“You’re not real social, you know that?” I turned at the sound of the voice, unaware that anyone had even noticed me. Standing a couple tables away was the kid whom I had seen staring at me only a couple days earlier. “You don’t really talk to anyone but your little group of friends, you know? You kinda put out a…‘get lost’ vibe.”
“Oh, good,” I said, “it’s still working. Or, apparently not, since here you are, talking to me.”
“I can leave,” he said, beginning to turn away.
“What do you want, kid?” I asked. He wasn’t really a kid, probably only a year or two younger than me, but if he was gonna make with the fawning puppy eyes, I wanted to start putting some distance between us now, rather than later.
“I’m not a kid,” he said, as he turned back around. I disagreed with his assessment, but then, I couldn’t fault him for trying. I would have said the same thing at fifteen.
“Sure you’re not,” I said, laying the patronizing tone on thick. I figured if I gave him enough reasons to leave me alone by being both a smartass and condescending, he couldn’t fail to get the message that I wasn’t interested in him in any way.
“I’m not.” He said it with a decent amount of confidence. “But I don’t suppose that matters.”
“Not to me. What do you want?”
He gave a subtle nod to the chair directly across from me. “Mind if I…?”
I stared at the chair for a beat before turning back to look at him again, his dark hair, overlarge glasses; he looked as though he were trying devilishly hard to be the biggest geek possible. “Do I mind if you…what? Take that chair, turn it upside down and sit on it? Be my guest, but do it elsewhere.” I smiled and took a bite of my eggs.
“Wow,” he said, and his face didn’t fall from my insult, not even a little bit. “I guess it’s true what they say about you?”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, and turned my head to look down at my food. “What do they say about me? Am I a ball buster? A pain in the ass? A personality wrapped in barbed wire and coated in rubbing alcohol?” I looked back up at him and smiled. “If that’s what they say, then yeah, it’s true. I’m not the greatest people person you’ll ever meet.”
He squinted a little bit through his glasses, adjusting them to look at me. “That’s the gist, I guess. Some less flattering, more succinct ways it’s put, but you captured the common theme there.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” I said, and took a bite of my bacon.
He faltered, as though he was going to walk away, but he didn’t. “But you’ve got friends. You’ve got people who seem to enjoy your presence, so I’m guessing you’re not like that all the time, at least not with everybody. I don’t see you act like that with your boyfriend.”
“You’re rapidly entering the territory of being a creepo,” I said, looking up, taking my coffee and sipping it while I watched him through half-closed eyes. “Why are you watching me?”
“I’m not stalking you or anything,” he said, unabashed. I was a little put off by his self-assurance; it was annoying. “We eat in the same place every day, so it’s not like it takes a special effort on my part to look across the cafeteria and notice the difference between how you are when your friends are around, and how you are when I run into you elsewhere on campus.” He laughed, mirthless. “I saw you stomp your foot and make a move toward a lower classman a few weeks ago. We all laughed at him, because he almost soiled his pants. People are scared of you, and you want ‘em to be scared. Why?”
“Maybe I had a rough childhood,” I said, not really believing that was an excuse, but wishing he’d take it and leave me the hell alone.
“Maybe a lot of people did,” he said, not moving.
“True,” I said, “but I’m not in charge of their lives.”
“Do you…” He paused. “Do you really just want to be left alone?”
“Right now? Yes.” I sipped my coffee.
“I see.” A nod of the head. “Is it because you genuinely always want to be alone, or is it because I’m asking you questions that are making you really uncomfortable?”
I sighed and set my coffee down. My appetite was dwindling from annoyance. “Are you some kind of shrink in training? Did Dr. Zollers have a powerful influence on you before he left? Give you direction for your life? Or are you just incredibly nosy and personally grating?”
“I’m just curious about you,” he said, and didn’t even bother to blush. “Is that wrong? I watch you, I think you’re pretty, the other guys think you’re pretty, but everyone but the upper echelon is scared to death of you—all the underclassmen, hell, even the cafeteria workers.” He waved a hand around. “And you don’t seem to give a damn about your bad reputation.”
“What can I say? I was inspired by Joan Jett.”
“Why?” He looked at me, and I caught a hint of something in his eyes, some undying curiosity, and in his mousy face there was something else, something unplaceable and yet familiar. And oddly cute, in a deeply annoying way. “Why are you trying so hard to keep everyone at a distance? You’re the leader of the second generation M-Squad…you’re looked up to and feared by every one of the kids at school here. Why don’t you care? Why do you want everyone at arms length?”
“Listen, kid…” I put aside my annoyance. “What’s your name?”
He looked around, as if afraid someone would hear him. “Joshua. Josh. Harding.”
“Nice,” I said. “Listen, Josh, Joshua, Mr. Harding, whatever. I’m a prickly person, okay? I’ve had a few…shall we say…incidents here at the Directorate, some things that might have turned a few people against me. Now, maybe I reacted poorly to those setbacks, maybe I could have used more social skills to smooth things over. But no, I went in a different direction and embraced it. I’ve got a circle of friends, people I trust. There’s only enough room for a few on that ship at any point in time. Understand…it’s nothing personal. Forgive me for my limitations, and I’ll forgive you for imposing on my personal time and space.”
He looked at me, then surveyed the area around us. “Personal space? I’m like ten feet away from you.”
“To a succubus,” I said, taking another slow, casual sip of my coffee, “that’s like an inch. I could take your soul from here.”
He cracked a smile. “Now you’re just lying. You have to touch a person to use your power.”
“Damn. And I was hoping the rumor mill would spread one about me that I could take souls with a look. It’d keep people out of my way.”
He shrugged. “You really want people out of your way bad enough that you’re okay with them thinking things that aren’t true about you?”
I felt my coffee grow cold in front of me, and I struggled to fake a smile. “Look, I’m a soul-taker…being a succubus is kind of a metaphor for my personality, too. It makes my life easier, having everyone think I’m a badass who just doesn’t care.”
“Huh,” he said, and he didn’t really let off with the eye contact, which was annoying in a vaguely Old-Man-Winter-Jr. sort of way, “I just thought it made you kind of lonely. But hey,” he said, and smiled under the glasses and bushy hair, “I get it. Your boat is full. I’ll leave you alone. But…” he smiled. “If you ever maybe get a space open on that limited engagement boat of yours…I might know someone that would clamor to get on it.”
“Purely out of concern for my loneliness and well-being, I’m sure.”
“Hell, no,” he said. “I kinda got a crush on you. Are you blind or something?”
I rolled my eyes. “Kid, my touch kills people. I’ve been trying politely to tell you to ‘spin off’ this whole time—”
“That was ‘politely’? You need to read How to Win Friends and Influence People .”