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Chapter Three
"Can't you just make up a seating chart that has him sitting as far away from me as possible?" I beg Mr. Duncan after Hayden decided to sit next to me again. Once is annoying, but two times is simply insufferable.
At this point I think he's doing it to bother me, because I don't really hide the fact that I'm not his biggest fan.
Mr. Duncan shrugs as he walks around the room to clean up the art supplies my class left scattered about. "You know that's not the way I do things."
"Duncan!" I whine, giving him my best puppy dog eyes. "Please?"
He gives me a flat look and I huff, crossing my arms.
"Look, just ignore him if you really don't want him talking to you." He suggests, wiping up leftover paint from a table.
"You think I haven't tried that?"
"Okay, then ask him to move seats."
"That would be mean."
He turns and looks at me with confusion. "Reagan. You don't like him and you talk about him behind his back... How is asking him to move mean compared to what you already do?"
I roll my eyes, "You're old, so you don't get it."
Mr. Duncan stops what he's doing and narrows his dark blue eyes at me, his dirty blonde eyebrows creating a confused 'v.' "Did you just call me old?"
I freeze when I realize that's exactly what I did and give him a sheepish smile. "No?"
He sighs and goes back to cleaning. "I don't know what to tell you, Reagan. Maybe he will end up being nicer than you thought."
"You're no help." I grumble.
"You want help, go to the school counsellor." He says, and I roll my eyes at him.
"I'm leaving." I announce, uncrossing my arms and walking towards the door.
"Bye!" He calls after me, and I just lift my hand and give a sarcastic wave. I would have loved to give him the finger, but no matter how comfortable I feel around him he's still a teacher and I'm only a student.
I start my walk towards my locker, and almost get rammed into by an underclassman as I round the corner to go down the stairs.
"Sorry!" He calls over his shoulder as he continues to rush towards his class.
I blow some air out of my nose and start to walk downstairs, opening my locker as soon as I get to it. I glance down the hall while switching out my books, a little disappointed to see no letter flying out. I hadn't entirely expected one, because that would mean he sent me three in one week. I'm used to maybe one per week, the two he's given me have already come as a shock.
As I glance down the hall, I see Hayden at his locker with yet another girl. This time the unfortunate soul is Olivia Scott.
I used to be friends with her, actually. In middle school she and I hung out on occasion and she came to one of my birthday's, but then she became popular and started hanging with a different crowd.
It's not like she and I had some major breakup and now hate one another because we come from different friend groups, we just drifted apart. I have a past with a lot of people at this school. Everyone does. That doesn't mean I have some major, book worthy backstory with all of them.
Hayden smirks and takes a step closer to Olivia, and I see a blush lighting up her cheeks as he traps her against the lockers with his 'charm.' He has one arm leaning on the lockers behind them and the other is trailing down her arm, landing on her hip as she bites her lip.
His jet black eyebrows are lazily narrowing in the slightest and his smirk widens when Olivia places her hand seductively on his no doubt rock hard chest. Hayden leans down and practically attacks her lips with his own, and I swear his tongue is going to choke her if hers doesn't choke him first.
"What are you doing?" Chloe says, jumping on my back and scaring the living shit out of me.
Where the hell did she come from?
"I wasn't watching them!" I deny as I whirl around to face her.
"I never said you were." She says, looking at me with a smirk even bigger than Hayden's.
I close my eyes and mentally face palm. "You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"
"Don't bet on it."
I sigh and follow her to yearbook, continuously mentally slapping myself. I didn't even mean to stare. But you know when something is so gross you can't help but watch it? This was one of those times.
"Hey I forgot to ask, but that new movie is coming out this weekend and I wanted to see if you wanted to go." She asks as we walk down the hall. "Logan already agreed to it."
I nod and readjust my books in my arms. Had I known taking two AP classes would include lugging around two giant textbooks, I may have decided against it.
"What movie?"
"Hidden Figures." She says as she changes shoulders for her camera bag to rest on. "If I finish all my homework Saturday I'll be free Sunday. After I shoot golf, of course. I have to cover like four different people at that tournament."
"That's the movie about...what again?" I ask, glancing over at her.
"The NASA girls, it has Octavia Spencer and Sheldon Cooper."
My face lights up in recognition and I grin, "That movie! Yeah, lets definitely see it!"
Call me basic, but I love The Big Bang Theory. What's not to love? It's one of those rare shows that doesn't really have any extremely attractive men in it, yet gains views from strictly humor. Sure guys find Penny and Bernadette hot, but the female viewers are content with the witty humor every character exemplifies.
"Glad you wanna see it for the important reasons..." Chloe mutters.
---
My stomach is eating itself.
I had half of a pop-tart for breakfast and that is not nearly enough to fill a growing girl. So instead of waiting for Chloe or Logan to go to lunch, I practically run there myself.
Down the hall I see none other than Hayden and Cole, laughing at something so loud that China can probably hear them. It's really not fair that the two of them have bodies carved by God himself and their laughter sounds like angels singing and playing the harp. It's almost as if they're perfect.
Almost.
Instead of moving over so that I can continue on my path, said smirking clowns nearly ram right into me. Hayden moves at the last minute and stops laughing as he narrowly avoids knocking me to the ground from his large build.
"Shit, sorry." He chuckles, and then he seems to recognize who I am and he and Cole stop in their tracks and turn towards me. "Reagan, right?" He asks, eyeing me up and down.
"I've been in your classes for the past four years." I deadpan without really meaning to. That comment was meant to stay in my head, but sometimes my mouth has a brain of its own.
"So... it's not Reagan?" He asks with a stupid shrug.
I roll my eyes, "Yes, it's Reagan. Hunter, right?" I ask, crossing my arms.
He smirks, "That was cute, but I know you know my name, Cupcake."
Cupcake?
"After all, you were watching me and that girl earlier today by my locker. Did you enjoy the view?" He asks, tilting his head as he watches me flounder about to find a response.
I feel my breath get caught in my throat from surprise and I cough out an answer. "I was not watching you and Olivia."
His smirk widens. "Then how did you know it was Olivia? I never said her name."
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
I gulp and shrug, "Word gets around." I retort as I walk away.
"If you want to be next all you've got to do is ask!" He calls after me, and I hear him laugh with Cole when I don't respond.
Yeah. Still don't like him.
"Why the long face?" Chloe asks as I sit next to her in the commons. "See how I used that right?"
I drop my backpack on the floor next to me and pull out my lunch box. "I just ran into Hayden. Almost literally."
Chloe chokes on her carrot and her brows shoot up. She tries to talk, but instead she just starts coughing because of the carrot bits in her throat.
"Chloe, you had better learn how to at least take a carrot if you ever want to take a d-" Logan begins as he sits down, but I throw one of my chips at him to shut him up before he can finish.
"Thank you, Reagan." Chloe chirps, downing some water to calm her coughing fit.
I smile, "Not a problem, Chloe."
"Hey, I got a free chip out of that so I say it's a win win." Logan says with a happy go lucky smile, throwing the chip into the black hole he calls a mouth.
"So why did you run into Hayden, again?" Chloe asks, and Logan's eyes widen.
"You ran into Hayden?"
"It's not like I did it on purpose." I grunt. "He wasn't looking where he was going and almost rammed right into me. Then he told me all about how he saw me watching him and Olivia earlier today." I grumble, taking an angry bite out of my sandwich.
At least now I get to eat my food.
"Well, you were watching them. And not very discreetly." Chloe says with an unsympathetic shrug.
Logan goes about tossing his M&M's into the air and tries to catch them while Chloe and I talk. He's losing half of them to the floor.
I blow an annoyed breath from my nose. "I know. I've been kicking myself for it all day."
"Hey, I would have watched them too. I don't like Hayden too much either, but Reagan, he's so freaking hot." She whines, causing me to chuckle.
"Thank you." Logan says suddenly, smiling at us.
I scrunch my brow at him. "You know she said Hayden's name, right? Not yours?"
"Uh, sure Reagan." He says, scoffing at me before going back to tossing up his m&m's- practically wasting them since he sucks at catching.
Chloe rolls her eyes and offers me one of her carrots, but I gag and shove it away from me. It's not that I don't like healthy food, but at the moment I would rather stick to my pizza; free of the sin that is pineapple.
Don't get me wrong, I love my veggies and fruits. I can't eat unhealthy for too long without feeling sick and having to eat at least one piece of broccoli to feel better. But I'm not the poster child of eating healthy either, I binge just as much as the next girl.
"So, how was that love letter from yesterday?" Chloe asks, moving from her carrots to her chips and salsa.
I bite my lip in order to hide my shy smile. "It was good."
She pouts at me. "Good? That's all I get?"
"What more do you want?" I ask, finishing my sandwich with a smirk.
"Tell us what it said." Logan requests, jumping back into our conversation.
"Yeah, what did it say?" Chloe asks, chomping on a chip. The salsa slides off and lands on the table and I bark out a laugh as she scowls at it. "Of course." She mutters while wiping it up with her napkin.
"He talked about the ways he craved me. Something about how innocent his cravings were." I explain, picking at my own napkin. "Like how he aches to be inside my mind and freaking adorable stuff like that."
They grin at me. "Aw, little RayRay!" Logan says, pulling me in so he can give me a noogie yet again.
"Logan!" I groan, pushing him off of me and fixing my hair.
"Think you'll find out who this mystery man is anytime soon?" Chloe asks.
I frown before answering, "Not likely."
Shaking the topic from me, I ask Chloe about her love life. "But anyways, how's your love life going?"
"Wait, why didn't you ask me about mine?" Logan pouts.
"Because yesterday you almost spilled the horny details that I definitely did not want to hear." I say, referring to his speech on how many times he and Vicky...yeah.
He shrugs, "Fair enough. Continue Chloe."
Chloe shakes her head and looks down at her food. "It's not going."
As if on cue, her eyes snap up at the sound of loud, much too perfect laughter and I follow her gaze to the entrance of the commons. Hayden and Cole are walking back through, still laughing like they had been earlier.
When I glance back at Chloe and see the faraway look in her eye, I let out a small sigh. I may not have a book worthy past with anyone at this school, but Chloe does.
When Chloe was younger, she and Cole Knight were best friends. They were as close as two friends could be all through pre-school, elementary school, and up until eighth grade.
Cole lived behind Chloe, and they built their own secret path to one another's houses. Not a day went by that they weren't together; whether it was at the pool, at the park, on her trampoline, or just sitting in his driveway, they were together.
They shared every class until they hit middle school, and when middle school hit so did their hormones.
Feelings erupted between them, but just as they decided maybe they could act on those feelings, Cole's mom was diagnosed with cancer and passed away a short two months after since they caught it too late. He became distant and fell into a slump.
He was no longer the fun and caring kid that Chloe had come to love, but she wanted nothing more than to help him. But Cole dropped her. He stopped hanging out with her, ignored her at school, and kept to himself.
Chloe really hasn't spoken to him since then, but I know her feelings for him still linger. He's her first love from how she explains it.
First love's don't just vanish.
Logan notices her distant look too and frowns, going about his natural way of cheering her up. "Chloe, if you really want some action I can ask Vick how she feels about a three-"
"Logan." She warns, and he shuts up instantly, but not without a smile.
I laugh at him and Chloe joins in, shaking her head at how ridiculous he is. I catch the triumphant smile he shares when he realizes he succeeded in getting her mind off of Cole, and I high five him under the table.
Once lunch ended, we all went to our separate classes and I dragged myself to Pre-Calc. It was boring as it always is, and once that ended I somehow managed the strength to carry myself all the way upstairs to English for my final class of the day.
"Good afternoon, Reagan." Mrs. Hughes greets me as I walk through the door.
I force a smile at her and take my normal spot in the back of the class. We have assigned seats in here, so I'm not actually a slacker that chose to sit in the very back of the classroom. I was assigned to be that slacker.
"Hey, Reagan." A friendly face greets me, his light brown eyes smiling at me.
I smile back as I sit down.
"Hey Noah." I grin, getting my book out of my backpack.
Noah Stone. Mutual friends with almost everyone at this school and one of the nicest guys I've ever met. Not to mention he's an absolute cutie. He has light brown hair that looks as if it was once blonde but turned darker throughout the years, striking brown eyes, and a nicely built jawline that holds up a dazzling, always kind smile.
"How's your day been? You look kind of exhausted." He chuckles, getting his own book out.
I sigh and shake my head with a small chuckle, "You have no idea. Pre-calc was killer."
He nods, suddenly understanding my dark circles. "Ah, I see. Those algebraic functions definitely kick me in the butt too."
Another thing about Noah- he doesn't cuss. He's a good christian boy, raised in an upper class family in a very nice neighborhood. He is loved by most teachers and has very few enemies if he has any at all.
He doesn't seem to really have a distinct friend group because he's honestly friends with mostly everyone, or is at least friendly with everyone.
I've always had a slight crush on Noah, and this year we've become pretty good friends. I wouldn't consider myself one of his closest friends, but we talk just as much as he does with anyone else.
"Did you do the reading?" He asks, looking over at me with a dazzling smile.
I sigh and glance down at my book. The Great Gatsby.
"I did about half of it."
He chuckles, "I'm in the same boat. I couldn't get into it, you know?"
"Oh trust me neither could I." I say, shaking my head as I flip through the pages. "I see why it's a classic, but it's just not for me."
Mrs. Hughes starts class before Noah would have been able to answer me, and I'm left listening to her monotone voice for the rest of the period.
My mind drifts to the beautiful boy next to me, and I wonder how many people he's so friendly with. Obviously I'm not singling myself out from all the other girls he's friends with, but having a small crush on a guy that so many girls are friends with...it kinda sucks.
I overthink everything, which means I always wonder what his relationship is with any other girl he talks to. Which is a lot. So I find myself wondering what makes me any different? I always come to the same conclusion- nothing.
He's probably just being nice by continuing our conversations. One moment I will think he and I are pretty good friends, and the next I realize that he acts the same way with me that he does with every other girl.
At the end of class, Mrs. Hughes surprises us by introducing a project.
"This is an easy project, and it will really only take a few class periods to complete. All I want you to do is analyze what you got out of The Great Gatsby. Write an essay with your partner, and create a presentation to share your views. This will be due in about two weeks." She explains in her old and nasally voice, and the class erupts into groans of protest.
"Oh, and yes you may choose your partner." She adds.
In an instant, the class sounds like a raging jungle as everyone yells across the room to find their partners. I sigh and start to look around, willing myself to find someone before I'm left with Frankie. The school's scariest, drug dealing, gang fighting, detention seeking guy.
Noah turns towards me with calm splendor, a shield against the chaos going on around us, and he smiles at me. "Partners?"
I bite my lip and smile back at him. "Partners."