My Imaginary Boyfriend

My Imaginary Boyfriend *Stuck with you

"Your cell phone is ringing, Ms. Caine," Mrs. Dorothea says disapprovingly.

I quickly search my cell phone in my bag, and sure enough, there's a blinking envelope at the screen, signaling there's a new message. I slap myself mentally for forgetting to put it on silent mode.

"You know the consequence of that," she continues, narrowing her eyes.

"Consequence?" I repeat. I'm glad my voice isn't shaky.

"Detention," Alex mutters.

Shoot!

I'll have a detention? I can't believe it!

"You have a choice," Mrs. Dorothea says, putting her hands on her hips. "You can skip detention, but you have to read the message out loud in class."

It happened before. When the phone of my classmate rang, she chose to read the message in class. It was awkward because Ma'am was the one who read it. My classmate's boyfriend was the one who sent her a message. The message was about love.

I know no one will text me about love but sometimes the odds are not in my favor. Probably it's Margarett or, I don't know. Maybe it's just a wrong number. No one, I think, besides Margarett and Kamille knows my number. Auntie's at work and Kamille's my classma—

"What's your choice?" Mrs. Dorothea asks, snapping me out of my reverie.

I'd rather have detention than humiliate myself. If I know the person who sent me the message, I'll strangle him.

"Detention," I answer carefully.

"See me later after your last class," Mrs. Dorothea says, "you know where the detention room is."

My classmates are disappointed with my choice. They'd rather know what the message is all about because they like drama, so that they can annoy me the whole day about it.

"What happened?" Alex asks, leaning towards me.

"Nothing."

"You were daydreaming," he observes, tilting his head to the side.

What's the point in lying? But it's hard to admit it to him, considering we're not close. What about Caleb? I'm not sure, but I feel comfortable telling him. Besides, he caught me a lot of times already.

"I was just thinking," I say. It's half true and half lie because I was thinking while daydreaming.

"If you were just thinking," he states, "why did you have a faraway look?"

Why doesn't he want to drop the topic? It's so like Caleb! "I have a faraway look when I'm thinking," I say evasively.

"Looked so deep," he says thoughtfully, "what were you thinking?"

I take a deep breath before I can say: It's none of your business. Thankfully, I'm saved by the bell. Its loud ringing breaks our connection. I know I want to know more about him, if he's the Alex I know, but I'm not in the mood to question him now. I just found out that I have to stay for an hour after school for detention. Anyway, I have a year to find out. Maybe if they'll like it here, I'll have two years.

"I have to go to my next class," I say, standing up from my chair.

"Okay," he replies, getting up as well, "see you later."

Making my way towards the door is harder than I thought especially when there are people getting in the way looking down and smirking at you. I just ignore them. Who they think they are to think poor of me? I don't care about them. Think whatever they want, I'm not going to change who I am.