Pencils & Polaroids

43: treasure hunt

You know how when you're trying your best to avoid someone but fate decides to fuck your plan over and dumps them in front of you more times than usual? 

Yeah, I think fate is fucking over Rainer's plan to avoid me. 

After last night's fiasco, I didn't go for a run in the pine forest and chose the indoor gym instead. Guess who I ran into while doing cardio. He, however, switched machines and chose a cross trainer (the farthest machine from where I stood) and after eight minutes exactly, he bolted out the doors. 

Breakfast hall, it was not my fault we both went for the last remaining croissant. He let me have it without a fight. I did savor the croissant but Rainer not fighting with me over petty things was too hard to come to terms with. He only ate half his breakfast in sheer silence and in a matter of exactly seven minutes and forty-eight seconds, he was gone. 

It was calming when he glared or shot insults at me like darts every chance he got. The transition from that to now where he can't maintain eye contact for more than a second after last night is starting to ache my chest. The worst part is I don't even know why he's avoiding me. And the fact that he's so evidently doing it, makes me want to do it back. Return the favor or whatever. 

If he is escaping me, I can do that better. Anything he can do, I can do better. 

Highly immature, I know. But it's the best option when you have no clue about how to solve adult drama that doesn't involve academics or competitions.  

Therefore, when I walk into our theory classroom and find him sitting in his usual Falcon seat without anyone else in the room, I turn my bitch mode on. The only cons of being a world-class geek are our compulsive need to clock into classes ten minutes before it begins. I usually am the first person to enter the class, thus, I am not to be blamed if this asshole chucked his gossip sesh with his boy bitches and decided to prop up on my time. 

He notices me, and by noticing, I mean recognizing me from my black combat boots. His whole posture stiffens as I walk past him continuing chewing my strawberry gum, and hurl onto my seat that's diagonally opposite him. Whatever he was scribbling in his book, he suddenly stopped with the tips of his fingers clutching the tawny-colored pencil with added force. 

Dropping my bag and stretching my legs, I make sure he knows I'm watching him. It thoroughly surprises me how someone can go from kissing you like an animal to ignoring you like you don't exist in less than twelve hours. 

When I sigh for the first time, he folds his lips and tries to concentrate on whatever he was writing, making his pencil drum in between his fingers. When I sigh for the second time, his chin inches towards my direction but he doesn't turn around. Gulping, his attention rises to the door, praying for any other human being to step inside so it isn't just him and me in a room full of tables and chairs. When I sigh for the third time, I also clear my throat. This marks the end of his tolerance. 

With the sound of his screeching chair pushed backwards, he grabs his phone and walks straight out of the classroom without sparing me an accidental glance. 

"Wow," I whisper to the empty classroom because I, for once, didn't think he'd run away. 

Nevertheless, I make the most of his leftover assets and peek into his notebook. Dimensions, molecular theory, tectonics--he's studying chemistry. Pft, his only weakness in all of his academics. 

I flip the pages and on the last page, I see scribbled words. Because I can't read it properly, I haul the book to my table. 

If you knew you could do better, then why don't you do better?