You Are Not Cursed

Chapter 5: What have I gotten myself into

CHAPTER 5: WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO

I hadn’t planned to spend my period reading in the library, but I really wasn’t opposed to it. Contentment seeped into my bones, nothing but the shift of pages being turned filled my ears as I sat back and read not worrying about anything. When I glanced down at my phone to see I only had fifteen minutes left before lunch and just over half the book left I decided to take it out along with my textbooks—which I still needed to get; it seems I forgot why I was here in the first place. Slipping a scrap of paper into the book, marking my page, I got up and headed to the front of the library where the librarian sat behind her desk.

“Um, could I take out my textbooks?” I ask not sure exactly how to phrase what I was saying.

“Sure thing hun, can I see your schedule?” She asked and I instantly hand it over. She looked it over before grabbing two textbooks off the carts behind her; they appeared to be filled with textbooks whether they were always stored like that or it was like that specifically for students who hadn’t been able to get their books yet I wasn’t sure. She also grabbed to books for my English class off a the middle shelf from the bookcase behind her desk before bringing the stack over to me.

“Could I take this book out too?” I ask placing it on the table next to the stack of textbooks.

“Sure; student ID?”

“Oh I actually haven’t gotten mine yet; I just transferred and there was a problem so I won’t get it until the end of the week.”

“Sorry hun, you can’t take it out without an ID,” she told me genuinely looking sorry for the inconvenience. If I didn’t take it out now someone might come by and check it out before I get my student ID. I know that wasn’t a huge chance of that happening but there was still a chance and I was saddened by the thought (it was a pretty damn good book after all.)

“I’ll check it out,” a new voice announces.

“Wha-?” I began to question a little offended that someone swooped in to take it before I could even come up with some sort of solution.

“I’ll check it out for you,” he elaborates coming to stand next to me in front of the librarian’s desk. The dark haired boy was tall, probably just short of six feet, but considering my unfortunately average height there was still quite the gap between us forcing me to glance up slightly to look at his face.

“Killian you know that’s technically against the rules,” the librarian scolded with a tone that said she was familiar with this boy.

“I’ll take full responsibility; c’mon Mrs. M, she looked so disappointed when you said no.” I felt myself grow red when he said that, realizing how easy I was to read and how embarrassing that is.

“Alright,” the librarian – Mrs. M – caved in and held her hand out towards him. He slipped her his student ID, which she scanned before scanning the back of my book and handing it over to me. “Here you go hun.”

“Thank you,” I reply slipping my textbooks along with the extra book into my backpack.

“Thank you as well,” I say, this time directing it to the boy who had helped me out. As he looked at me and we made eye contact I noticed that eyes were a strange combination of grey and green that was shockingly beautiful.

“I have a feeling you’ll take good care of it, it’s no worries,” he replied and I nodded sheepishly. Somehow, I found myself walking next to him as he was going further into the library and I needed to return to my table since I left my bad there. “You’re new though right? I haven’t seen your face around,” he asks curiously.

“Technically ya,” I confirm making him look at me with an arched eyebrow. “I used to live here in town when I was younger before moving away and now I’m back.”

“Ah so you probably know a few people around here.”

“Ya I do; but you’re a new face too,” I reply recalling back to his words from before. While I might not have remembered those Joyce introduced me to there was still something familiar about them, the ghost of a childhood memory, but with him there was nothing.

“I started attending school here last year,” he explains, and I nod in understanding. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your book, you looked excited to read it, I’ll see you around.” I nod again with a smile actually hoping to see him again later and waved slightly before he turned down an aisle of books, probably to look for whatever he came here for and so I returned to my table. Sliding textbooks into my bag I make sure I have everything before leaving to find the library.

The bell rings when I’m halfway down the stairs and luckily I get down to the main floor before it gets too packed. The hallways are flooded with students, walking in every direction, or standing at their lockers.

I find the cafeteria easily thanks to Joyce’s instructions and after scanning from one side to the other of the large room I find Joyce already here at a table somewhere near the middle of it all.

“Hey,” I greet sliding into on the bench to sit across from her and she waves happily. “How were your classes?”

“Boring,” she replies dramatically, her expression changing completely before it changes again and she laughs. “What about you? How was your free period?

“Pretty good, got my textbooks from the library easily enough,” I reply as there wasn’t much else that went on.

Before our conversation can continue a boy I recognize as Mike sneaks up behind Joyce and wraps his arms around her.

“Hey gorgeous,” he greets with a wide grin before releasing her to slide onto the bench next to her.

“You startled me,” she scolds despite the smile on her face, lightly hitting his arm.

“Hey guys,” Julien and Andrew greet as they join us before Mike and Joyce can be any more of a gross couple. Julien takes the seat next to mine across from Joyce and Andrew takes the seat on the other side of Mike. Julien flashes me his signature charming smile and asks how my first day as been so far and I shrug slightly.

“School is school.” He chuckles and nods as if he gets it.

“You should get her one of the cafeteria cookies as a welcome to Crest Hill High,” Joyce suggests, “They’re like the only good thing they have here and they’re actually good.”

“You don’t need to buy me a cookie,” I tell him but he’s already standing up.

“She’s right, they’re pretty good,” is all he says before walking away to go buy one.

“Where are Kris and Jaxon? They should be by now,” Joyce asks nobody.

“Probably making out in the sports hall; it’s always empty during lunch,’ Andrew replies making Joyce scrunch up her face in disgust meanwhile Mike voices his disagreement.

“Maybe if it were last year but things aren’t the same between them anymore.”

“You think they’ll break up?” Andrew muses causing Joyce to reach past Mike to hit him.

“Don’t say stuff like that,” she scolds just as Julien returns, his presence changing the topic.

“One chocolate chip cookie,” he announces handing the cookie covered in plastic wrap over to me.

“You really didn’t have to,” I insist as I hesitantly take the outstretched cookie.

“It’s fine, Julien is the opposite of broke he buys us food all the time,” Joyce assures me. I want to protest some more but I began to feel bad since he had already bought it and was insisting.

“Fine,” I give in and begin to unwrap it before adding in Julien’s direction. “We’ll share it.”

“If it makes you feel better,” he teases taking the half I break off and offer him. When I turn to face straight again, I notice Joyce giving me the strangest look, I couldn’t tell if she was plotting or excited but either way it confused me.

Before I could question her Andrew speaks up.

“Oh, look who decided to show up,” he jokes as Kris slides into the seat next to Joyce and Jaxon in the spot direction across from her next to me. After what Mike said earlier about these two not being the same as last year, I couldn’t help but wonder if it meant something or not. Jaxon rolls his eyes at Andrew and looks like he’d throw something across the table at him if he had something.

We spend the rest of lunch chatting and when the time came for fourth period we went out separate ways. Well, except for Julien and I since we had biology together so we headed up there together. Our classroom was on the second floor; apparently all the science classrooms were on the second floor according to what Julien told me on our way there. When we got to class the desks were in pairs just as they had been in my math class so Julien and I naturally sat together, somewhere around the middle of the room. As we did most students greeted Julien and those who sat around us started up conversations with him. That was something I noticed with Joyce too, while we walked down the halls many people would shout greetings or wave at her. Wait… were Julien, Joyce and the others popular? I mean it would make sense, Julien was captain of a handful of teams, the other guys were on a variation of teams as well and Joyce and Kris were gorgeous. Not to mention they’re all super friendly so it made sense for them to know so many people if they were social butterflies. How had an introvert like myself ended up in a group of friends like that? I wasn’t complaining but I was definitely surprised.

As the biology teacher went over the syllabus for this semester it was understandably boring and Julien jokingly dozed off to sleep making me let out a huff of laughter when I saw him. Julien ended up playing some game on his phone that seemed to take up very little of his attention so he still managed to least partially pay attention.

Once fourth period was over Julien asked where m next class was.

“Room 331.”

“I’m headed up to the third floor too I’ll show you to your class,” he offered, and I nodded thankfully even though it ended up being easy enough to find.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says outside of my class a few minutes later and I nod in agreement as I say goodbye as well.

I was only ten minutes into English when I realized that I was in the regular class instead of the advanced class like I was supposed to be. Quickly I checked my schedule to make sure I hadn’t just walked into the wrong English class but nope this was what my schedule said. I’d have to visit the end of the day to see about getting switched into the proper class. Realizing that this also meant I had the wrong books for English from the library made me sight at the inconvenience.

When the bell finally rang I headed downstairs so I could get to the office only to run into Joyce on the way.

“Hey! How were your afternoon classes?”

“They were good – but they put me in the wrong English class so I was just going to the office to get them to change it,” I explain.

“Oh, that’s annoying,” she comment before continuing, “Well Kris and I were going out for smoothies, we usually go to a café on Tuesdays, you should come with; just go to the office tomorrow during your spare.” Despite wanting to fix the issue with my schedule right away I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to hang out with them so I agreed.

“Alright; should I just follow you in my car?”

“That’s perfect,” she agreed, and we head out of the school. We walk to Kris’s car since Mike usually drove Joyce to school as she didn’t have her own car. Kris was already there, leaning against her hood. I explained to her that I had pared two blocks away so they got into her car and followed me to where I parked so I could easily follow them from there on without having to look for Kris’s car again.

Kris led me to a nice little café near the school and we parked out front before the three of us headed inside. Joyce and Kris both ordered at the front counter before me so I had the change to go over the menu to see what they had here. While the two of them ordered smoothies as Joyce mentioned earlier I decided to get an iced coffee as I could always use the caffeine. After we ordered we sat a table by the windows, Joyce telling me that they would bring our drinks over to us.

“So, what do you think of Crest Hill High so far?” Kris asked.

“The teachers, at least most of them, are a lot more relaxed than my old teachers to that’s nice and the school itself is quite nice,” I reply before an employee brings over my coffee explaining that the smoothies would be done in another minutes.

“Ya we’re actually pretty lucky our school isn’t disgusting – although be thankful you don’t have gym the locker rooms are gross,” Joyce says and Kris nods in agreement. “Oh right, we haven’t told you about the new year party,” Joyce remembered out loud and I can’t help but wonder why someone is planning a New Years party already. The café employee returns with their smoothies before our conversation continues.

“You have to come,” Kris tells me, “Julien throws a party at the end of our first week back t school to celebrate the new school year and no one throws a better party than Julien” Oh it was that kind of new year party but I guess it doesn’t really matter a party is a party.

To stall I lifted my drink to my lips and took a long sip. Parties really weren’t my thing; they were crowded, loud and gave me anxiety that affected my little wolf problem in less than ideal ways… but they both seemed so excited.

“I’m not sure,” I admit uncertainly.

“Oh c’mon,” Joyce says nudging her shoulder against mine.

“Plus I’m sure Julien would love to have you there,” Kris comments as she wiggles her eyebrows.

“Why are you doing that?” I ask genuinely confused as to why she was doing that with her face.

“Because Julien likes you,” Joyce states as if it were obvious.

“As a friend,” I insist knowing they were both spouting fiction.

“He is definitely developing a crush on you I can see it,” Joyce says and I still don’t agree with her.

“You guys would be so cute together,” Kris adds. “Julien is the guy that every girls wants to be with and every wants to be. He’s smart, an amazing athlete, teachers love him, he’s hot, I could go on.”

“Then why don’t you date him,” I mock.

“Because he’s lame compared to Jaxon,” she replies matter-of-factly and I’m hoping that that was a good sign after the distance that was obvious between them at lunch. “But that’s beside the point. The point is you and Julien should get together.”

“I don’t know guys, I mutter unsurely.

“At least come to his party, we’re all going to be there,’ Joyce bargains bringing us back to our original conversation.

“Alright, fine,” I slowly cave seeing the puppy dog eyes she was giving me.

What have I gotten myself into?