Chapter 3: Attention-Wh*re

Tuesday finally showed its ugly face. The first day of school was always the hardest—even if you loved what you were studying or enjoyed learning. To my dismay, I was late by a second to my first class, but it was late enough to make my professor give me the stink eye for most of the hour. In my defense, during the day they did a college tour at Black Hills University, I was still driving from Salem, Massachusetts, to Deadwood, South Dakota, but teachers don’t take excuses like that when you get to college. In their minds, physically dying isn’t a good enough reason to miss class.

College was important to me. I worked hard in high school to maintain my grades to get in on a scholarship. I thought I would be attending in Boston, of course, but luckily my scholarship was able to follow me to Black Hills University. I just wanted to live as normal of a life as I could, and even though most people would presume that to be easy, it was quite a feat for me.

By the time I made it to my last class of the day, I felt I had a slightly better grasp of where to go. Lucky for me, Liz was in a few of my classes, so she helped me find a few classes and explained where to find the others.

On my way into the classroom, my long black cardigan caught the door handle. I huffed in irritation, and half turned to reach for it, but before I could, a hand flashed out and untangled it for me. My eyes met a familiar pair. I made a face—a knee-jerk reaction. Silas had been so horrible to me the first day my guard went up instantly. Why would he be in my math class? Well, of course, it could be one of his requirements—I thought.

At first, his face was expressionless, but when he took in my expression, he tensed up, and his nostrils flared. “Maybe you would like to move, so the students behind us can get in,” he said coldly.

I scoffed and spun away from him dramatically. My cardigan flew out behind me in my swift movement. I deliberately sat as far in the back as possible, hoping it would be far from Silas. However, he sat in the same row with one empty desk between us. He clearly didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

A blonde girl entered the classroom, and the bell rang a second later. She had a tall and slender figure. She looked like she had walked straight out of a magazine. A perfect face to go with a perfect body. Too perfect, a barbie. She bared her long tan legs proudly as she strutted into the room. Her pink mini-skirt looked as though it barely kept her intimate area covered. If she bent over to any degree, the person behind her would get a good view of her a*s, no doubt. If her white crop top were any lower, her nipples would be showing. Even Liz didn’t dress as womanly or confidently. One thing was clear about her—she didn’t just adore the attention; she demanded it.

Silas grimaced and rolled his eyes as this woman walked past his desk. She shook her a*s like she was trying to win a twerking competition. She sat her things down on the desk between Silas and me harder than necessary and bent over slightly, probably to give Silas a view he couldn’t resist.

My eyes locked with hers, and I realized she was glaring at me while showing off her butt to him. She came around the seat finally after making her attention-wh*re-like entrance and plopped down in her seat.

My gaze went from her to Silas, wondering if she had caught his attention as she had hoped. He wasn’t looking in her direction at all. He stared straight ahead at the professor as if he deeply cared about whatever the professor was talking about—though I doubted that was the case. Two theories of why she didn’t grab his attention bounced through my head—number one: he already had her in bed and wasn’t impressed, or number two: he is gay. I considered both of these and smiled wistfully to myself.

Silas caught me smiling, and I was staring in his direction. I wasn’t exactly looking at him, but it could have easily been confused by Silas that I was, in fact, staring at him. My smile dropped instantly, and I bit my lip, feeling idiotic.

A loud pop noise made both of us turn our attention to our shared neighbor, the attention-wh*re as I now liked to call her. She was sucking her pink gum back into her mouth. She had judgmental eyes as she swept over my obviously not-so-rich and not-super-girly clothes. It’s pretty easy to figure out that black is my favorite color. Black is all I ever wore. Eighty percent of my clothes were black, and the other fifteen percent were red. The other five percent belonged to other various colors except for pink and yellow. Those two colors weren’t a part of my wardrobe—ever.

My clothes were tight but not to the point I couldn’t breathe. I wore my favorite ripped black skinny jeans, black heeled boots, a black tank top, and my favorite black cardigan. This girl and I were totally the opposite. Even our physical appearances weren’t similar. Both of us had blue eyes, but hers were dark blue, and mine were light blue.

“What are you looking at?” she sneered.

“Well, if I had to guess, probably the professor’s favorite pet,” I said and smirked.

She scoffed. “At least I don’t look like I’m going to a funeral. Looking for pity much?”

“At least I don’t have to bend over in front of a guy to get him to look at me.”

This remark pissed her off completely. It looked like smoke was coming out of her ears from the fire burning in her eyes.

I heard a snort and looked past her at Silas. He had his fist partially in his mouth, and his eyes danced with amusement. Obviously, hearing us and trying not to laugh at the insults.

For the rest of the class, I carefully kept my eyes on Professor Hayford. Math wasn’t one of my better subjects, so I had to pay attention in this class if I was going to get good grades. I took a few notes, just in case.

Hayford dismissed class a few minutes early. Silas got up and left in quite a hurry as if he were late for something. I sighed and gathered my books slowly, hoping I would miss any further conversation with my neighbor.

She wasn’t having it. She stood in my way with her books against her chest. “You’re wasting your time, honey. He doesn’t go for ugly red-headed gothic chicks.”

“Clearly, he doesn’t go for obsessive barbie blondies either. Maybe he doesn’t go for women at all.” I shrugged. “Truth is, I don’t give a crap. It’s you who cares.” I shoved past her, intentionally shoulder-bumping her.

A dramatic “Eh” came from her, but nothing else as I stormed out of the room.