Contagious Chemistry, Sian Webster [good beach reads txt] 📗

empty seat next to Alex.
"So that's all you think about yesterday?" I snapped at him.
He ignored me.
This annoyed me even more. "What? No 'I'm sorry for making you feel that way, Absidy' or 'Absidy! Come back! I need you in my life!' or another one of your pathetic, meaningless apologies or pleas?" I asked, my voice raised.
He turned to look out of the window rather than down at his feet, still ignoring me.
That was it. I knew exactly how to break him then, if he refused to acknowledge my existence. "Or was that whole conversation about me being the most beautiful girl in the world and how you like me when we were stuck in that stupid elevator just an act?"
By now, the whole bus had shut up and was staring at us. Tell everyone Alex Parker's secret? Check.
He turned around to face me now, the tone of his voice matching mine. "And how do I know that all you said in maths yesterday wasn't just some stupid act?"
"For your information, Mr Perfect, it wasn't!" I snapped.
"Don't try lying to me, Absidy-" He started, but we were interrupted by the bus driver's voice over the bus's loud speaker.
"Sorry to interrupt what may be worthy of being on Home & Away or Neighbours, but you two are causing such a racket that by law I must kick you off my bus."
"You're kidding me!" I called up to the front.
"Nope," The driver said, pulling over and opening the door. "Off you two get. Continue this little argument of yours somewhere other than my bus."
I gave Alex a death stare before grabbing my bag and walking off the bus. We both knew he had to follow me or he'd never get his bus pass back and would have to walk 6km to school every morning. When the bus drove off, I turned back to him.
"You asshole! I don't know why I trust a word you say when you don't trust a word of mine." I snapped.
"It's not like I'm the one who told someone they were gonna give them a chance and then ditched for the rest of the day with some guy that she fell over the day before!"
I felt like he'd slapped me. It looked like it felt as if he slapped himself too - as if the words weren't supposed to come out of his mouth.
"How did you know about that?" I asked incredulously.
"Think about it, Absidy."
I did. I remembered the bright red Dodge viper we drove next to on the freeway while Jeremy had the radio up too loud, and realised that it was the same one we parked next to at the beach. It was also the same one that Alex owned.
"You followed me?!"
"I wanted to see if you were okay!" He almost yelled. "Though you seemed fine with emo boy."
"That gave you no right to follow me!" I shoved his chest. "And for your information, we're just friends, idiot."
"Sure," Alex said. "That's also why you kissed him at the bus bay. And why you kissed him in the car when he nearly killed you with his reckless driving."
"He kissed me in the car." I said simply.
"Yet you kissed him back!" Alex pointed out. "And you never said anything about the bus bay. You kissed him at the bus bay too, unless you've forgotten already."
"Fine!" I yelled. "Yes, I kissed him. But what does it matter to you? Sure, I said I was thinking of giving you a chance, but I never said that we were together. I never said that chance was you being my boyfriend. I never said we were exclusive, and at that time, you didn't even care!"
"I always care!" He yelled back.
"Well you've got a great way of showing it, brainiac." I snapped. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to school before I miss out on anymore of my education, no thanks to you."
I walked off, leaving him staring after me with a shocked look on his face.

***

Emily grinned at me as I took my seat next to her in English later that morning.
“Quite a scene you two caused back there.” She commented.
“He didn’t want me to cause a scene.” I told her. “So that’s exactly what I did.”
Emily looked confused. “He’s the most popular guy in school. Causing scenes is his forte! Why would he not want you to cause one?”
“Purely because I’m involved. He didn’t want the entire school knowing that he likes me. He’d get picked on and de-throned if they knew.” I explained.
“You caused a scene to get him ‘de-throned’?” She asked incredulously.
I shook my head and smiled slyly. “I caused a scene to make his life a living hell.”
10. The Queen Bee

That day at lunch I got the surprise of my life. Alex’s ex-girlfriend, Breanna Whittaker, came up to me, Emily and Stacy at lunch, and (this was the shocking part), she was smiling at me. She ran over and hugged me, kissing me on each cheek like we were old friends. Her ‘minions’ as I called them all did the same. They did this to Emily and Stacy as well.
“Absidy!” Breanna called happily, “I haven’t spoken to you for so long!”
There’s a reason for that. I thought sourly. On the outside, I smiled back at her. Alex would hate it if I decided to become best friends with her. So that’s exactly what I would do.
“Breanna!” I copied her tone of voice. “So nice to see you!”
I gave Emily and Stacy a sharp look and, thank god, they understood my silent message: just go along with it. They greeted Breanna and her friends in a similar fashion; thankfully they were great at acting.
“Why don’t you three come and sit with us?” Breanna asked, pointing to an arrangement of four or five picnic tables where all the popular kids sat.
“I’m not su—” I started to say.
“Come on, Absidy,” She nearly begged. “There’s more sun, more people, more boys…”
I sighed dramatically. “Yet the downside still counteracts all of those amazing factors.”
“What’s that?” Casey – the new girl who had started at school a couple days before and had been adopted by Breanna – asked earnestly.
“More Alex.” I told them, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Breanna’s eyes widened. “Absidy!”
“Yes?” I asked, confused.
“That’s exactly why you should come and sit with us!” She exclaimed.
All of us, including her minions gave her a perplexed look.
She sighed and explained. “The one thing that would annoy Alex as much as he annoys Absidy would be Absidy becoming one of us. He mainly likes her because she’s different. If she started not being different, or merely acting the same as everyone else, he’d stop liking her, and bam! Absidy is rid of Alex the annoying asshole.”
Emily’s eyes lit up now. “You know what else would push Alex off the cliff we’d create by doing this?”
We all stared at her in earnest, waiting for her to answer our unspoken question.
“Seeing Absidy with another boy.” Emily finished.
“But who would date Absidy purely to piss off Alex?” One of Breanna’s minions – Nora, I thought her name was – asked. I pretended not to be offended by her tone which, in short, implied that no one would want to go out with me, period.
“I have an idea,” Stacy smiled slyly, looking across the quad.
We followed her eyes. She was looking at Jeremy, or ‘emo boy’ as Alex called him.
“Stacy, you’re a genius!” Breanna jumped up and down, clapping happily.
“You know what’s even better about the boy being Jeremy?” I asked the girls.
They looked at me expectantly.
“Alex hates him with a passion.”
The girls cheered and dragged me over to the popular kids’ seat. If you had told me a week before that in a week I’d be getting taken to sit at the popular kids’ table without me kicking and screaming, I would’ve probably told you that you needed to be sent to a mental institute right away. It was then when I realised how quickly things could change.
There were about 14 of us spread out across the five tables. Four of the tables were put around one in the centre in a make-shift rectangle. The table in the middle was a place of power, like the back seat of a bus, perhaps. It was where the most popular girl or the ‘Queen Bee’ sat. I wondered how long it would take me to remember all these girls’ names. I supposed that if I were going to be one of them, I should probably at least learn their names and get to know them a little. I was just about to stand up and walk over to Jeremy and drag him over to sit with me when Breanna started speaking, stopping all the other individual conversations the girls had been having.
“Girls, I just got the greatest idea.” She announced. “I think that not only should Absidy act like one of us, but that she should also be Queen Bee.”
Everyone stared at her, put out. She wanted to give up her title just to get Alex off my back? And straight into her waiting arms, I realised. So there was something in this for her after all.
“Are you sure?” I asked her carefully.
“Do you want Alex off your back or what?”
I nodded.
“Then it’s official!”
The other girls mimicked her enthusiasm and dragged me from the bench where I had been sitting to the table in the middle; the seat of power. I watched Jeremy as his eyes travelled over to where Emily, Stacy and I usually sat. A confused look flashed across his face when he realised that we weren’t there.
Breanna followed my gaze and smirked at me. “Let’s get your boyfriend over here and see what damage he can help us do.” She said, “Alex should be out of his detention any minute now.”
Alex had gotten a ten minute detention from our English teacher for being late to class and having the nerve to disrupt it as well. In those ten minutes, this whole idea of Breanna’s had come together.
I had a question for her before I trusted her any further. “Breanna,”
“Yes?”
“No offense or anything,” I began, “But what’s in this for you?”
Breanna’s eyes narrowed and it took all my willpower not to flinch. “Alex is an asshole, Absidy. He doesn’t deserve this popularity he has. His popularity