Tension rises around the room with every minute passing.
All of us try not to look at the girl sitting at the head of the table. In fact, we just want her to be gone as early as possible.
Sophie King isn't someone whom you would like to mess with. If things weren't already worse with Promy and Jason, I don't know what to name it.
Sophie King is the sister of our ex-football team captain, Eric King. Eric-about whom I shouldn't think right now.
And it's not because of Eric she holds so much power. Her father, Mr. King is the Chairman of our school's Guidance Council. Even though her father isn't the largest donor of our school-unlike Mr. Fellan-he holds power.
She's running for the President posting of the student council this year against Jason. It's usually elected by the student and the teacher. Everyone kept saying that she is going to win because of her father's influence. It might've happened, if not for those flyers all around the C-building
Sophie King, daughter of Lucas King, bribing her way to climb the top?-the flyer said.
There's an attached photo of her and a few other students inside a classroom having all the desk roundup around the teacher's table where Sophie is leaning on. They all have their back towards the camera. And if someone observes carefully, they'll see it's already dark outside. Which means it was after school.
Below it says, having meetings all ready to take down the old ones?
But Sophie claims the photo was taken from the wrong angle and it was one of the environment club meetings after school but as the picture doesn't show who else was present in the photo with her, the principal refuses to take her words.
And now Sophie is in our press room to demand answers.
Even though flyers aren't a part of our newspaper, however, she doesn't seem to buy it. Or let's say, doesn't have enough brain cells to understand that.
So now we're trying to talk her to calm her down before she runs out to bring her daddy in this.
You must be wondering then what're we waiting for?
Apparently, someone's too busy to join the meeting in time and not letting us start it without him when Miles called him. And by the time he comes, Sophie made us her own slave, ordering three green tea, turning the window on and off, changing her seat, and of course affronting Grace for her lavender hair.
Did I mention she's one of those over-sophisticated girls?
Ashton approaches the door five minutes later. He clutches the doorframe and tries to catch his breath. When he feels all of our eyes on him, he flashes us a smile.
"Sorry for the delay, got held back," he says, still panting from the way. The way he's hair is all over the place and lips are swollen, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what had him held back.
But everyone lets it slide as Ashton takes a seat beside Cora on the other side of the table, much to my dismay.
To think of how he still can think of hooking up, almost makes me cross the room and drown him in the sea.
I don't know why I'm suddenly feeling so violent. It's not like he's my boyfriend or something that I should care about who he's fucking or not.
But the fact, how close we've grown in the last one month and how I thought he was different than all those rumors about him-all goes flushing down the toilet when I saw him with that girl earlier.
"So shall we start?" Ashton says. Maybe now's not the time to think about him.
Jason nods and turns to Sophie. He looks very sorry. But Sophie beats him to it.
"There's nothing to start," she says. "We all know Jason wants me out of his way and with all the things happening around the school involving your committee, there's only one solution. I'm going to call daddy and sue all of you."
Cora mimics her face. I try hard not to laugh at that.
"And your dad will sue us because-?" Ashton asks.
Sophie looks startled, with the daddy card, hardly anyway gets in her way. "B-be-because-" She groans, very un-lady likely. "Why are you three helping them anyway? Aren't they supposed to be your actual enemy at the moment?" She points at Cora, Asher, and Ashton.
The mentioned three look at each other.
"Looks like the old book rules won't work here," Ashton shakes his head and gets serious. "I'm sorry princess, but you asked for it."
I really don't like the fact he called her that. I know he didn't mean it that way, and almost everyone calls her that being her back to ridicule her. And it's not like he calls me with that name or something, it's just-
Seriously, what's wrong with me?
I look at Sophie getting a bit nervous than her usual composed self.
"What do you mean?" She asks.
"Well certainly, you don't want to deal with it in the easy way," Ashton continues. "So let's negotiate."
The whole room gets tense and everyone looks between the two of them.
"Now that was hot," Grace whistles.
One hour and thirty minutes later, after lots of words thrown from both parties, and Cora and Grace cursing, Jason trying to calm all down, and me enjoying the show with the rest others, Ashton and Sophie come to an agreement.
"So that's the deal," Sophie says shaking Ashton's hand. "I'm not going to sue the committee and remove Jason from the Student body election and you'll convince the principal to tell everyone it was all a lie and let me run for the election."
Poor principal. I got a feeling if this continues, her hair will start graying in no time.
Ashton shakes her hand. "Great business with you. Looking forward to more in the future."
He smiles but Sophie doesn't return it. "I would rather hope not."
Of course, I mean, who knew Ashton would be able to bring the princess this low?
Bonnie takes in everything with wide eyes. It's nice to see a refreshing and energetic face after such a long time. Unlike someone else.
Cora has been brooding for the last two hours. As if the last thing she wants to do in the world is staying here with us.
She's lucky that her feelings are sincerely returned.
My attention moves on to Promy and Jason. The tension that we could always feel between them is almost gone now.
After Jason followed Promy out, they talked about it. Jason wasn't ready to tell us what he said but Promy told us, girls, all about it later.
Jason apologized if he had been misleading her and told her he thinks of her only as a sister. And he wants to forget what just happened today and continue being her friend.
Grace asked Promy if she was okay with that but Promy smiles and says it's high time for her to get over that silly crush. Jason would be leaving after this year so they never would've lasted forever.
And also there's plenty of boys to look around. And just because she believes in faith doesn't mean she's really looking forward to any kind of commitment anytime soon (which earns her looks from the rest of us but she just smiled).
Honestly, I'm pretty impressed with how easily she dealt with the situation. I just want her best and hope she'll find the right guy sooner or later.
As for the rumors, they don't seem to be dying anytime soon. But it'll just be a matter of time.
We pack up for the day. It's been a long day and we've been through hell and came back today.
"Can we talk?" Ashton stops in the hallway.
We haven't talked since Mrs. Roth's class since we both were kind of avoiding each other after our little argument, and then Ashton was busy at lunch (Owen informed from a trustful source).
I know I should not be bothered by his reproduction status, but I just can't help the feeling.
Maybe I've kind of grown into having him around all the time.
He looks kinda defeated too. But on the second thought, maybe exhausted from the sin he made earlier.
I don't know why I'm even bothered by it.
I sigh and turn around. "What's there to talk about?"
"For starters, our plans for the English project."
"I thought we already sorted that out. We're doing it in my place since there's nothing left for you to know about my family where all I get is your sister's name and she loves ballet." I bitterly say.
Ashton flinches. "Guess I deserve that." He looks up from the floor. "I'm really-"
"Determined to finish the book by Monday so we can get finished with it as soon as possible? I get it."
Ashton doesn't get the chance to reply. Someone calls his name from behind. With an annoyed face, Ashton turns around, probably to snap at the person, only to hide it with a facade quickly when he sees who the person is.
It's his hookup from the morning. Probably the same one that kept him held back.
The cheerleader looks a bit annoyed. "Where have you been? You told me you'll be back in an hour and I've been waiting for you in the hallway for two hours."
"I did?"
"Yes, I asked you if you would like to continue it afterward and you nodded."
Ashton's face falls. Even though I still have a weird feeling about this girl, I'm mentally amused by what I'm witnessing now.
Ashton must've agreed to her without realizing it.
But outside, I kept this cool facade. "Don't let me keep you guys more waiting and continue whatever you were doing."
The girl pales notices me.
"It's you," she says. Looks like somebody doesn't want to become the front news of the paper and since I wrote the last issue about Ashton's hookups-"Oh-I'm-"
"No worry guys, do continue whatever you were doing earlier, but I must take leave." I wave a hand.
Ashton tries to catch my eyes but I ignore him. Once I'm out of their sight, I run down towards the parking lot.
After all, there's nothing to talk about.
But it wasn't until Kat commented once we're home I realized that I've been fussing like a jealous girlfriend the whole time.
ð¸
We've finished halfway through the book. What's your favorite thing about this book so far?
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