"?" by Deborah F

I caught him staring once again. And as expected, he turned his head away from me.
Typical, I thought. I sighed, continuing my work. About a minute later, he was looking my way
again. I was becoming agitated. I turned towards him and stared back. Except I didn’t have the
same blank expression he had. I gave him a face that said “What do you want?” He rolled his
eyes and turned away yet again. This brat! Matthew, the one I always catch glancing at me, does
this routine every single day. Looks at me. Once I notice, looks away. Soon afterwards he starts
looking again. I show my annoyance, and he gives me a rude gesture which furthers my agitation
with him. He started doing all of this after second semester began. The first time I noticed him
looking at me, I thought he was looking at someone else. I soon realized it was me that he was
fixated on. I assumed he had a crush on me or something like that. But it didn’t take me very
long to figure out that this was not the case. Well, it at least didn’t seem like so. One day, I
returned his gaze. He looked away. I wasn’t really surprised with this, so I looked away as well.
But once he saw that I was no longer looking at him, he started looking at me again! I was
definitely baffled with this action. I looked at him with a perplexed face. He then narrowed his
eyes at me and gave a look closely resembling a glare. He turned away. I was now slightly
angered. Who did this boy think he was? Unfortunately for me, this continued just about every
day. On some days I would pay no attention to him at all. On others, I showed my annoyance
with him. He then always gave me an impudent glance in return. I eventually found out his name
and also found out that he was a senior, just like me. We both were in our last year of high
school. But the fact that he is a senior is very obvious since he shares a few classes with me, a
senior. I never met him before nor noticed him and most likely would never have if he didn’t
start this stupid routine of his. I don’t even know why he does what he does. Like I stated before,
I made assumptions, but they did not seem too likely to be true. I have Matthew for two of my
classes. Math and art, my elective. I also have him for lunch but I usually never see him during
this period. I encountered him a couple of times during lunch but I just ignored him. I don’t
know if he ignored me though.
Math class, first period. I walked in and sat down in my assigned seat. Another day, I
thought. I was waiting somewhat impatiently for my last year of high school to end. We are in
the last three months of school. It is currently the middle of March. I never really enjoyed high
school as much as others. To begin with, I don’t have many friends. I have a couple of people I
chat with in certain periods but no one to hang out with. However, I never perceived this as an
issue. I find people to be quite a hassle most of the time anyways. I don’t enjoy school much not
because of the lack of communication between me and my peers, but mostly because school feels
more unnecessary than it should be. The curriculum taught by the school comes off as
nonsensical to me. It has felt like this ever since my freshman year. Despite the fact that I feel
this way, I don’t complain too much about it. I do very well in school and that is all that matters
to me. As I was contemplating all of this, a familiar face walked in the classroom door. It was
none other than Matthew. I forgot to mention that he sits on the seat to my right in math class. In
art class, he sits further down the rows of desks, which is a relief. As he walked toward his desk,
he looked my way. I looked at him and gave a frown. He scoffed and sat down. I rolled my eyes
at his unnecessary but usual attitude. We had five minutes till class started. There were a couple
of other students in class but not many. Most students wait in the school’s quad till the bell rings.
This made me wonder why Matthew comes in class before it is time to. I figured he has friends
to hang out with. Or maybe he is like me. I turned my head towards his direction. He was staring.
“Why are you staring at me?” I whispered at him. This was the first time I ever spoke to him. To
my huge surprise, he responded. “Because I can.” Still bewildered that he actually responded, I
quickly composed myself and spoke back. “I don’t care if you can, it’s annoying.” “Do
something about it then,” he said. I was shocked even further. “Is that a challenge?” I responded,
trying to keep my voice low. He smirked. “You are more interesting than I thought, Caroline.”
“Huh?” I said, confused. “How do you know my name? And what do you mean by
‘interesting’?” “We’re both in the same class. It doesn’t take a genius to find out someone’s
name, genius.” “Whatever,” I replied. “You didn’t answer my second question.” “Hmm,” he
said. “Don’t need to.” I was mad now. “Stop being a brat, and answer my qu”
the bell rang
before I could finish. Matthew faced forward. That answer of his upset me for the rest of the day.
What kind of trouble and level of annoyance will this kid bring me in the future?