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It sucked

Why he felt this way about me still re I had no friends I was quiet Not toBut I just couldn’t see any of these reasons being the cause behind his dislike for me Even Kelsey Merritt had never piercedlooks

The only reason I could come up with, as to why Alex hated me so much, was that maybe he blamed me for the fact that every time he sat down at our table in astronomy, the electric sensation sparked up But I still wasn’t even sure if he could feel the electricity

So where did this leave , my brain had taken up teardless of my proble started pushing roup participation, like he could tell Alex and I were having issues and wanted to force us to work them out with each other But hoas I supposed to work out my issues with Alex when I wasn’t sure what the issues were?

It didn’tany part of it He refused to work on any of the assign his ar

It was Friday when things finally took a shift in a different direction Mr Sterling had passed out a deck of cards with the constellations printed on the the cards up for one another and trying to identify the so would have required all three of us to work together Instead, Alex had half of the cards and was identifying theood today, dressed in a dark grey Henley and faded jeans, his hair scatteredood he looked And, letout real well for ood he looked was all I could focus on

Across the table, Ailsin sat, texting away on her cell phone, her pale pink arded the assignht on that this blasé attitude seemed to be a trend for her, like she didn’t care at all about her grades

The rest of the cards were on the table besidean inartistic rose on the cover offor the last fifteen minutes about what it would be like to be norhtly acrossI’d never be

It was a how unfocused I was today Nornh the deck of cards Lately though, my concentration had taken a drastic turn down Inattentiveness Lane

Soet my concentration back

As I added the thorns to the ste a pink slip of paper in his hand Startled by his sudden appearance--and the fact that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to--I dropped my pen It rolled off the table and landed on the floor as I scranly at me and set the pink slip down on the table in front of Aislin "This came from the office for you"

She snapped her cell phone shut and flashed hiathered up the slip of paper

"Nohis tie as walked away

Aislin read the paper over and then announced, "I have to go to the counselor’s office"

Alex dropped the card he was holding and it floated to the floor like a feather "What for?" His voice ca a few people to shoot curious glances at us Alex leaned closer to Aislin and lowered his voice "Why do you have to go?"

"I don’t know" She shrugged and handed him the slip "It doesn’t say why It just says I have to"

Alex skimmed the paper over, then crumbled it into a ball and tossed it on the floor It brushed down Nina Monroe’s long, blonde hair during the downfall, and she turned around, her eyebrows furrowed as she ran her fingers through her hair

Aislin flashed an apologetic look at her and scooped up the crumpled ball of paper fro out the creases "You really need to stop freaking out about the tiniest things"

Alex rolled his eyes "And you need to stop butting into er at hione I rabbed her phone and trotted down the stairs, the curls of her golden blonde hair swinging across her back

And just like that, a tension filled bubble formed around Alex and I Electric sparks danced all overconcern of how much more my heart could take before it would explode

I needed to concentrate on so else

I plucked a card froold patterned dots forht away, I kneas Andromeda but still flipped the card over to check the answer Yep, Andromeda printed in bold black letters on the back I slipped it underneath the bottom of the deck, took another card froold dots This one was a little bit trickier, which was a good thing because figuring out the answer tookdown andhis pen on the table over and over and over again I don’t know if he was doing it just because, or if he was atteet under my skin