Chương 7: Watching

Marie hid in the corner of every one of her classes. Her peers hardly noticed her. Her teachers hadn't noticed her. She only watched. And got insanely good grades. Things came easy to her. She always watched everything. Remembered everything. She also couldn't help but notice Alisha and Cooper's growing friendship.

Suspense was building up. The fantasy festival was a month away, and in two weeks the people participating would be announced. People had their guesses on who was getting in and who wasn't. Most people assumed Cooper would. A freshman named Star, his twin sister named Moon, and a Senior named Bill were also in the list of possibly getting in. Of course no one knew it was true. And of course no one thought Marie would get in. Or even thought of Marie. And for Alisha, opinions were mixed.

"Dude, cats are fierce," Marie had heard someone, she later found out his name was Jerry, say.

"Cats may be fierce but Alisha is not fully fierce cat, she is part girly-girl," another guy had said.

Cooper and Alisha were talking about freshman year. Cooper had finally corrected Alisha on the fact that he had not moved for sophomore year.

"... so, yeah," Cooper said, wrapping up his story, half of which Alisha hadn't been listening too, "Marie was like my only friend, but I think she moved I honestly don't know. You were friends with Marie, right? What happened to her?"

"What?" Alisha said completely distracted, "uhh, yeah?"

"Hey," Cooper said, "Are you okay? What are you looking?"

"Nothing, I'm fine," Alisha said, continuing to watch Marie as she read her book. Marie glanced up and caught Alisha's steady gaze, she held in until Alisha turned her attention fully to Cooper. "What does she want?" Alisha thought to herself, not bothering to tell Cooper that Marie was back.

"If you say so," Cooper said, studying her face. She was totally distracted. he had no idea whether she was listening to him, or not. Or if she comprehended anything. As if her words were just random squabbles.