for the rest of that week. Tyler Crowley had become obsessed with following me around and trying to make amends: opening doors, refilling my water bottle, attempting to follow me into the girl's bathroom so that he could help wipe my ass. I tried to convince him that what I wanted, more than anything else, was for him to not wipe my ass—especially since nothing had actually happened to me in the accident—but he remained insistent. He followed me between classes and sat at our now-crowded lunch table with a roll of toilet paper in one hand and a bottle of baby powder in the other, just waiting for the moment. Horsetooth Mike and Chessclub Eric were even less friendly toward him than they were towards each other, which made me worry that one of them might get the idea to pop out of the toilet and lick my ass clean before Tyler could even get there.
No one seemed concerned about Fredward, though.
I explained over and over that he was the hero—how he had pulled me out of the way and nearly been crushed, too. Jessica, Mike, Eric, and everyone else¹⁰¹ kept saying that they hadn't even seen him there 'til the van was pulled away. I tried to convince them. I tried to be convincing. I tried over-explaining, under-explaining, metaphors, similes, diagrams, dioramas, dramatic and historical reenactments, passing notes, mnemonics, songs and raising my voice, but none of it worked. I eventually became exhausted and quit trying, and allowed Tyler to finish hand-feeding me my Lunchable.
I wondered to myself why no one else had seen him standing so far away, before he was so suddenly, impossibly, irrevocably and unconditionally saving my life. With chagrin, I realized the probable cause—no one was as aware of Fredward as I was. No one else watched him like I did; tracing every line of his god-like body, mentally grooming each one of his visible body hairs. How pitiful.
Fredward was never surrounded by crowds of curious bystanders eager for his firsthand account. People avoided him as usual, like they didn't find him as excruciatingly interesting as I did. The Cullens and Hales sat at the same table as always, not eating, talking only amongst themselves. None of them, especially Fredward, glanced my way anymore, which unfortunately only heightened my enchanted feelings, setting my heart and hormones aflame from all the way across the lunchroom.
When Fredward sat next to me in class, as far away from me as the table would allow, he seemed totally unaware of my



101. There are a lot of people sitting at the table.

70

Chapter 4

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