to perfection brown hair, blue eyes, jeans, and a plaid button-down that complimented the color of his eyes nicely were of what his outer appearance consisted. Piper could’ve been dating a model (she had in the past), but something about this kid told me that she was in a “boy next door” mood. Judging solely by his clothes, and basic demeanor, he most certainly was not a full-fledged prep—of that, I was sure. Matt. All he needed was a last name about as common as “Smith” or “Jones” and he would fit the cliché perfectly.

       “Hi,” I said, deciding to be sociable because he didn’t look that much like a jerk, “I’m Olivia Ross.”

       “Matt Smith,” the boy introduced, sending me a thousand-watt smile as he took my hand and shook it firmly. Smith. Only Piper would be able to find a boy amidst the entire population of about three hundred males in our school named Matt Smith, who happened to fit all the credentials needed to become a major league baseball player or the next winner of American Idol. Only Piper…

       “I’m Preston Kent, I think we’ve met,” Preston said, also scaling him up, but in a different way than I had.

       As brothers went, Preston was about as protective as they came. Not just of Piper, but also of me, too. The three of us had grown up together, so it was only natural that Preston felt a need to act defensive towards the two closest girls in his life. It was odd, really, that he could act so affectionate and caring to Piper and I, but, when it came to the girls he saw, they were nothing more than another name and conquest. Those who thought that living with girls would serve as an influence for how to treat other females had clearly never met Preston Kent.

       “Yeah, baseball, right?” Matt nodded, also evidently remembering Preston, as yet another one of my assumptions was proven correct. Baseball. Shocker. “You were going to be on the varsity team, but decided to quit for lacrosse, right?”

       “Actually, they made me pick one,” Preston grumbled, as a recollection of a time last year when Preston faced the choice of which spring sport he wanted to play surfaced in my thoughts.

       He had been playing baseball since he was practically still in diapers, but ended up selecting the newer, more aggressive sport with shoulder pads, because it was more aggressive and he got to wear shoulder pads. Also, more of his friends of the male gender were playing lacrosse, so he settled. It wasn’t that the school didn’t want him to play both, but rather the opposite.

       Preston was the type of guy that could pick up a hockey stick for the first time in his life one minute, and be offered a spot on the Bruins the next. Sports came naturally to him. The dilemma that he was presented with last spring was that both practices for the sports were at the same time. It was physically impossible to be on both the grassy field and diamond of dirt and bases simultaneously. Thus, he went for the douche-bag “LAX bros.” It was quite the predicament in the Kent household for over two weeks, and somehow managed to infiltrate my home, as well.

       “I’m sorry, man,” Matt said apologetically, as Piper leaned her head on his broad shoulder.

       “It’s cool,” Preston assured him.

       “You were really good,” Matt said, probably trying to gain likability points by kissing ass.

       “I know,” Preston sighed, shaking his head. I glanced over to Piper, and her eyes were wide, indicating that she too didn’t want her brother’s self-esteem inflating more than necessary and that she had no interest in revisiting that particular issue again.

       “And I’m Luke,” Luke said casually, reminding all of us that he was still there, which was surprising, considering the substantiality that his aura possessed.

       “I know, dude,” Matt said, not as confident as he had been with Preston or me.

       “Hey, Livy, are you going to eat that?” Preston questioned, salivating over my uneaten sheet of noodles, tomato sauce, cheese, and mashed up veggies.

       “No,” I shook my head, inklings of a smirk growing on my face as he immediately picked up my fork and began to dig in. The utensil was placed inside his mouth, and he was about to chomp down, when I decided to utter four real words and a contraction that would be sure to stop him. “By the way, it’s vegetarian.” At that, the hefty piece of lasagna instantly flew out of his taste bud’s proximity, landing back on the small dish it had primarily occupied.

       While his mother was currently against ingesting anything that was once breathing, Preston had elected to protest the insanity by only eating foods that were somehow linked to dead animals. For breakfast this morning, he had eaten about twelve pounds of bacon (okay, maybe a little bit less), and a turkey sausage to ensure that he was, and I quote, “Fair to the birds, too.” When Kara set her mind on something, it was chiseled in stone. There was no changing it. And then, when Preston established something, it was engraved in diamond with a laser. Not even his mother had the power to alter his verdict. It was final. It definitely ran in the family.

       “Who the hell buys vegetarian lasagna? That’s, like, a waste of calories and a meal,” Preston shuddered at the daunting thought.

       In addition to favoring lacrosse and practically being a carnivore, the idiot also had an obsession with counting his calories. Why such an athletic person felt the need to avidly manage his intake of nutrition more than slightly confused me, but at least he was being healthy, right? He wasn’t the type of person to look on the back of a cracker box, dissecting the ingredients, but he was pretty aware of what he put into his body.

       “You’re such a loser,” I muttered under my breath, rolling my eyes at Preston’s arrogance.

       “Excuse me, what did you just call me?” the blonde boy demanded, his arms circling my waist once again.

       “Preston, let go!” I complained, writhing away from his hold.

       “What. Did. You. Call. Me?” he stressed, tightening his grip.

       “A loser!” I answered loudly.

       “Oh, I’m a loser?” he scoffed, manipulating my body so that I was standing, facing him. “Livy, if I’m a loser, then you’re a loser.”

       “Fine, then I guess I must be a loser,” I shrugged, accepting my written fate. So, I was a loser. It was fine by me. Labels didn’t limit who I was as a person.

       “We both are,” Preston established, looking at me in a way so that I could peer into his clear eyes of blue, a pastime I had always enjoyed. His eyes were so pretty. They were the type of things that not even the modern marvels of digital photography could justly capture.

       I smiled, nodding my head slowly in agreement. “That we are, Prest, that we are.”

       “Hate to ruin your romantic moment, but the bell’s about to ring in three, two—” Luke cut in, only to be timely interrupted by the blaring sound of a ring that encompassed the entire school for a matter of seconds.

       And that was yet another factor I detested about the place in which I was squandering the middle of my teen years: the bell. It was a constant reminder that my schedule wasn’t controlled by me, but rather by individuals above the ripe age of thirty who couldn’t care less about my ambitions in life or how I truly wanted to utilize my time. It rang just about every hour, indicating a change of classes.

       When I was a freshman, the bell was nonexistent. The administration was under the impression that students of such an “esteemed” institution were reliable enough in the sense that they didn’t need a prompt of when they were required to be in classes. By the end of my freshman year, let’s just say that the bell and student body were on a way to a long, abhorring acquaintanceship.

       “Correct me if I’m wrong—” Luke began, though I was the one to interject this time.

       “Don’t worry, I won’t hesitate to do so,” I assured him, as Preston liberated me.

       Luke rolled his eyes, though something told me that he wasn’t really annoyed, as he continued. “Aren’t you supposed to return to the library now?”

       “That doesn’t mean that I’m going to,” I stated slowly. “Why? Concerned that I’m not serving my full sentence?”

       “No, just curious,” a sly smirk played at his lips.

       “Well, if you must know, I was planning on getting out of here a few hours early,” I articulated, as Preston draped his arm back over my shoulder. He was being overly touchy for my liking today. It was abnormal.

       “Mind if I join you?” Luke questioned.

       “Yes, actually, I do,” I rolled my eyes.

       “Too bad, I’m coming with,” he said, grabbing my hand, and yanking me away from the male Kent twin. I composed myself after our skin was no longer in contact, regaining my full mentality from the rashness of the rapid action.

       “Are you?” I scoffed.

       “Yeah, I am,” he asserted, his eyes resting on me.

       “Okay then,” was my impulsive response, “let’s go.”

       “Wait, actually?” Luke was almost as taken aback by reaction as I was.

       “If you don’t want to go, then that’s fine by me,” I said, wondering how I had allowed the spontaneous words to exit my mouth.

       “Olivia Ross, agreeing to someone accompanying her. Wow, that’s a first,” Piper snorted, eyeing me suspiciously. I shook my head, and ignored her with a loving eye roll.

       “Though you probably won’t be in a relationship with my friend by Monday, meeting you was a tolerable experience, Matt,” I bid, slinging my bag over a shoulder. I waved to Piper and nodded my head at Preston, to which he returned by awkwardly “blowing” me a kiss with the use of a hand—such a strange custom. “Bye.”

       I began to exit the high ceilinged room, not interested in whom, if anyone, was following behind. After passing the many tables with inhabitants beginning to stir from their pause of consumption, I reached the glass and wood door. I was about to push it open, when another stretched in front of me, doing the act before I could. Continuing my journey, I finally exited the cafeteria, or Dining Hall, as the administration wanted us to call it, and was stopped by the force of another.

       “So, where are we going?” Luke questioned, spinning me around to face him. I eyed him for an elongated moment, wondering if he was truly genuine about going with me. After not backing down, his face only displaying the utmost sincerity, I realized that he was, indeed, serious.

       Vaguely, I answered, “To drink tea.”