Opposites Attract (On-Hold) - Chloe Knox (novels for students txt) 📗

/> Zane laughed, “Partner, maybe you should take your own advice.”

That comment immediately made me think of yesterday in the cafeteria. Zane had flipped out on me, because I kept “trying to control him like he was some kind of a slave”!

Bull crap!

What does he want from me?

I’ve apologized, and then I’d actually meant it! Now he was just annoying me, like every other day. He’s so nosy and puerile and bipolar…one second he’s calling the girl next to him a filthy whore, the next he’s complimenting the girls rack! And the crazy thing is, it works!

Girls are always drooling over the misfit, misunderstood, bad boy, which they think is Zane.

“Nice portrait, by the way. I love how you drew my features, it’s real sexy.” Zane says nudging me teasingly again, only this time I’m awake enough to keep from slipping off the stool.

I looked down at the blank sheet of paper and giggled, “Yeah, looks just like you,” I mumble, “But I have to say, I love your portrait of me! It’s real fitting.” I say as I look at the empty space on the wooden table in front of him.

And that’s right, I said empty.

The lazy bum can’t even waist enough breath to grab a freakin paper to sketch on. He’s just sitting on the stool, his steel toed boots resting on the table top where his drawing should be. All twenty minutes of class that’s gone by, Zane has just sat there, flirting with the girl on the other side of him and ripping out blank lined papers which he only crumples up and attempts at throwing into the huge yellow trashcan a good few feet away.

Zane sighs and cracks his neck as if he’s achy from a long day of manual labor…ha-ha, yeah right! It’s not like he couldn’t handle it, I’m sure. Zane, he’s a pretty beefy guy with muscular arms and broad shoulders, but he just seems like the type of guy that works out at home instead of doing actual work…maybe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, I reprimand myself!

Zane then leans back and stretches his arms behind his head, “Well,” he breathes out, “I try.”

I look at Zane with an amused smile, my brow furrowed in disbelief…I couldn’t tell, was he being serious? Or was he being sarcastic? Dissing himself? He might be, but he looked completely serious. There was no hint of a smirk on his face anymore.

Zane looked over at me, looked at his boots, then quickly back to me eyes squinting, “Are you wearing make-up?”

“Uh, no,” I answered slowly unsure of where or how that even came up…what does he care anyway…
Zane nodded indifferently as if his next comment meant nothing, “Hu! You look a lot better without all that black shit around your eye.”

I huffed, “Wait! What?”

“That black pencil that every girl sticks in her eye now-a-days...?”

“You mean eyeliner?” I asked seriously doubting that he didn’t know what eyeliner is.

“Yeah that, you look a lot prettier with it off.”

I could feel myself blush, despite my best efforts, as I smiled…he actually complimented me. He pretty much said I was a natural beauty. My boyfriend, he never says stuff like that to me, as horrible as it is. Hell, my boyfriend can barely even hold doors open for me!

“What?”

“What?” I asked back, unsure of what Zane was asking or referring to.

“Why are you blushing? Why you smiling like that?”

I could feel the warmth in my cheeks grow hotter as my smile grew, “Sorry, I’m just not used to compliments…thanks.”

“What you mean you’re not used to compliments? Your boyfriend’s always talking about your ass in gym.”

I giggled feeling the slightest bit awkward now knowing that out of everything, Josh talked about my butt to his friends, “Yeah, well he hasn’t said anything like that to me since, like, freshman year when we first started dating.”

Zane chuckled with skepticism, “Really? That’s kinda pathetic…then again, I figured Neanderthals like him would only be useful for two things.”

“Oh yeah? And what would those two things be.”

“Opening tightly closed jars, and killing spiders.”

I lost it.

My whole body shook as I giggled loudly, indifferent of all the kids and a curious Mrs. Bowman watching me. I covered my mouth in an attempt to keep my laugh from echoing around the small classroom, but in the end it did very little to muffle my noise.

Zane looked at me, as I laughed, brow furrowed in a disbelieving yet amused facial expression,

“Um, why are you laughing?” he asked

“Why am I laughing?” I asked as the giggles slowly came to a stop, every now and then I’d have to hold back yet another giggle like I would a surprising hic-up, “What you said, about Josh being a
Neanderthal…it was funny.”

“Ummm, it wasn’t exactly supposed to be funny. To you, at least. That was an insult, Ashley! To your boyfriend!”

I shrugged, “So! Josh laughs at me all the time when I trip up the stairs or something, so I only thinks it’s fair.”

Zane nodded, then huffed as if he just realized something. And then giggled. Seconds later his giggle turned to a deep chuckle overflowing with amusement, which scored us another round of weird looks from our classmates.

“Well why are you laughing, if it wasn’t supposed to be funny?” I asked, taking out my other ear bud, and turning towards Zane.

Zane looked at me, suppressing more chuckles, and flashed a sexy half smile—wait! No! Not sexy! Annoying! That’s what I meant!

“You said you trip going up the stairs?”

I opened my mouth to say something, and then choked on a squeal which made me begin to giggle even more.

“Miss. Perfect trips going up the stairs.”

“Only a few times I—”

“Only a few times? Zane said with yet another chuckle interrupting me.

“You know what?”

“What?”

“……………….shut up!” I retorted—I know! Clever right?—as I shoved my headphones back into my ears to ignore his laughter. The laughter that was directed at me! And it wasn’t because him laughing hurt my feelings, not at all.

It’s just hard to admit, like Zane said, that I’m not really ‘Miss. Perfect’.

I don’t try so hard, for everyone to point out everything that I’m bad at…even if my only ‘epic fail’ EVER, is indeed tripping going up the stairs over not even the stairs itself, but my own feet…


Chapter Five

“Do you like Zane,” Lucy asked, interrupting my thought process, which I was forcing myself to gather to study the Pythagorean Theorem. I pretty much already knew the tricks and rules to finding the answers for a, b, and c, but we had a big quiz on it in a few days so I figured I’d study anyway…okay, my father said it would be a good idea, “Better safe than sorry,” is pretty much his motto, but I get straight A’s. I’ve never once had a failing grade in my life, or even a grade under a ninety, so why is he all bent out of shape? Who knows, with that guy?
“What?”
“Do you like Zane?” Lucy asked, her face serious but flushed.
I sat on my bed agape for the longest moment, not because I did like Zane and was afraid to admit it, but because I was surprised.
We never talked about Zane, mostly because he annoyed the shit out of us…at least he used to. Over the past few days my opinion of him has changed…can he be rude, disrespectful, obnoxious, perverted, disgustingly virile, and stupid? Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! And YES! But he’s really funny, and I’ve gotten used to his arrogant attitude…still Lucy and the rest of my “clique” hated the guy. He’s a slacker, a waste of time and space…so why did she so abruptly ask me, “Oh my god, you do! You like him? I can’t believe…well, I guess he’s not the most annoying guy on the planet…specially if you count window-licker Ian, or any of the other nerds, and he’s pretty hot too but…he’s such…the opposite of you.”
I huffed with amusement. Lucy, just like me was usually confident, fluently spoken, and prepared. Right now, it seemed like the gears in her head were spinning at uncontrollable speed to the point where she couldn’t concentrate or even take in a good breath without huffing and puffing. She was rambling, “Luce, relax. I don’t like Zane.”
“But-but…you were laughing with him the other day…you even blushed-and don’t you deny! I freakin saw it! I’m not blind!”
“It was nothing, Luce. We just talked, and he wasn’t a complete douche. He was funny.”
“Then why were you blushing?” Luce asked as she pointed a finger at me accusingly and jumped onto my bed, making it sway, next to me.
I stared into her dark brown eyes, trying to think of a way to make my blushing seem justified.
Lucy’s eyes went big, “Oh! My! God! You’re blushing! Again!”
“I am not!” I yelled defensively, hopping off my bed to confirm for myself in my bathroom mirror.
Soon enough, I was looking at myself in the mirror, my faded brown eyes wide with embarrassment as they glared at my rosy pink cheeks.
“I told you! I freakin told you! What did he say? What did he do?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes already feeling annoyed and tired of talking about the guy…God! She was blowing this so much out of proportion! She was making me feel guilty, making me feel like I was actually cheating on Josh! And I’m not, right? I only laughed…and blushed! That’s not a crime! Seriously, I flush when a cold wind blows across my face!
“Nothing, it’s not a big deal!”
“Tell me!” Luce mumbled through clenched teeth as she gave me, as my father—a huge fan of NCIS—calls it a jethrow. Her palm wacked me in the back of the head making me wince with a faint shock of numbing pain, “Tell me! What did he say!”
“He said I looked pretty, okay!” I growled under my breath feeling extremely angry, not because she kept pressuring me about Zane but because she hit me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’ve never hit her. We do it jokingly to each other all the time, but that smack? It hurt, like…really bad.
Lucy froze, and leaned her hip against the counter, “Huh?”
“He had asked me if I was wearing make-up, and when I said no, he said I looked prettier without the make-up.”
Lucy tried to grimace, but she’s never really been able to stay mad at anyone for longer than an hour. A genuine and beautiful