Jealousy

Two days passed since Luca said he would be the only person I was allowed to play ping pong with. And the last two days I have had absolutely nothing on my mind besides ping pong and Luca Zhang.

I even forgot about two homework assignments.

Every day, from the moment I wake up, I dread ping pong club. I sit in class and think about the millions of instructions that Luca has given me. And I fear what he'll do if I don't improve.

Yesterday, when I arrived before Luca did, Travis taught me how to practice hitting the ping pong ball against a wall, since I couldn't practice with anybody. And since then, I've been practicing with a wall every chance I get.

In all honesty, I don't know if I like the ping pong club.

It's so stressful.

And maybe It wouldn't be that way if the sadistic and psychopathic hottie Luca Zhang hadn't decided to take me under his personal wing. Well, that is until we are not in club. As soon as I'm out in the real world again, Luca and I suddenly don't know each other. I do my best to pretend like he doesn't exist. And he, well, for him it's probably easy to pretend like I don't exist. Because in his world, I'm probably just some pesky fruit fly that he's considering smacking out of the air.

"Are you alright?" Anna asks me. I've been sitting on a bench in the quad for the past hour dribbling a ping pong ball on a paddle and drowning myself in my thoughts. I'm pretty sure I missed my last class, and I'm pretty sure I don't care either.

"When did you get here?" I ask, and as I do, I hit the ball at a bad angle and it goes flying into the grass across from us.

"I've been here." she shrugs, "You were in such a daze that you didn't notice me."

"Oh." I give her an embarrassed smile. "Sorry, my mind is preoccupied with-"

"Ping pong?" Anna finishes for me.

"Yeah." I laugh.

"yeah," she agrees, and I think I catch a glint of annoyance in her tone, "It's all you think about lately."

"Sorry," I shake my head, "We just have game coming up, I guess, and-"

"And you need to get better before then." She finishes for me again, "I know, you've told me." she leans back on the bench and crosses her arms. "Do they give you some kind of drug or something?" she asks.

"What?"

"I mean, I heard that the people in the club are obsessed with the game." she goes on, "But I didn't think it would happen to you too."

"I'm not obsessed," I try to counter, "I'm just a little stressed because-"

"You never even asked me how my date went." She cut me off and I suddenly feel like a bad friend.

"You're right." I say, and remember that she was so excited for a date just a few days ago. But now she doesn't seem as happy as she had before. in fact, the last few days she seemed a bit down, but I didn't pay attention, I didn't even ask her if something was the matter. "Did it not go well with..." I can't remember his name, "Vixon?"

She laughs despite herself, and I'm glad for that, "Victor." she corrects me, "And no, it didn't go well." She looks down at her thumbs and I pat her on the back, this isn't the first time she's had a bad date, so I'm fairly certain I can console her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I ask.

She sighs loudly, "Turns out he actually wanted to talk about debate strategies." She gives me a weak smile, "he didn't want to get to know me at all."

I give a tight-lipped smile. "I mean, that's what he said he wanted to talk about, isn't it?"

"And when I asked if he wanted to go out with me again. he said no." She go on, she acts frustrated but then laughs at herself too.

I laugh along but know she's probably more upset than she's letting on, "I'm sorry Anna." I say and rub big circles on her back, "Are you gonna stay on the debate team?"

At this question she gives me a side smile, "You think I'll give up that easy?" she asks.

I can't help it, I laugh at her.

leave it to Anna to not take a hint.

"In fact." She says, as she jumps off the bench with now found purpose. "I need to practice debate right now!" She blows me a kiss and runs along down the path.

I watch her go, then lean back and look at the sky, I sigh and wonder what the hell I'm doing with myself. Putting all my time and effort into a ping pong club that I'm not even enjoying.

~I mean, If I could quit the club, I would. But I'm literally bound to the club with a contract.~

"What are you doing?" I jump at the question, and then I jump again when I see who asked it.

"Luca?" He's sitting beside me holding my lost ping pong ball.

"Shouldn't you be practicing?" he asks and tosses the ball into my lap.

"I- I was just taking a break." I say and scoot on the bench until I'm as far away from him as I can be.

As if he doesn't notice, he scoots closer to me, pinning me to the edge. "Go on," he nods his head toward the ball and paddle, "show me what you got."

I look around us but notice that the quad is empty.

~That's probably why he's talking to me.~

"Erm, alright," I attempt to dribble the ball on my paddle like I've been doing non-stop these last few days, but my first bounce has too much force. It flies straight into the air and Luca grabs it before it hits the ground. His arm flying out in front of me and nearly swiping my nose right off my face. when he sits back down he's so close to me that his hip is touching mine.

~Does he not notice? Does he not care? Or maybe he doesn't think of me as a woman?~

Either way it has my heart beating so fast that I can't hear anything except its palpitations.

"You should use your wrist more." He instructs me, and grabs my hand that holds the paddle. He swivels my wrist around until its loose and flexible. "there we go." he says under his breath and my mouth feels dry. He was like this yesterday and the day before too: oddly nice. I think he must be playing at something. "Okay," he says and hands me the ball back, "try again."

I try again and this time I get it straight away. I smile a little as the movement comes easily to me.

"Good." Luca remarks as he watches me, "You're a quick learner." he says, and I make the mistake of looking over at him. But we're sitting so close that it startles me and I drop the ball again.

He stands and retrieves the ball, "Keep up the practice" he says, and his tone and face are back to the resting-bitch that he usually is. "I'll see you tonight."

I watch him go then continue my dribbling. I only stop when I'm joined again at my bench, this time by a group of people. A group of people that are known for following Luca around like creepy stalkers. I raise my eyebrows at them but feel worry growing in my stomach.

"Why the hell were YOU talking to Luca?"