7

                                    

                                          
My mouth opened, thoughts on race to come up with one satisfactory thing I could say to Dawn to convince her that I truly didn't remember her. Which I did, but I wanted to convince her otherwise. Why couldn't I convince them of something? Anything?
As if that wasn't enough, my mouth opened on its own and acknowledged the sweet boy in front of me with his name. "Dallas..."
"See?" Dallas grinned, bumping his shoulder to Dawn, "She remembers me."
Dawn smirked. "I can see that."
"And you guys were making fun of me that night for trying to befriend Adeline," he accused, shaking his head at them sympathetically, "Now look, I'm the only person she remembers. This is why you should always try to make friends, Dawn."
"Boo hoo, what a loss for me," she muttered unenthusiastically, "Next time we ambush a girl in the middle of the night, I'll remember that."
At least she was acknowledging it was an ambush.
"Okay, don't take my advice," Dallas rolled his eyes. "When you're eighty, all alone, with nine cats, you'll be friendless, and remember when you were younger, Dallas Pearson asked you to try making friends."
"You'll still be my friend, so I don't have to worry about being alone," she shrugged, and Dallas' humor drowned away with her words. 
An intense look came over his eyes as he watched her. I watched between them, clueless, wondering. Dawn and Dallas seemed interesting. Seemed quirky. Unlike Anika, they seemed like the kind of people I could be friends with; the kind of positive people I'd like to surround myself with. 
And just like that, I was interested to know what it'd be like to be friends with them. I was inquisitive to know what it'd be like getting to know them. I was curious because it felt like I was missing a lot of information on who they were as people and who they were as friends; but then I shook my head, grasping that I was fine with it that way. I was fine with not getting to know them. I was fine with not being friends with them. They were Roman's friends and I got away from home to keep things less complicated with my life, but with them in the picture, I'd only make it all more complicated.
 Getting close to these people was not on my bucket list this year. 
"I, uh, I got to go," I pointed down the hallway, forcing a smile as they both turned to face me, "I'm getting late to class. I'll, uh, I'll see you both around."
"What class do you have now?" Dallas asked, the intensity I had seen burning in his eyes a few moments ago was now long gone and that wide grin was back.
"Um, English Lit," I said, briefly looking down the end of the hall where I knew my next class was. 
"Cool, we'll walk you," he announced making both mine and Dawn's heads snap up in perfect sync, mine with horror and hers with disbelief. Dallas chuckled wrapping his arm around Dawn as he pulled her close, "Come on, Cooper, we talked about this, be friendly."
I hope she wouldn't. 
Dawn gave him a murderous glare, "Does she look like she wants to be friends with you and me?"
Oh, no, does it show on my face that I didn't want to be their friend?
"Of course, she wants to be friends with you," Dallas said, pulling Dawn along as he motioned with his hand for me to follow them as he started walking. "She's new here with no friends, and until Roman gets here, we're all she has."
My body froze. Something about what he had just said shook my whole being and I gaped after him as he walked forward with his friend. My mind whirled with thoughts and I felt a chill creeping down my body. I could feel the sweat dripping down the back of my neck. I could feel my pulse throbbing. Every part of my body tingled with an electric charge and my breath hitched.