***
As soon as class was over and the bell rang, I was out of my chair. I headed straight towards my locker. This time around, there was no purple-eyed delusion standing there. In his place was Colin Stroud, our football team’s pride and joy, in his daily winter uniform: blue jeans and a letterman jacket over our school’s pre-approved polo shirt with the embroidered logo. (We’re in private school. The logo is very important.) I was wearing a similar polo shirt under my white, school-approved sweater and blue skinny jeans.
I held my left hand up in a universal Vulcan greeting, with my four fingers split in the shape of the letter V. Colin jerked his head up in a quick chin lift. Yeah, he was cool like that.
"Hey Harper," he said as he fiddled with the lock on my locker and opened it. I didn’t really quite know how he knew my locker combination, but he’s been doing that a lot lately. He took out the two text books that I needed, and our cell phones beeped almost simultaneously. I took my phone out from my messenger bag and read the text out loud.
"Parents out. Party at Morgan's on Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Be there."
I placed my phone in my back pocket.
“You going?” Colin asked.
“Nah," I said. "I'm busy." Actually, I wasn’t, but although I liked Morgan, parties were not my scene. I only go to parties if Emma drags me to one when she needs a sober designated driver. Besides, I think there is a Battlestar Galactica marathon on Saturday. “Colin, I really gotta go. Let’s talk later, okay?”
I closed my locker and reached for my books in his hand. He quickly pulled his hand away along with my books. He started walking backwards with a big smile on his face. “Come on, you can’t be late to second period.”
“No. Trust me. I really can’t,” I grumbled, and I started walking next to him. “You’re kind of like a stalker, you know that?”
Colin laughed. That’s why Colin and I are great friends. He never got offended.
As we walked in the hallway, my eyes quickly scanned the crowd for my handsome, imaginary guy with deep purple eyes. I gritted my teeth when I saw the head cheerleader, Delia Bates, instead. She was Colin’s very blonde and very perky ex-girlfriend. She was quickly approaching with an exaggerated bounce in her step.
Question: How was it possible that I would run into Delia at least three times a day? I didn’t even have any classes with her this semester. What’s up with that?
“Hello,” Delia said. She glanced at me briefly, her eyes glaring at me discretely, and she gave me the look. You know the look. It was the look that pretty much said stay away from my boyfriend. I was a bit confused by the look because Delia and Colin broke up months ago. So, I didn’t really understand why she was looking at me like that with her nose stuck way up in the air. Besides, Colin and I were just friends. Just friends. Did you get that? Maybe I should type it up in a memo and pass it around, or I could just text everyone.
Looking at Delia, I couldn’t miss the very heavy, black eyeliner and black mascara covering her eyes. Other than the heavy make-up problem, which severely clashed with her light blonde hair, Delia was actually very pretty.
Because of good manners, I automatically plastered a smile on my face, but before I could say hello back, she was already chatting it up with Colin. I was already dismissed. Dissed. Ouch.
Delia touched Colin’s arm, flinging her hair from side to side. Swoosh. Swoosh. She was like an ad for a shampoo commercial, and I was forced to watch them from the side. From my angle though, I thought that they did look good together - football Ken with cheerleader Barbie. Looks, however, with or without a thick dose of eye makeup, can often be deceiving, and Colin was way too good of a human being for a plastic doll.
Maybe Delia was the real reason I was seeing a delusion now; he was like a fake boyfriend to chase her off. At least she’s never said anything mean to me directly, but I had Emma to thank for that. With Emma being in varsity cheer with her, I was pretty sure they had some sort of code to leave the not so popular siblings of fellow cheerleaders alone. It must be in their handbook.
I glanced at my watch and silently groaned. I seem to do that a lot lately – groaning. I really needed to get to class. I almost stomped my feet, but being in high school instead of pre-school, I stopped myself. Since Colin was distracted, I quickly pulled my books from under his arm and placed them inside my messenger bag. I started walking away.
“Hey, Harper," Colin called out, "I’ll see you later.”
Looking at him over one shoulder, I lifted my left hand in the traditional Vulcan hand gesture, and I made my way to my next class.
As I walked, I pulled out my phone from my back pocket. I read Morgan’s party text again and two more texts about it that just came in. I already decided that I wasn't going.
Delete, delete, delete.
I have better things to save than junk text messages - like money, my grades, or better yet, my sanity. Yes, that's it. I need to save my sanity. That should keep me very, very busy.