Reckless Play | ✓

19. Silent Treatment

To say our killer project didn't go as planned would be an understatement. 

Between my mood and the fact that I practically faced towards Mr Gomez all the time, I'd have said the whole thing was doomed from the start.

As much as I tried to concentrate on my speech and not the fact that I was standing in front of forty pairs of eyes, I couldn't help my mind from drifting to the scene I happened to bump into before entering the classroom. All the signs had been there. Why I'd decided to turn a blind eye was beyond me.

The more I thought about it the more logic it made. Of course he'd flirt with Emily, she was gorgeous and by what Hannah told me they had history. It was there I saw it in the way they touched each other. Now I understood why Hannah had said Emily thought she had a claim on him. It was obvious that she did.

Had I really let the sweet nothings he'd whispered in my ear get to me that easily?

Those were the thoughts circling my head and making me lose the thread on whatever I was saying. Praise god Hannah had jumped right in to save the day--miraculously, without demonstrations of her ninja skills.

Feeling Ryan's intense green eyes digging a hole at the side of my face the whole time I stood there didn't help matters either.

Lucky us Mr Gomez was feeling quite generous and after hearing Hannah's remarkable presentation, as she flaunted about the why the USA declared war to Japan during the II World War--with a reckless hand-made representation of the attack on Pearl Harbour and all--- gave us an A-. And considering Hannah's grades, I think they may have weighed on that decision. He wasn't such a mean person as to ruin her grades because she happened to be partnered up with a girl who spend more hours walking in the moon than her own home planet.

E.T phone home.

And before you ask,

Yeah, Hannah was that straight A student.

Don't ask me how, because I have yet to see her touch a book. Omitting the times she drops them inside her locker of course.

Photographic memory she says.

I'm still wondering why loving photography doesn't make me just as smart. Seriously though, by this time I would've already had the IQ of Einstein.

Matters aside, after the public humiliation I endured in History, I've been avoiding Ryan at all costs. I ignored him when he was near, I stayed away from the cafeteria as much as I could, I didn't reply to his text messages or answer his calls.

Was I being childish?

Yes, probably.

Did I care?

No.

I still wasn't in the mood to talk with him. There were thousands of questions circling around in my head, but I needed a bit of space to settle down and figure things out. I didn't want to rush into things, say something that wasn't intended or come up with the wrong conclusion.

I wasn’t the kind of girl that voiced whatever came to her mind without first thinking the consequences they might have.

I needed time, I needed space.

Me, my thoughts and my camera.

So that's why I stood on a Friday facing the small pond I'd discovered a few days ago in the park. One hand steadying the camera and the other adjusting the iris to get the right exposure as I poised waiting for the right time to click the shutter. I felt the buzz of my phone inside my pocket, but I ignored it. There were three little birds taking a refreshing bath and playing with the water as they fluttered about at the side of the pond and that's what I intended to capture. I just had to wait for the right moment where one of the birds opened his wings and shook off the water, letting the drops fly in all directions and...