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

smile touched her lips, lighting up her dark eyes and her tan skin, “Awww, now that’s cute.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed, “Luce, I don’t like the guy. It’s just that day he was nice, and Josh doesn’t say that kind of stuff to me anymore so it kind of caught me off guard.”
Luce nodded slowly, her eyes growing wide as her smile grew bigger and bigger, “What’s wrong with you? Why you still smiling, you’re kind of creeping me out!” I said with a giggle.
Lucy just shrugged, “Sounds like somebody likes you…”
I snorted, “Please! I’m the last girl that would ever go out with Zane, the last girl he’d probably want too. Like you said we’re complete opposites.”
“Uh-hu, sure,” Luce said under her breathe as she walked out of the bathroom, that goofy grin still plastered to her face.
Seemed to me like Zane wasn’t the guy I thought he was. Lucy’s opinion of him was definitely changing...

…And I was right!
The very next day when I walked into class Lucy was standing by Zane’s table talking and giggling away, standing straight making her chest look perkier then it actually was and flipping her gorgeous curls over her shoulder. Zane at first looked uncomfortable, but the last few minutes before the actual drawing class started and Lucy had to return to her seat, he relaxed and talked to her like she was a normal human being. She wasn’t higher than him, she was a peer, and maybe even a friend…despite my slight opinion change on him, though, I’m sure he couldn’t keep his eyes off her chest. Her dark smooth skin and that tight bright yellow polo short sleeve, almost made it impossible not to look. Even I was drawn to her ‘lovely lady lumps’. She always managed to show off all her curves without being revealing, at all.
“So I see you’ve got a new groupie,” I said teasingly as I took my seat next to Zane.
Zane hesitated as he watched Lucy at the other side of the room. He looked somewhat confused, but he didn’t bother hiding a smile, “Yeah, um…it was surprising.”
“What you mean it was surprising?” I asked as I got out a 3H pencil to lightly sketch the portrait, only I was blank. I still, even over the past few days, haven’t been able to learn enough about Zane to create a meaningful abstract portrait. Like usual, Zane hadn’t even got out a piece of paper or pencil. He just sat next to me, his cheek resting on his folded arms smirking, “Just never thought girls like you and her would give me the time of day.”
I rolled my eyes feeling very giddy and anxious, he was very amusing for some reason, “You and she,” I mumbled with a girly chuckle.
A brow raised, and he squinted in confusion making me laugh, “You said girls like you and her. The proper way to say it is you and she.”
Zane narrowed his eyes as his confusion grew, “But that makes no…that just doesn’t sound…whatever, you knew what I meant.”
I waited a moment, thinking about what he said, “Actually, no! I don’t get what you meant. You didn’t think girls like Lucy and I would give you the time of day?”
Zane chuckled with disbelief which made me feel cold-hearted, “C’mon, Ashley. You and Lucy are smart, popular, and have amazing legs.” I flushed, but would have probably turned a bright crimson if I didn’t already feel bad about making Zane feel like he wasn’t worth my time, “Not to mention you both have football player boyfriends. You’re most likely going to be valedictorian and have an amazingly creative mind. Lucy, she’s cheerleading captain, I mean. It’s totally cliché…Now, I’m not complaining, I’m used to being alone. I prefer it actually, but don’t pretend like you actually enjoy my company. If I didn’t show up to school tomorrow, would you care?”
“Of course I would—“
“Wrong!” Zane said with a chuckle, “You’d be over there with your bestie chatting on and on about how hot your boyfriends look in their uniforms.”
I glared.
“Okay maybe you wouldn’t be talking about that, but you certainly wouldn’t be over here pouting.”
My glare quickly disappeared to reveal hurt eyes and a frown. Never in my life had I felt so horrible. I had always thought I was a kind and caring person, but if I were honest and it was a few weeks ago, Zane would have been correct. I probably would have snuck over to Lucy and made fun of the weirdo with the motorcycle that I was stuck with for my drawing project and not thought twice about it…the same would have gone for anyone else that wasn’t in my “clique” or my friend. And he was smiling, like it didn’t bother him?
How could he not be bothered by the fact that he had no friends? No one who loved or even cared for his existence? Just like in the Breakfast club; if he were gone, it wouldn’t make a difference. It would be as if he never even existed.
Was it any different now?
Over the past few weeks I’ve actually began to enjoy his company. Sometimes he was obnoxious and would start talking about the most inappropriate stuff, yet I couldn’t not laugh. He managed to make everything funny and somewhat charming.
Usually when I went to drawing class, it was my artwork that drove me there; it was what made me excited to go to class in the morning despite how tired I felt. As much as I love Lucy, it was never her that made me want to go to school…and since I can’t exactly talk to Lucy during drawing anymore, and since I can’t seem to think of a drawing idea for the life of my future career, the only thing keeping me from acting like a dramatic teen artist that has lost her muse and creativity is indeed Zane, whether he believes it or not. I at first, I’ll admit, hated the thought of even being in the same room with the slacker Zane, but the more I talk to him the more I like him. He doesn’t seem it, mostly since he keeps to himself, but he really can be sweet, and has a really fun personality…so because of my perception change, would I still be cruel and ignore the fact that he ever existed when he didn’t show up to class? Would I give him the cold shoulder and talk behind his back like I used to?
“Whatever happened to ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’?”
Zane laughed, “I’m not judging by the cover, I’m judging by observations and experience. I’m judging by the contents.”
Now that really hurt, because everything he said, despite how much I denied it, was true. I might get straight A’s and read to little kids at the local library after school, but I’m no different than any other rumor starter in this school.
A weird jerk and twist of my stomach made me want to puke as tears stung my vision, but I blinked them back…I had never realized, never even thought…
It’s really hard to see and accept the type of person you really are, even when someone points it out or its right in front of you.
I surrounded myself with people that talked highly of themselves and expected to be the best, not caring who they tore down on their way to the top. I had turned into the person that I had always swore I’d never become, and hadn’t even noticed…strange how Zane, out of all people, could point all my faults in a way that actually made me feel guilty and want to change right then and there, when I didn’t even know the guy. He didn’t know me. Lucy could have told me I was a stuck-up-bitch and I wouldn’t have thought anything of it.
“Well what if I re-wrote my contents?” I asked, completely serious.
Zane stared at me for a moment, and then laughed, “You know how ridiculous that sounded?”
I attempted and failed, at hiding back a smile, “Well we were talking in the metaphor of humans being like books so—“
“Ashley?”
“Yeah!”
“Just…shut up…” he said it while laughing, and the biggest smile on his face, so it didn’t seem like he was trying to be rude. He just…wanted me to shut my trap I guess.
I giggled and for a moment we sat there in silence, “Zane?”
“Yeah?”
“How can you talk so low of yourself, and laugh? I just, I don’t get it.”
Zane smiled, “It’s not exactly talking low of myself as—“
“Me,” I interrupted making him gasp with amusement, “Will you stop correcting my grammar?”
I giggled like a two year old amused by their parents anger, “Sorry.”
“Anyway, it’s not talking low of ME, as much as it is repeating what other's say.”
I nodded slowly understanding what he was saying, yet not sure I was getting an answer to my question, “So…what? You mock the people that…talk about you?”
Zane just shrugs, as he pulls a piece of beef jerky out of his sweatshirt pocket and plops it into his mouth. Zane sees me watching and pulls out a small baggy of dried jerky, “Don’t you dare judge. Redneck jerky’s the shit!” he says with a giggle before handing the bag to me.
Curious, I took a handful of jerky and stuffed the handful into my jean pocket, only putting one in my mouth to try.
I’ve never had beef jerky, but it was actually pretty could. Just tasted like spicy, dried, beef.
Zane sighed, and after yet another silent moment, I went back to our previous conversation, “You don’t care about what other people think, do you?”
I expected more, but all he said was, “Depends.”


Chapter Six

Tears streaming down my eyes, making my cheeks itch and my lips taste salty and warm. My stomach hurt, my heart was pounding, and I couldn’t take in a single breath without sobbing, gasping, or choking on my own saliva. I was hurt, more than I ever thought was possible, yet I couldn’t turn away. I knew that it would only make me feel worse, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away…
...Rebecca, the gorgeous brunette from the school’s advanced choir, was standing against the side of Josh’s car. She was smiling and giggling, as her hair blew gracefully with the breeze.
She isn’t popular but she’s not a nerd, and she’s always been known as the shy innocent girl in school. Nothing about her now was innocent or shy, though.
Her skinny pale arms wrapped around Josh’s neck and pulled. He easily gave into the girl’s wants and leaned into her, leaving a trail of kisses on her shoulder, to her collar bone, to her jaw…and then her chin…and then their lips touched, and I couldn’t stand to watch any longer.
Despite my weak and wobbly legs I turned around