8 Chapter 7

“Okay class, we’ll be pairing up today,” Mr. Cooper, my English teacher, informs us. The class cheers and friends start sharing looks, claiming each other as their partners. “Don’t get too excited. I’m picking your partners,” he continues, halting the cheers and excitement. The class turned into a chorus of groans at his words. “But before we get to the partners, I’m going to explain the project. In the story we have been reading, the main character is forced into an arranged marriage. That, my dear pupils, is why I’m picking your partners. I will be arranging you all into marriages. Now, luckily, there is an even number in this class. The project is two weeks long. You’ll only be in your arranged marriage for a week. The second week is when you’ll get to choose the person you marry. But it can’t be the same person that you were arranged to marry. You’ll be given a series of situations, and you’ll have to deal with them as a couple. At the end of the project, we’ll compare notes and decide whether arranged marriages end up working out better than when you choose the person you marry.”

He gives us a minute to digest the information and ask any questions we might have, then starts pairing us off. “Jessica and Stanley. Caroline and Jeff. Andrea and Riley. Mia and Corey.”

The list went on and on until, finally, he called my name. “Natalie and Colton” Then he continued calling out the other couples as if he hadn’t just made my life a whole hell of a lot harder. I close my eyes, trying to pretend this was a dream and wasn’t happening. But you can only pretend for so long before you finally have to face reality. I open my eyes just as the bell rings.

“Wait! One more thing before you leave. To create a more marriage-like feeling, I suggest you eat lunch together and spend as much time together during the school day that you can manage. I’ll be watching to see how well you all work together. Make it real. Don’t think that if you act like the perfect couple then it will get you a good grade because it won’t. Acting like yourself, however, will. Now, as you leave, one partner from each group needs to grab a paper off of this stack. On the paper, you’ll find your first assignment. Good luck and get out,” Mr. Cooper said, waving us out.

I gather up my books and bookbag and stand up. I look over as Riley comes over to me smiling.

“Interesting project, huh?” he asks me.

“You could say that,” I mutter in reply, looking from him to Colton, who appeared to be waiting for me at Mr. Cooper’s desk. Riley noticed my gaze and frowned a little. He understood without any words needing to be spoken. Just knowing that made me feel a little bit better. Sympathy lit his eyes as he watched me. I manage a half-smile. “I’m okay,” I tell him in an attempt to dissipate the sympathy. I don’t want or need anyone’s pity, especially Riley’s. He nodded and gave me a small smile in return that made me wonder if he believed me. He wasn’t pushing it though, and that’s all I cared about.

“Will you do me the honor of eating lunch with my wife and me?”

I laughed a little and shook my head at him. He seems to always make a bad situation seem okay. At least for a moment. I look behind him and see Andrea waiting on him as well. “Yeah, sure. As long as she doesn’t mind.”

“Nah, she’s sweet,” he answers, waving off my inquiry.

“You know her?”

“I’ve talked to her a few times,” he says shrugging.

“Uh-huh,” I sarcastically reply.

“What?” he asked, a clueless expression playing on his face.

“Nothing,” I answer, shaking my head and brushing his question off. It didn’t matter anyway. I watch as he starts smiling from ear to ear.

“Is someone jealous?”

“No,” I answer too quickly and too defensively. “Why would I be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you might like me just a little bit.”

“I can’t stand you,” I deadpan, heading toward the front of the classroom.

“So, you’re going to have lunch with someone you can’t stand. Your logic is flawless,” he replies teasingly.

“I’m only doing it to be nice.”

“Liar. You’re not a nice person.”

I scoff. “Well, at least you’re honest.”

“I didn’t mean it in a mean way,” he rushes out. “I’m just referring to the times you have yelled at me.”

“I haven’t done it that much,” I mutter, biting me lip and looking away from his green gaze to the ground.

“Right,” he chuckles.

I narrow my eyes at him and start to reply when I spot Andrea walking up to us from the corner of my eye. “Can you two do this at lunch? I’m starving,” she groans at us.

Riley’s head snaps to her as if he’s come out of a trance. He smiles down at her and I watch as her face lights up with a smile in return. I’m starting to realize Riley has that effect on a lot of people, myself included. She’s definitely not appearing to be famished at the present moment.

I feel a pit form itself in my stomach from looking at them together and how she looked up at him with admiration and a twinkle in her eye. It made me sick.

He’d only just come into my life, and now he could be snatched away even easier. I scanned her features, trying to ignore the way she was twirling her red hair in her fingers and giggling flirtatiously up at him. She has big, emerald green eyes to match her striking red hair that hung down in waves to her shoulder blades, a sharp, pointed nose that only made her features even more prominent, a bright, perfect smile that could almost blind you, and a body most girls would envy. The only things I could even try to find not perfect about her beauty are her thin lips. But even those didn’t hurt her appearance. She’s even managed to stay tan with it being winter. Not too surprising since she comes from a family that’s pretty well off in the financial department. She could have her own tanning room for all I know.

I quickly shake myself before I can spiral even more into the black hole of envy I’m finding myself in. I roll my eyes at myself and them before I can stop myself. I don’t know why any of this would be irritating me. I don’t care and I definitely won’t be having some idiotic internal struggle over any of it.

“Well, shall we go, milady?” Riley theatrically asks Andrea, offering her his arm. She giggles and nods, taking his offered arm. “See you in there,” he says to me, then leads Andrea out of the classroom.

I walk the ten or so feet that’s left between the front of the room and myself and to Colton. I decided, for this week at least, I’ll act like nothing ever happened the best that I can. I need this week to go as smoothly and quickly as possible to prevent any further damage or destruction.

“Look-,” he starts to say, but I cut him off quickly. I don’t want to hear whatever pity, tension, or awkwardness that sentence could hold. There’s too much of that in my life already when I need absolutely zero.

“What did we get?” I ask, taking the paper from him. I look down and read it as he falls into step beside me on the way to the cafeteria. Natalie, do not think about how familiar this feels. “Congratulations! May all the joys, and miseries in some cases, engulf you and your spouse in newlywed bliss. Now that you’re married, you are going to be faced with many decisions. The first choice you need to make is choosing a home. I have listed pictures and descriptions of five different places. You have a total of two hundred thousand dollars in the bank together. Be wise in making your choices.”

We sat down at the lunch table where Andrea and Riley were already sat and looking over their papers. We start flipping through the houses and reading over the descriptions. The first house is a two-story house with seven rooms, four bathrooms, a huge kitchen and living room, and a fireplace. It was worth one hundred eighty-four thousand. It was a beautiful dream house that included a huge yard, a pool, and all the works. The second was a small two-bedroom and one-bathroom apartment. It was five hundred a month. The third was a moderate-sized, cozy-looking house with a decent size yard. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a nice kitchen, and a quaint living room. It also included a private fenced-in backyard. It was priced at sixty-eight thousand. I put my finger on it.

“I want this one,” I say, turning my gaze on Colton. He looks at it and nods in agreement.

“It seems to be one of the smarter choices and it looks comfortable.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“And the second room would be for if we ever have a kid. The third could be for if our parents or anyone visit.”

“My thoughts exactly. I was thinking the third could be a guest room, home office, or something fun. I’d be good with any of those,” I finish spitballing my ideas with a smile.

“Wow, you guys do sound like a married couple. Talking about kids and everything,” Andrea says, glancing back and forth at us.

Colton and I look at each other and I see a flash of pain in his eyes. Why would he be hurting? He’s the one that chose to do this to us. I’m still watching him, trying to figure out even the tiniest clue as to what could be going on in his mind when I feel the awkward and silent tension that’s settled in the air at our table. I clear my throat to break up the silence.

“Riley and I decided on the two-story house,” Andrea said, sipping on her coke.

“What? No, we didn’t. He only put that there to trick people.”

“I want it. I think we could make it work. We would still have sixteen thousand left,” Andrea said, pouting and giving him puppy dog eyes. Which clearly wasn’t working in her favor as she’d clearly hoped it would. One look at Riley would have told anyone that.

“Exactly. Which is why we shouldn’t get it,” pressed on, a slight annoyance entering his voice. Out of habit, Colton and I share a look. “It’s not a good idea,” he continues, shaking his head.

“We’ll discuss this later, I have to go meet up with Stacy,” Andrea says, a finality in her tone while she grabs her bags.

She clearly wasn’t happy, and definitely not the Andrea from the classroom who was practically drooling over him. She was probably used to getting her way just with a bat of her eyes and a soft smile. Riley watched as she walked away then turned his eyes on me. I could sense the frustration coming off of him in waves. I wonder why it was so easy for her to get a reaction out of him when I had been trying to do just that since the moment he stepped into my life.

“Andrea’s nice and everything, but she can’t see beyond pretty, eye-catching, materialistic things. She sees something she wants and she goes for it, not thinking about what could happen because of it,” Riley huffs, running his hands through his hair in frustration.

“So, not your type?” I tease him. He shakes his head, smiling at me with what felt like a secret smile. Before I realize it or can stop it, I’m smiling back.

“Well, at least you two aren’t already having problems. This just makes me grateful that we don’t have to worry about arranged marriages in the real world. There’s no way I would actually be able to marry her or stay married to her.”

I laugh and look down at the table. My eyes end up drifting up to his arm and I frown. I reach over the table and run a finger over the black and blue bruise on his forearm. He looks at the spot where my finger was tracing and pulls his arms under the table. My face crinkles with worry.

“What happened?” I ask him.

“No idea,” he says shrugging.

The end of lunch bell rings and we all get up and gather our things. Colton nods his head at me, his mouth a tight line, and walks to his next class. I watch him walk through the double doors with an ache in my heart. For just a brief moment, while going over our project, we had felt like us again. How the hell was I supposed to get through a week of this if just this much was already affecting me?

“The way you two work together is pretty amazing. It’s not surprising though if you were really as close as you made you two out to be,” Riley said, interrupting my thoughts as we start to walk down the hall.

“Made out to be? Not made out to be. If you’ve actually noticed me as long as you claim then you know it’s the truth.”

“Sorry, that’s not what I meant by that,” he rushes out, a sheepish look spreading across his face.

“I will admit that I got lucky having him chosen as my partner. It’ll be easy to work with him if we could get past the awkwardness.”

“I didn’t notice any awkwardness. It seemed like you two fell right back into an old routine.”

I consider this for a moment and meet his eyes. He smiles and bumps his arm into my shoulder, pushing me playfully. “Hey!” I exclaim, smiling and playfully punching his arm, which earns me a melodic chuckle from him.

“See you at P.E.?”

“Yeah,” I reply, going into my math class.

I look back and watch him go around the corner and feel a small smile come across my usual stony face. I can’t lie. It feels kinda nice. I go to my seat and pull out my notebook. I see someone sit in the desk next to mine and turn to face me through the curtain of dark hair hanging around my face. I try to ignore them, hoping they’ll just turn around. They don’t. Why would they? I don’t have that kind of luck. Maybe people seeing Riley and me together has made me seem open to socialization again. Great. With a sigh, I turn my head and face them. It’s Andrea. Even better.

“Do you need something?” I ask her, inevitable irritation threading every word.

“You and Riley are friends, right?” she asks, clearly unfazed by my words and demeanor.

I consider the question. Are we friends? He would probably say yes. But me? I’m not so sure about that. I’ve definitely let him get closer to me than anyone else has had the chance to in the past six months.

“I guess you could say that,” I answer, awkwardly.

“Do you know if he’s interested in anyone? He’s so cute, sweet, and a genuine guy,” she gushes.

Of course. She’s gorgeous. He’s the epitome of perfect with his attitude and looks combined. They’d be perfect. Except, she’s not what he wants according to him. A small smile creeps onto my face. One that Andrea luckily doesn’t notice. Wait, why am I even smiling? Forget it. Back to the conversation, Natalie.

“No,” I answer simply.

“No, he’s not or no you don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Oh, okay,” she replies glumly. “Well, do you think he could be interested in me?”

I look down at my desk for a second, the rest of my dark brown hair falling from my shoulders and touching the desk. I smile a little more thinking of what Riley had said at lunch again. I look up at her. She’s patiently waiting for my answer. Her styled ginger hair is pulled over and her wide green eyes are focused on me with a hopefulness that could be viewed as desperate. She’s one of the popular people in the school, but you couldn’t exactly hate her because she was nice and sweet, no matter how easily she was distracted and won over by pretty and extravagant things.

“I don’t know. You would have to find out yourself,” I finally oblige her with the best answer I can muster.

“Well, thanks anyway. It would be cool if he does. He’s so nice and just amazing. Not to mention hot. He’s one of those rare guys who seem to actually care about things and people. I think I could be with him long-term. He’s the type of guy I’ve always dreamed about, you know? A real-life prince charming,” she swooned.

I nodded, my mouth in a tight line. Prince Charming's have never been my type, anyway.

The so-called villains of the stories are the misunderstood ones. I have no idea why she’s telling me all of this. We’re not close or anything even though we’ve never had a problem. But I don’t exactly have an inviting, open up to me, and reveal all your secrets, feelings, and dreams type of demeanor about me.

“So, you and Colton seem to get along well considering,” Andrea said, keeping up the conversation. My body went stiff. I know she noticed because regret flashed in her eyes. “Oh my God, Natalie, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

I roll my eyes and shake myself. The whole school knew how close Colton and I used to be. They don’t know exactly why we had all of a sudden stopped hanging out, but they had all gathered it ended badly. I shouldn’t be surprised when comments like this get made. I should expect them and not care or get hurt and struck by them the way that I still do. It’s been half a year for God’s sakes.

“No, it’s fine. Colton and I haven’t been friends for a while now. I’ve accepted that and I’m okay with it,” I say, blatantly lying and plastering a smile on my face.

Lying was easily becoming natural to me because, the truth is, I haven’t accepted it and I’m not okay with it in the slightest. I miss him. I miss what we had. I miss everything about him and us. She looks relieved as she pats my hand sympathetically and smiles. I control the urge to instantly pull away for about half a second just so that she can feel better about herself. The teacher comes in then and she turns and faces the front. I tried to focus but, like always, I find myself zoning out.