I Love Him, I Love Him Not - 2

Christ!

From the number of comments I got on the last chapter, you'd think I spent two minutes on this story! (I really didn't.)

Therefore, all the people that did comment by the time I posted this second chapter are my new best friends! Yay! :D

Big thank you to:

Miniman (Thank you! And you know me too well - he IS a hottie!)
Tamika (I loved the amount of really's you had on there! ;) Thank you muchly.)
Samantha Brooke (Thanks a million!)
Latoya (Thank you. You've been there on my commenters list quite a lot - I really am grateful. :)...)
Lucy Hall (I could think of a million people who could have written this in a better way, but thank you for that! It made me smile.)
PaulaPaula (You are exactly right. The new student is a total hottie. And as for Summer... no one knows exactly what she is, even me! You'll just have to read on and find out... ;)....)

Love all of you!
(In a none creepy way.)
x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x
My mind was momentarily incoherent; the sight of the new guy had rendered me quite speechless. He really was good looking - Lucy and Irena hadn’t been exaggerating. I watched as he glanced around the classroom; bright, sapphire blue eyes looked out from under messy black hair.

"Hi. My name’s Cole Lodger." He introduced himself to Mr Gilding. His tone was perfectly polite, but his eyes still darted around the room like he was looking for something. Then I thought of Lucy Waterman. Or someone.

"Hello, Cole. Welcome to Pine Forest Community College!" Mr Gilding enthused cheerfully. "He’s new and vulnerable, girls, so hands off!" He added, almost as an afterthought.

There was a collective titter around the awed class, but something told me our form tutor was being deadly serious. I tore my gaze away from the newcomer and looked down at my books instead, not wanting to be caught staring. He was good looking to the point of godly; out of my league didn’t even cover it.

Therefore, I was busily occupying myself with the laminate cover of my Italian textbook instead of gazing at him when I was nicely interrupted.

"Uh, hey." The voice that greeted me was deep and unfamiliar. I risked a peek up through my fringe and gulped. Of course. The only free seat in the whole of the room was next to mine. Of course he would sit by me. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

"Hi." I replied shyly, going back to my laminate picking as he slid into the chair so close to mine that it almost touched. I blushed, without having any reason to do so. The boy that was sat next to me was unbelievably hot, and unbelievably intimidating because of it.

"So, I’m Cole." He said. "But you know that already."

"Yeah," I gave a nervous little laugh. "I’m Summer. Summer Romano. You don’t know that already." I brushed my fringe back and turned my head slightly to look at him close up.

Wow.

I almost had to look away - again - to prevent myself from staring - again - and I could hardly believe his handsomeness - again. It was unnatural that a human being could be so breathtakingly beautiful.
Everything about his face was perfection: from his vibrant, dancing eyes to the straight line of his straight nose, right down to the curve of his somehow manly jaw line.

"Finished checking me out yet?" he laughed, his voice low and teasing. I blinked, and then blushed a nice shade of beetroot whilst looking down at my desk as if it was the most interesting bit of wood and plastic I had ever seen.

"I wasn’t checking you out." I mumbled, but my protest sounded weakly even to me. Truth be told, I was checking him out. What caught me off guard was that no one I had ever talked to had been brazen enough to voice something like that before. Well, except for this one guy who I wasn’t even going out with - he had spinach stuck to his braces and was wearing a superman tee-shirt when he suggested it; and that should say it all, if not more.

"Yeah, whatever. I’m used to it." Cole shrugged easily, causing me to look up again. This time, though, I was a little annoyed. He was awfully self-assured for a guy starting a new school; talking to a girl he had never talked to before.

"I’m sure you are." I replied stiffly, gathering my books up. For some reason, I had the overwhelming urge to get out of there, to get out from under this stranger’s hot gaze and cocky attitude. His presence was suffocating me. I stood just as Mr Gilding said my name for roll-call.

"Summer?"

"Present!" I said whilst skirting around Cole’s chair, which had trapped me into the corner somewhat. I finally broke free and began to walk down the little space between tables. It was like a labyrinth in there, it really was.

"Summer?" Cole repeated in his deep voice from behind me. I stopped and looked over my shoulder, the side of me that was screaming ‘he’s hot!’ winning over the ‘he’s a jerk’ side. An innocent smirk dominated his handsome features. "I’ll see you."

The three words made me grit my teeth like a chained Rottweiler on heat as I turned back and walked out of there. Mr Gilding didn’t even stop me - I frequently left just after roll call and he knew just as well as anybody else in there that he couldn’t stop me.

As I stalked angrily down the corridor, I silently seethed inside my head. Who does he think he is? How cocky and arrogant. I don’t even know him - I’m not sure I want to. Lucy Waterman is welcome to him. I like the sweater that the hall monitor girl is wearing. He’s such an idiot. A whirlwind of different thoughts were rushing through my mind, and I didn’t even know why I was so irate. Something about the guy, the stranger, made me feel all hot and bothered.

Shaking my head free of angering thoughts, I pushed the door to a nearby ladies’ room open and stepped inside. One thing good about the college was that the bathrooms were actually clean, and offered streak-free mirrors, a rarity in most public toilets.

I made my way over to one of the mirrors and set my books down by the sink, peering into the glass. A teenaged girl peered back through chocolate coloured eyes; her very loosely curly, dark hair long and mussed up, her cheeks flushed in annoyance. She was familiar and yet strangely alien at the same time.

I turned away from the mirrors and leant against the sink instead. A small, rectangular window was set high up in the wall opposite, and I could see the earlier light drizzle progressing and raging into a thunderous storm. Sighing, I rubbed the tops of my arms as if cold and stared at the fat drops of water pattering against the thin glass. If I closed my eyes and concentrated hard, I could smell the fresh scent of the rain pounding the earth of the front lawn, taste the cool, pure flavor of it on my tongue, and feel it running through my hair, tangling strands with its heavy rivulets. I opened my eyes, and the intensity was gone.

Over the years, I’d learnt how to keep the different side of me under control, so it wouldn’t surface and scare the hell out of innocent bystanders when I felt strongly about something. It was like a power, something that ran through me constantly and sometimes channeled into kinetic energy through my mind to move things, to make things do what I wanted them to. If I pushed it to the back of my mind and didn’t think about it at all, though, I could keep it under control.

I chose that normal state most of the time. But sometimes, when I was extra anxious or poignant, I let the energy come out and calm down through whatever we could get our hands on at the time. Or my hands. Whatever. I had come to thinking about my different side as a second being.

Shaking my head and pushing myself off the edge of the sink, I scooped my books up just as the bell for first period rang. Still questioning my questionable sanity, I walked toward the door, pushed it open, and slinked out unnoticed.

My first lesson was, and would be (due to the horrific lack of good luck in my life) double maths. I may be different in some ways, but in every other aspect of my life I’m a total teenager. Simultaneous equations and quadratic sequences are about as extraterrestrial to my liking as purple, snot covered rats would be.

Oh God. We’re probably doing algebra. I hate algebra, I thought as I strode into the half full classroom. The only good thing about maths was that I had a small, wooden desk to myself, so I never had to worry about being paired with a talkative, affable freak all lesson. My seat, of course, was in the far corner, farthest away from the door and most pupils, right next to the warm water pipe, radiator and window.

Smiling, I skirted all the other desks and students to slide into my chair. I placed all unnecessary books onto the chair next to mine and kicked my Converse off. It had become customary for me to toast my cold toes through damp socks on the hot pipe every maths lesson.

"Oh hey, again." Someone said from above me. I looked up, disbelieving of my luck being this bad on a Monday morning, and sure enough, the new student stood there, a gorgeous half smile forming on his perfect face.