Well...This Is New - 33

I was starting to feel a little bit better.
I'd texted Heather and asked her if what Tom had said was true, but she hadn't replied.
Even though it was bothering me, I was with a few of my friends, and was cheered up a bit by their funny antics.
When Paul walked through the door, I got up and met him. He smiled, and I smiled.
The principal was giving out little cups of ice cream as a treat for her students, so Paul and I journeyed to the cafeteria to grab some and then went to our new lunch spot.
On our way back, Paul frowned at me.
"You can't walk so close to me," he complained. "Go over there."
He pointed all the way to the opposite wall of the hallway.
I went over there, and he laughed. "That's better."
I opened my mouth to protest, and then closed it.
I decided not to sit next to him, and instead sat across from him.
"So, Tom told me..." I chuckled a bit, trying not to look too worried. "That he saw you and Heather holding hands."
He swallowed a bite of his sandwich. "When?"
"Before period two started?"
He frowned. "Um....no. I mean, she walked me to my history class, but we were like a foot apart. We weren't holding hands. What is he smoking?"
He burst into laughter, and so did I.
"No, honestly, he said you guys were holding hands like a happy couple," I said, rolling my eyes.
"N-no," he snorted. "That's weird. No. He's high. Or something. He obviously wants you to stop liking me. Don't date him, please don't. He's probably going to ask you to prom."
"I don't like him, and I don't want to go to prom with him!" I cried.
Both of us laughed.
Things started to be normal again, and we ate our ice creams, talking and making jokes.
Then, he got out his iTouch and started showing me pictures of him doing funny faces. We both giggled.
Then, he came across a picture of him smiling without his braces. He looked up at me, waiting for a reaction, and I looked at him, smiling too.
"That's a good picture of you," I said softly,
His smile disappeared.
"Don't say that," he said coldly.
"Oh...I...I'm sorry," my face turned red. "I won't."
But in my head I wondered why he'd shown me that picture in the first place.
Then, he showed me another picture.
It was a stomach, shirtless, and pale, with abs.
"One, two, three, four, five, six," he grinned, counting each one.
"That's you?" I asked.
"Of course it is," he said.
"Why are you showing me this?" I asked in my head, but instead, I just looked at him.
"Why did you take a picture like that?" I asked.
"Because I felt cool," he responded simply.
I frowned at him. "You're...so weird."
He just laughed, eyes scrunching up, teeth shining, and my shoulders fell.
It was time for him to go back to class, so we got up, and started walking.
"Do not walk so close to me," he snapped again. "No one can see us walking together."
I kept my mouth shut and looked away, walking about eight feet apart from him.
Our walk was silent.
"Look, there's Heather," he pointed.
"Oh, yeah!" I cried.
He ran up the stairs without a word, and went to class without saying goodbye.
I just watched him, and looked away.
It was getting harder to fight the tears.