Bigger Boys & Stolen Sweethearts - Alex Turner

3. Crying Lightning

Matt must've been getting sick of me. The entire drive to school I had trouble talking about anything that wasn't Arabella. I droned on and on about the afternoon we spent together and didn't leave out a single detail.

  I was nervous to see her again. What if she threw the afternoon before into the bin the second she walked through her door? I had no idea how she would react to me and no idea how I'd react to her. I thought up a thousand ways to greet her and a thousand more responses if she greeted me.

  What if she didn't even show up?

  "Just try not to sit on her lap in first period 'aight?" Matt teased as he parked the car.

  I rolled my eyes and stepped outside the vehicle, adjusted my leather jacket and ran a hand over my hair. I wanted to repeat the afternoon before. I wanted to go down to Flander's after school and see her again, where no one from school was to interrupt us and where I could talk to her until the sun went down.

God, I couldn't stop thinking about her.

I walked into my first class knowing she wouldn't be there yet and sat in my seat. I tried not to look at the door every second she wasn't there but believe me when I tell you it was an entire effort not to anticipate her entrance.

Matt and Nick were teasing me about it, joking that they could see her coming and laughing when I perked up at their remarks.

"Al!" Nick exclaimed and hit my arm, "'ere she comes! Quick fix yer hair mate!"

I leant forward to look out the door and saw that he was full of shit. Matt and Nick started chuckling to themselves like children.

"Fuck off you two," I huffed and sat back in my seat.

"We're just fuckin with ya mate," Matt chuckled. "Promise we won't embarrass you when she arrives."

I folded my arms and sat back in my seat, rocking back on it and looking away from the door. I started to wish I had kept it all to myself.

Matt put a hand on my shoulder and I looked at him with an unimpressed glance.

"Ay, Al, you know we're just kidding," he said.

"Yeah, yeah," I replied. I opened my mouth to say something snarky when my eye was caught as she walked in the room.

Her hair fell down her shoulders and swayed behind her as it always did when she walked into the room. She looked at me through her catty eyelashes and looked as though she was waiting for me to say something but didn't stop her travel to her desk.

"Arabella," I said as she walked to her desk.

She hid a smile, "Alexander."

She sat in her seat without another word and didn't turn back around to look at me for the rest of the lesson.

I felt a nudge on my leg and turned my head to see Matt wiggling his eyebrows at me. I chuckled to hide my blush and looked away from him.

  Twenty three minutes to the end of class Arabella abruptly stood up from her seat saying she had an "appointment" to go to. She placed a hand on my desk as she walked out the door. Upon removal of her hand I noticed she'd placed a single one of her cigarettes on my desk with something written on it.

  Meet me outside. Wait 5.

  I placed my hand over the cigarette to hide it from anyone else's view. I looked up at the clock and watched intently for five minutes to pass. The second the minute hand hit I raised my arm up and asked to excuse myself to the bathroom.