The Fallen Star

I hung out in the astronomy section by myself until the bell rang. Then I went over to the table, carrying a few books I’d randomly pulled off of the shelf. To my surprise, Alex was there. I thought he’d left, but there he was, his phone pressed to his ear.

“Yes. Uh huh. I will,” he said. Seeing me, he quickly added, “I have to go.” He hung up and shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans. “So how much longer do you think it’s going to take for us to get this assignment finished?”

I set my books down on the table and shrugged, slightly irked by his brush off 168/695

attitude. “I don’t know. Like you said, we really haven’t gotten much done.”

“No we haven’t.” He slipped on his jacket and zipped it up. “Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking. Maybe I should come over to your house after school so we can try to finish it up.”

Huh?“You want to come over to my house?” He wanted to come over to my house. My house. I’d never had anyone over at my house. Ever. Especially some gorgeous guy who had the gift of making my mind go blank just by looking at me.

“Yeah.” He spoke slowly, like I was slow, which he probably thought I was. “Is there something wrong with your house?”

“No,” I said, which was sort of a lie.

There was something wrong with my house.

For starters, Sophia was there. “It's just that right now my grandmother and I are going through a…weird phase.”

Weird phase? I sounded like an idiot.

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He cocked an eyebrow, seeming amused.

“What kind of phase?”

What kind of phase? What would be the best way to explain it to him? Tell him that everything was… strange. That Sophia and Marco couldn’t stand me. That we…“A yelling one.” I decided. It was too complicated to even try.

He laughed. “So is that a yes or no?” I sighed. “I guess it’s a yes.” I wrote my address down on a piece of paper and gave it to him. He told me that he’d come over around 4:30. Then he left to go to lunch. As I watched him walk out, I felt more alone than I ever had.

I took my lunch out of my bag and headed back toward my usual loner spot, desperately wishing that I wasn’t.

Chapter 9

Marco and Sophia weren’t there when I got home. I was so glad. If I was really lucky then maybe they wouldn’t show up until after Alex had left.

I cleaned up my room a little while I waited for 4:30 to roll around. I also had a temporary loss of sanity where I played around with the idea of changing into something different. I was wearing jeans and a black tee, and they suddenly seemed so plain. But then I realized, who was I trying to kid? It wouldn’t change anything. I’d still be socially incompetent, weirdo Gemma with the freaky violet eyes. And besides, I didn’t even own anything other than t-shirts and jeans

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I turned on some music and started on the essay to pass the time. I marked some pages with a highlighter and jaunted down a few notes. I’d made some real progress by the time I heard the door bell ring.

I trotted down the stairs and opened the front door. Alex stood on the porch, the hood of his jacket pulled over his head as snowflakes drifted down on top of it.

“Hi.” I opened up the screen door and let him in.

He stepped into the foyer, rubbing his hands together to warm them up as he glanced around at everything. There wasn’t much to look at, though; a small table with a few framed pictures of Marco and Sophia on it, and a large painting of a castle by a lake.

“So this is where you live,” he remarked.

“Yep, this is where I live.” I didn’t mean to sound so unenthusiastic, but I did. “My rooms upstairs and I figured we could go up there and work on the assignment.” 172/695

“In your room?” He squirmed around uncomfortably, which I thought was odd.

Then again, a lot of things he did were odd.

I gave him a strange look. “If you want, we could work on it at the kitchen table.” He shook his head. “No, your room’s fine.”

I raised my eyebrows. Okay. Whatever.I gestured for him to follow me as I head up the stairs.

My bedroom was very plain, particularly for a teenage girl’s room. I could only imagine what someone like say Kelsey Merritt’s room looked like. Or what Aislin’s looked like. There was probably a lot of pink, and a lot of photos hanging up on the walls. There was nothing on my walls. I had no rugs to cover up the boring off-white carpet. The only thing that gave it any character at all 173/695

was a bookshelf in the corner that held my CD’s and books.

“So what should we do first?” I asked as Alex glanced around at my stuff. I suddenly felt uncomfortable being up in my room alone with him.

He traced his fingers along the titles of my CD’s. “Should we get the report out of the way first?”

“Yeah, we could do that. But I’ve already got a lot of it done.”

He turned and gaped at me. “You already started on it.”

I nodded. “I worked on it while I was waiting for you to get here. I found a few good ideas and started putting stuff together.

Really, there’s not too much left to do.” He mulled over what I said for longer than what seemed necessary. “You know, it doesn’t seem fair for you to do most of the work on the report, and to also have to help put the map together.”

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“I don’t mind,” I told him. And I wasn’t lying either. I really didn’t mind. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. Plus, I loved astronomy.

He tapped his finger on his bottom lip.

“No, it’s not right. I think I’ll just work on the map at home. That way I can make Aislin help.”

Assuming he was hinting that he wanted to leave, I said, “Okay, if that’s what you want to do then its fine by me.” It didn’t feel fine, though. The thought of him leaving made my stomach kind of queasy.

“So…what do you want to do now, then?” he asked me.

“Huh?” Had I misunderstood him?

“What? Are you staying?”

“I was pla

hammering so viciously that it was making me lightheaded. But not wanting to let on that my heart was reacting so excitedly, I kept cool and gave a half-hearted shrug. “No, you can stay if you want.” He pressed his lips together, stifling a smile. “Sure. I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

What was with him and finding me humorous when I wasn’t trying to be?

He shucked off his jacket and slung it on the back of my computer chair. Then he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt and sat down backwards in the chair so that he was facing me.

I shoved my books out of the way and sat down on my bed. The music was still playing from when I’d been working on the report—“Ohio for Lovers” by Hawthorne Heights. The slow rhythm of the guitar over-took the silence as I struggled to come up with something to say. Being a lifetime loner, 176/695

I was completely clueless on how to strike up a conversation. Sure, Alex and I had spent some alone time together. But sitting here in my room with him felt different somehow, and I couldn’t seem to find any words to say to him. Perhaps it was because we were in my room.

Alone.

“So…” he finally said, breaking the silence, which was good because, waiting for me to speak first, we might have sat here forever. He rested his arms on the back of the chair and swayed it gently from side to side, “I know I’ve only been around you for a week or so, but it seems like you spend a heck of a lot of time by yourself.”

“I guess so,” I said.

“I didn’t mean that in a bad way or anything,” he quickly added. “I was just stating an observation… wondering why?”

“Wondering why I what? Why I spend my time alone?”

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He nodded. “I’m just curious.”