Read One (One Universe) for Free Online

So he didn’t follow me. He was just going to his locker. I am a dumbass.
    He sticks out his hand, and it sits there in the air, waiting for me to do something with it. “Let’s try this again. Elias. Elias VanDyne.”
    “Related to…”
    “The famous VanDyne twins? Yeah.”
    The VanDyne girls were seniors when I started freshman year back at Superior High. I don’t know a lot about them, but I do remember their stunning almost-identical faces framed by starkly different hair, the same flawless skin with a spray of freckles, strong jawlines, and eyes sparkling with life. He does look a lot like them.
    “I didn’t know…”
    “They had a brother? Yeah, no one back there at SHS does.” He smiles a little. “No one back there cares about Ones.”
    My heart stutters. He’s a One, too. “So…you never even got a chance at Superior Public?”
    He shrugs. “I fit in fine here. I’m okay.” The fact that he’s smiling shows me he thinks he is, but the catch in his voice tells me the opposite.
    No One could be totally fine, no matter how much they think they are. Not in Superior, Nebraska, with the Biotech Hub practically in our backyards, for sure.
    He’s wearing a thick gray hoodie with a giant N on the breast, looking pleased with himself. “What are you, the freaking quarterback?” I mumble.
    His eyes widen a bit, his smile fading for a second, but then he raises his eyebrows at me, not mad and walking away like he should be.
    “Do I look like a quarterback?” He motions to himself, his hands running the length of his long, thin torso. He’s right. He’s much too thin to be a quarterback — or a football player at all, actually. But, I notice, his chest does curve his fitted shirt out slightly.
    I narrow my eyes.
    Elias laughs again. “And do you even know anything about sports? It’s football season now. I would have been on the field every morning.”
    “Do you think I’ve been paying attention to what you’re doing in the mornings?”
    He quits smiling so widely, and his expression softens. He looks down at the floor. “No. Uh…no. I play basketball. I like this sweatshirt, that’s all.”
    “Why do you keep looking at me? And talking to me?”
    “I can’t look at you? Or talk to you?”
    I shake my head. “You’re, like, everywhere I am. Classes…and…locker.” I know I’m acting like a child, but now that I’ve started, I can’t stop myself. I swing my arm up, and my knuckles scrape against the vent on the front of the locker. It hurts like hell. I push it down at my side and clench my teeth for a second, swallow hard, and say, “And I’m just the stupid new girl. Don’t you have any friends?”
    “So, let me get this straight,” he says, the corner of his mouth tugging up. “We randomly get lockers next to each other, and you’re smart enough to be in some of my classes, and this makes you think I’m — what — stalking you?”
    I stare down at my shoes, shake my head to one side, then the other, slowly. I have nothing to say, but I can’t move. It’s like Elias is magnetic or something. I look up at him, hoping he’ll say something to make me feel like I wasn’t being a jerk to him for no reason.
    “Hey.” He raises his hand up like he’s going to touch my shoulder, pauses it in midair, then lets it drop again. “There’s a good energy coming off you or something. I feel this buzz. I don’t know.” He shrugs.
    A warmth floods me. Slowly, the anxiousness starts to turn to relief, the feeling that I can suddenly take a deep breath.
    “I just want to get to know you.” He flashes me a smile that must work really well on all the other girls who are probably all over him all the time.
    Okay, so I feel it, too.
    Is that because it’s real, or because I really, really do want to hang out with him? My eyes flash up to his face, and my cheeks warm faster than I can cover them with my hands.
    “You felt it, too! You just did!” The excitement on his face at my