Ertifferrah Written BY: Elay Understood CHAPTER 17 NICE SHADOW....Elay TV Content Creator

Third-hour Accelerated Government, Erica was already in her seat, shuffling through her notes from previous classes and put them in each textbook

Almost everyone was in their seats before the final bell rung.  She heard feet running down the hall and the loud voices of guys shouting playfully as they approached closer to the room. “Alright Fortney, see you at lunch!”  A familiar voice yelled out.

Erica dropped the papers, they scattered on the floor. Her heart sank, looking up, it clicked.  He was why she wanted to come to school so badly. But why?  She never thought to give a jock like him the time of day in her life!  So why now?  What’s going on?  She sat there confused, head down, hands covering up her face.

Right away, Octavious came to her:  “Hay, Erica, girl, you already messing up, and I just came in.  You know you don’t want to get me started.” He picked up the papers for her and she tried to help but accidentally knocked the rest of her books off the desk.  

“Uuuggh,” she groaned, rolling her eyes, unaware that he was looking at her.

“Nice eye shadow.”

“Uh?”

Nice eye shadow, Octavious said, lowering his voice.

Erica’s mouth opened and her eyes showed a smile that said “you do!!?”

He smiled, holding his gaze.

But the moment didn’t last long. “Aw, here we go again!” Octavious said, picking up her brown fury notebook.  “I’m curious, what’s in here?  -You writing something about me?  Is this your diary?” He said, waving it around. Not wanting Erica to see that he had already fallen for her, he quickly tried changing the subject but to no avail, he came back to the notebook once again: “Your diary, huh…?  I’ve seen you scribbling stuff down in the back of the class, and I know it hasn’t been class work neither.”

“Yes, it is.”

He smirked.  “Yeah, right,” he said going to his seat, “We’ll see about that.” Settling at the desk, he prepared for class to start.

Seeing him in his seat, she knew it was safe to jot some thoughts into the notebook: 

What in the world is going on?!!  Here I am ready to come to school.  Weird.

And for what?  I hate school. But I couldn’t shake the feeling, I needed to come today. I literally felt uneasy like if I didn’t come, something wrong was going to happen.  Why, who knows? All I know is that when I heard Octavious’s voice, my heart skipped a beat.  Yeah, so not me.  Dating anybody who’s classified as ‘popular’ is considered to be so off the radar for me.  The poplar suck! They’re stuffy, conceited, and rude! So, why did I feel so stress-free the moment I heard his voice?

And another thing, ‘eye shadow’…?  Don’t remember even putting any on, come to think of it.  Octavious, Octavious, Octavious! Oxoxoxox’s

OOOh, I hope he won’t see this!

Gotta go-

**

“See what?”  Octavious asked, hovering behind Erica’s shoulders. There he was again, standing behind her, wearing a dark yet inquisitive look. Arms crossed over his chest, he continued eyeing the words so meticulously written in the notebook. He noted how Erica’s concentration was so focused upon what she was doing, and so, for a few moments more, he stood quietly behind her and read while she wrote.

**

Class dismissed, Erica didn’t want it to end because she wouldn’t be able to see Octavious until the next day or she could stay after school and watch him in practice, like all the other girls.   Not knowing if she really wanted to subject herself to that level of humiliation yet. In a way, she felt a little dumb for falling for him, but there was something about him that made her want to be around her more.

*

Erica heads to another class, Octavious gets ready for lunch. She is unaware he’s waiting for her down the hall with a group of friends.

With books in hand, she walked to her locker. “Oh, my gosh, there he is!”  She excitedly shouted to herself.  Okay, play it cool, just say ‘hi’ and walk on by.  

“Woooh-wee, look at that over there!”  Pushing off the lockers, Octavious tried to catch up with her.  Turning to his friends:  “Excuse me, fellas, but uh, I've got to go catch that!  He made a face at them and stuck out his tongue teasing the guys after seeing their mouths hang open over Erica’s beauty and that Octavious was actually pursuing her. Usually, he’d let the girls come to him.

“Hay, bro, see if she has any friends!” Fortney shouted out. The rest of the crew laughed.

Octavious waved his hand, giving the ‘okay’ signal.

Jogging to catch up to her: “Wait up girl!”  He didn’t realize how much ground he lost because of fooling around with his friends.

She heard him but continued walking, slowing her pace only slightly. This is fun! She thought with a smile.

At her locker, she had just begun turning the dial on the lock, when he finally met up with her.  She could feel his warmth though he wasn’t touching her, and the cologne he wore… ahhh!  It smelled so good.  His arm rested on a locker, and he just stood there looking at her.

Time, for her, was virtually at a standstill as she took in every millisecond, not wanting the moment to end. She waited for him to break the silence.

“You headed to lunch?” he asked.

Totally ignoring the fact that she had another class to go to before her lunch period, she shoved everything in her locker.

“Now, I am,” she responded quickly.

“Ooh, you’re a bad girl!” he said, looking a little shocked as he wiped his hands across his chin. “Hmmm….”

She didn’t know how to answer that. For some reason, she really couldn’t remember when her lunch period was.  Maybe the fever she had was causing her to forget, she just smiled back at him, hoping inside that he wasn’t thinking of her as one of those fast-acting girls now.

“Where do you like to eat at?” he asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Cool, I know a place.  You ready?”

Tilting her head to the side, she sighed “Yes.”

I have to go to my locker, come with me. He motioned.

*

Octavious and Erica at ‘The Pizza Joint’.

“So, what color is that eye shadow...some sort of purple...?

“Uhh, it’s—“

“Now don’t get it twisted, it’s just that I’ve never seen any girls around here wear that shade before, either it’s that or the way you wear it. You know, it could just look good on you.”

“Thank you, and it’s a mixture of colors.”  She took a stab in the dark with her answer because she didn’t remember putting any makeup on this morning.  “Uh, will you excuse me for a minute; I gotta go to the bathroom.”  

Looking in the mirror for the first time that day, she said, “Wow, not bad.”  The eye shadow did look great.  She swung open the bathroom door, inviting in the blaring rock music, the restaurant owner played and went back to the booth ready to eat more pizza.

Not wasting any time, Octavious was back at it with the twenty-one questions.

“How come I’ve never seen you around here before?”

“You have…” her voice trailed off, as she thought about the question.  She wondered why he wanted to take time out for her now, and why, suddenly; she was so into him...   

“I'm waiting for your answer.” 

“I’ve seen you, but—you just acted as if I was invisible... Her voice trailed, still trying to figure out the mystery herself. Hoping that the answer she'd given him was good enough.

“—Now, don’t go there.”  With a look of slight frustration, he put down his food, “even though I’m a jock, I’m not like the majority of them.  I try to treat everyone I know and don’t know with respect and you better believe that.” Pointing a fry at her, he added, “I wasn’t voted Homecoming King just because I look good.”  He grinned, holding his head high into the air.  “Honestly, though, quiet girl, smelly girl, nerdy girl, or even a BAD girl,” he pointed at Erica and added, with a devious grin, “. I would have noticed...I’m a ladies’ man, and I know there’s potential in even the worst of flowers, so I keep my eyes open.

The sun beamed across Octavious eyes, making them gleam a beautiful deep silver as he shifted in the booth. He continued on, so I’m going to say this; I think you’re a new kid, a transfer, and don’t want anybody to know. It’s either that or you just appeared from out of thin air,” he said with a smile, taking a huge bite into the pizza. “As fine as you are, I would have noticed you from day one.

Wow, it was nice and rather a sexy thing, seeing him that way, so serious. He’d won Erica’s vote, she was convinced that he has never seen her before.  But how could that be true, when she remembers seeing him?  

She felt a bit ashamed and embarrassed, now remembering suddenly, how far down the totem pole she actually was at Tarsus High. When it came down to it, according to the unequally divided list of the ‘noticed’ and the ‘unnoticed’ peers, she was one of the ‘unnoticed’. She had never reflected on her school status before and the more she thought about it, the more humiliated she became, but why did these memories come to mind now?