Of All the Stupid Things Read Online Free Page A

wears these tortoiseshell glasses that make him look really cute in a geeky kind of way, and his brown eyes are always shining from behind the glasses. His cheeks have a perpetual five-o’clock shadow. As he talks to us, I wonder if his face feels prickly or smooth. It looks smooth.
He catches me looking at him and one of his eyes closes. I look away quickly. I can feel my face turning red. Was that a twitch or a wink? It had to be a twitch because he’s not allowed to wink at students. I know there’s some regulation against that. But on the other hand, he’s only an advisor to an after-school group; it’s not like he’s a teacher. And he’s only twenty-one, he’s practically one of us. But still, it was probably only a twitch.
I look up at him. He’s smiling at me. No, he’s smiling at everyone. I must have imagined the wink. Wait, now he’s definitely smiling at me. Maybe he knows I like him and finds it amusing. Oh great, he must think I’m some kind of silly teenybopper little girl. I must pretend that I’m cool and indifferent. No, forget that, or I’ll say something worse than horny earthworms.
He passes around some leaflets about the most common mistakes done on personal essays and his hand clearly brushes mine. I look up at him and see it again. A wink. Even I can’t tell myself it was just a twitch this time. But what does it mean? I look around at the others in the group. David is twirling a pencil across his knuckles like he’s bored. Some others are doodling or sending text messages. No one noticed Nash winking.
“So, I thought I’d let you know,” he says. “There’s a lecture at seven o’clock tomorrow tonight at the civic center on Emerging Democracy in Islamic Countries. Dr. Wang Hall is brilliant and I have been looking forward to hearing him speak for a long time. If you’re not doing anything, I recommend you go. If anything, just to get a new perspective.”
Everyone kind of shrugs and starts getting their things together. David pauses to wait for me but I tell him to go ahead. I take my time putting my notebook in my bag. I check to make sure I have my phone, my keys, my wallet, my breath strips, and then I double-check to make sure they’re still there. It’s only once I’m certain I have everything that I head to the door.
Nash walks over and hugs me like he did the others. “So, are you coming to hear Dr. Wang Hall tomorrow?”
“Definitely,” I say, even though I hadn’t thought much of it before. But what if that sounded overeager? I have to say something else. I don’t want him to think I’m boring and have no life. “Well, that is if I get all my homework done in time.”
Nash grins. “Well, I hope you can make it.”
“Me too.” I smile back. We stay there looking at each other, not sure what to say or do. I move a strand of hair out of my face and then fumble to get my bag. “Right, so, see you later.” I give him a half wave and get myself out of the room before I start acting very much more stupider.

Tara
     
MY TIMES HAVE BEEN OFF THESE LAST FEW DAYS. MAYBE because I’m still recovering from the twenty-mile exertion earlier this week. I decide to take a day off running and go to the gym to use the pool instead. The gym is like a second home for me. Mom teaches a yoga class there every Saturday on top of her regular job. It doesn’t pay much but it gets us into the gym free. I only need to wave at the guys at the front desk as I walk by.
Like some magnetic force, my eyes land on Brent as he heads to the RTC, the Resistance Training Center. Through the glass surrounding the room, I watch him jerk his chin up and smile at Lola, the fifty-something-year-old with green hair working behind the counter. She rolls her eyes at him and with her stale cigarette breath comments that if only she were thirty years younger. I’m too far away to actually hear Lola say this, but that’s what she told him when I first met Brent six months ago.
I was on the treadmill