by Isabelle Rae
“Chloe, there you are!” someone called.
My head snapped up in the direction of the voice and I saw Nick walking towards me, grinning. “Hey,” I mumbled as he stopped at my side.
“You left your notebook at mine last night,” he told me, digging in his bag and pulling it out for me.
As I took it I noticed that Will’s hands were in tight fists for some reason. “Thanks. Wouldn’t have been too smart of me to go to class without that would it?” I joked, shrugging and smiling weakly at Nick.
“Want to go out and get some lunch offsite today?” he asked.
I thought about it. At least if I’m not here I won’t be running into Will all the time. “Yeah sure, sounds good, but you’re buying.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t I always? Surely it’s your turn.”
I shook my head. “You buy, I cook, that was always the deal,” I countered, sticking out my tongue at him.
“Miss Henderson, you can’t leave site today,” Will stated, looking at me annoyed.
I frowned. “Why not?” I asked confused. I’m a senior, I don’t need permission to leave site for lunch.
“You have detention at lunchtime.”
I gasped. What the heck is that about? “No way! Why? What am I supposed to have done?” I challenged, glaring at him.
Will raised one eyebrow, seeming unaffected by my angry glare. “For leaving my class without permission yesterday,” he stated. “And if you keep disrespecting me like you are right now it’ll be lunchtime detentions for the rest of the week too.”
Oh my goodness, what an asshole! He knows why I left his class yesterday, and he can’t cut me a little slack? What did I even see in him anyway? He turned on his heel and walked off. “Son of a bitch! What a freaking asshole,” I ranted, throwing my bag down roughly thinking he was out of earshot.
He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “All week it is then, Miss Henderson.” I heard him chuckle as he walked off again.
My mouth popped open in shock as I tried, and failed, to shoot lasers out of my eyes and somehow set him on fire. When I turned back to my friends, I was greeted by a sea of shocked expressions. Not wanting to talk about it, I sighed and threw the rest of my books in my locker angrily, ignoring how all the pages got bent up. I slammed the door shut harder than necessary.
From the corner of my eye I saw Emily shake her head in disapproval. “Wow, what was that? Why did you speak to him like that, Chloe? Seriously, I’ve never seen you talk back to a teacher even once,” she scolded.
Is she defending him? Is she annoyed with me because I called him an asshole? Wow I have some annoying friends.
I ignored her question. “Looks like I can’t come to lunch today, Nick, sorry. Thanks for the notebook,” I muttered as I turned on my heel and stormed off towards the gym.
Chapter Seven
We were playing soccer today so I changed into sweats and a T-shirt, pulling on some sneakers and heading out with the rest of the students to the hard courts that were situated around the back of the school.
I didn’t like sports; I was a little accident prone. I wasn’t clumsy or anything, I didn’t fall over all the time, but I usually ended up getting hurt if there was any sort of physical game being played. Today was no exception. I went in for a tackle at the same time as a guy from my class, and ended up going face first into the ground. Luckily I got my hands up so I didn’t totally face plant, but I ended up scraping both of my palms pretty badly. I hissed in pain and pushed myself up to sitting.
Oliver, the guy that I tackled, came over immediately, crouching down next to me. “Dammit! Are you okay, Chloe?” he asked, looking at me apologetically.
I nodded and let him pull me up to standing. My hands were burning. I turned them over to see they were bleeding from lots of little cuts and scratches, there was dirt all mixing in with the blood and what looked like a couple of little stones under the skin too.
“I’m fine, Olly, don’t worry this is a regular thing for me,” I said dismissively as I used my T-shirt to brush some of the dirt from my hands.
Mr Andrews, the gym teacher, came over and restarted the game to stop people gawking at me “Go wash your hands, Chloe, maybe you should see the nurse to check all the dirt comes out,” he suggested, wincing at my palms.
I nodded and headed to the nurses office, sitting there as she cleaned my hands with cotton wool and used tweezers to pull out a couple of little stones before rubbing some foul smelling pink antiseptic cream over my palms. After she was finished I went straight back to the locker room, changing out of my gym clothes instead of going back out to play.
The rest of the morning passed so fast I could barely keep up. Why is it when you’re eager for something, the time takes forever to pass, but when you don’t want something to come, it takes no time at all. It’s like time is torturing me or something.
When the lunch bell rang I grabbed my bag and headed to Will’s classroom. The door was already open, but thankfully he wasn’t there yet. I let myself in and wandered to the desks at the back of the room. I chose the one next to the window and pulled out my iPod. I forced my mind on to anything other than him. I shut my eyes and put my hands on the desk, palms up, hoping that they would stop stinging soon.
A couple of songs later my music stopped unexpectedly. I snapped my eyes open to see Will hovering in front of me, frowning.
I scoffed and ripped my headphones from my ears, throwing them on the desk angrily. “Don’t tell me, I’m not allowed to listen to music in your detentions,” I spat sarcastically.
He smiled sadly. “You can listen to music. I just wanted to know what happened to your hands,” he said softly, nodding down at them.
I clenched my hands in fists. Why is he suddenly being nice to me? He can’t be all ‘this never happened’ and shouting at me one minute, then acting nice again the next. That’s not fair.
“That’s none of your concern, Mr Morris.” I shoved my headphones back into my ears, a little too harshly to be comfortable, and turned up the music so loud that it made my ears ring. We glared at each other for a few seconds then he looked away and put something down on my desk, before walking off to the front of the room and plopping himself in his chair. I watched as he pulled out a file and started to write, ignoring me entirely.
I looked down at what he had put on my desk to see it was a cheese and pickled onion sandwich, a bottle of orange juice, and a peach. My favourites. Damn it! Why is he doing this to me? If I can’t be with him then he just needs to be the asshole so I can get over him. If he keeps being nice to me, I’m never going to be able to move on. I looked back at him to say thanks, but he wasn’t even looking in my direction as he sat stiffly, scribbling in his folder.
I turned the music down slightly and grabbed the food, eating it quickly. I looked at the peach and sighed. You couldn’t buy them from the cafeteria so he must have brought this in from his place. I stared the clock, watching the second hand go round so slowly that it looked like it was going backwards. Damn stupid time! The morning went too fast because I didn’t want to come here and now it’s taking forever to end.
Finally the bell rang. He still didn’t look up as I put my iPod back in my bag and grabbed my empty sandwich carton. I walked to his desk and threw it in the trash. His hand was a tight fist, but he didn’t look up at me as I stood there.
“How much do I owe you for the food?” I asked quietly when it was clear that he wasn’t going to acknowledge me. I wished he would look at me; I desperately wanted to see his beautiful eyes.
“Nothing, forget it.” He shook his head and continued with his lesson plans that he had scattered across his desk. Wow, two days and he’s already made a messy desk…
“Oh, well, um… thanks,” I muttered uncomfortably. “You know, you should try and keep your desk a little tidier, people will think you’re a slob. Maybe you could pay a freshman to keep it clean for you.” I turned to walk off, listening to him laugh quietly be
hind me. I didn’t stop; I just walked out and headed to my next class.
When I got to my Spanish class I slipped into the seat next to Amy. “Hey, how’d detention go with Mr Hottie?” she asked, looking at me jealously.
I shrugged and slumped down in my seat, wishing this day was over already. This morning I prepared myself for one meeting with him, I’d already had two and had a whole hour of my worst subject to come. Life was cruel.
Two hours later I was being blindly led down the hall by Amy. “Seriously, come drool over the hot new teacher. It’ll take your mind off of that ass of an ex you have,” she insisted. I sighed, wishing I could tell her and have her understand that was exactly the reason I didn’t want to go to calculus.
I stopped outside his classroom. “No, I’m going to skip, I have a headache. Just get me any assignments I miss, okay?” I said, shaking my head. I couldn’t cope with seeing him anymore; I was physically and emotionally exhausted already. My lack of sleep last night was catching up on me making my eyes sting.
“You’re not sick, you just want to go home and pout over that ass that didn’t deserve you anyway. Well screw him; you can do better than a waster bartender. A little dose of Mr Hottie teacher will perk you up no ends. And if the sound of his sexy voice doesn’t do it then I bet he could make your headache disappear with one of those sexy little smiles.” She waggled her eyebrows at me playfully.
I groaned and shook my head in protest. “Definitely skipping.”
Someone cleared their throat behind us. I jumped, quickly looking back to see Will standing behind us with an amused expression on his face. “Ladies, is this a private discussion about how hot I am or can anyone join in?” he asked, smirking as Amy blushed tomato red and giggled. “And no skipping, Miss Henderson,” he added. His beautiful eyes met mine seeming to trap me in his gaze. I couldn’t look away as my breath caught in my throat. His eyes were warm and playful and so much like my Will that it actually hurt my insides.
Amy grabbed my arm and yanked me into the room before I could say anything at all. “That was so embarrassing, I can’t believe he heard all of that!” she hissed in my ear. I chuckled darkly. Knowing Will he probably liked hearing that people thought he was hot. I flicked my eyes back to him to see a small smile on his face as he headed to his desk.
We were last in because of the whole discussion outside the door so the tables were pretty full. There were two empty seats, one on the front row next to Oliver, and the other on the back row next to a girl that honestly didn’t smell very pleasant. I weighed my options and decided I would go to the back so I wouldn’t have such a good view of Will.
“I’m going for the back,” Amy said quickly as she almost ran away from me, her face still burning with embarrassment.
I groaned quietly and headed over to sit next to Oliver at the front. He smiled at me warmly. I pulled out my notebook and pen, slyly watching Will as he sat on the front of his desk looking all sexy and alluring without even trying.
“Right then, boys and girls, yesterday you all had a free pass but today you need to do some work I’m afraid.” He grinned wickedly as he got up and walked over to the laptop on his desk. After pressing a few buttons a series of complicated equations popped up on the electronic board.
“Alright, so obviously I have Ms Patterson’s notes on what you were learning last semester, but I don’t know what stage you’re all at because everyone learns differently. On the board you’ll see some equations. I want you to find the domains of the functions. Have a go at the problems at the board, don’t forget to show your workings, and then I’ll have a look and see where we need to go from there,” he instructed. “Take as long as you need. Please don’t help each other though; I need to know each person’s stage so that I can give them the right amount of help.” He looked around sternly at the class.
I groaned and opened my notebook looking at the board. I have to find the domain of what? Damn, why wasn’t I listening properly? I turned to Oliver who was already scribbling on the first equation.
“Olly, we have to find the domain of what?” I whispered, giving him my I’m lost face.
He chuckled and leant over. “Functions, it’s like the answer to the question. So take the first one, for example, you have to find the value of F. Ignore all the other stuff after it, the actual question is ‘F’ equals? Then do the equation to find what the answer is.” He shrugged as if that made perfect sense. I tried my hardest not to stare at him and ask him if he was speaking English.
Yep, I’m totally lost and utterly screwed! “Oh right, yeah I get ya, thanks,” I lied, nodding slowly and turning back to my blank notepad, now even more confused.
“No problem. By the way, how are the hands?” he whispered.
I held them up to show him. “Fine really, they look worse than they feel.”
He leant in further and took hold of my hand, looking at it closely. “I feel really bad about it. Hey, know what, maybe I could take you out on Friday night and make it up to you,” he suggested, looking a little uncomfortable.
I squirmed in my seat. “Er, Olly, that’s sweet but honestly my hands are fine. You don’t need to make up for anything, besides, it was an accident.”
He laughed quietly. “Okay, so that wasn’t the real reason I asked, I actually just wanted to ask you out and thought that would be a good excuse,” he admitted, grinning sheepishly.
Oh no! How can I say no nicely? “Umm… I’m er… I…” I stammered.
“Mr Hawk, maybe you could pick up girls after my class?” Will snapped from in front of us.
Olly jerked back to his seat, dropping my hand like it was a hot coal. “Right yeah, sorry, sir.” He grabbed his pen and started writing again.
I glanced up at Will and smiled gratefully. He didn’t smile back, he just walked off and sat at his desk, leaning back on his chair and pushing it back onto two legs with his hands behind his head. I had a sudden urge to throw something at him so that he would jump and fall back on the chair. It would be incredibly funny, and I was pretty sure he would laugh - well, if we were on our own he would laugh, but probably not in front of a class full of his students.
I sighed and looked back at the board, deciding to make a start. The equations just looked like complete gibberish to me though, and was actually making my headache worse. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, wondering if I actually needed to finish high school or if I could just drop out and never look at another equation again. Maybe get a job as a cleaner or something.
Something slammed down on the front of my desk making a loud crash. I jerked my head up, my heart thumped in my chest. “Shit!” I shouted, shocked.
I looked up to see Will standing there laughing hysterically, his fist on my desk. What on earth? I could hear other people laughing so I looked around to see the whole class was laughing at me. Oh my gosh, was I asleep?
“Am I boring you, Miss Henderson?” Will asked, raising one eyebrow at me teasingly. He turned and walked off, slapping Tom a high five on the way past. “And watch your language,” he added, still laughing.
What a jerk! “Yeah laugh it up. That was just hysterical, good job,” I shot back sarcastically.
He turned and grinned at me, the playful, boyish grin that I knew so well. “I know, I really crack me up sometimes. Maybe I need to up my game and make my class more interesting to keep you awake,” he mused, smirking at me.
“You could always do it shirtless,” a girl called from the back. Everyone except me laughed.
“Nah, because then none of the girls would do any work,” Will joked, shrugging cockily, earning another high five from the guy next to him.
I rolled my eyes and looked down at my notebook; I hadn’t even done the first problem on the board. I groaned and scribbled down a load of letters and numbers so I would have something to hand in. Oliver handed me five other pieces of paper, obviously belonging to the other people on my row. I shoved mine in the middle of the pile and put it to the edge of m
y desk so I could hand them in at the end of class.
As soon as the bell rang people started getting up. “Guys, if you could all read chapter one of your textbooks for tomorrow, please,” Will called as people started filing out of the room.
Amy came down to my desk, giggling wickedly. “I can’t believe you fell asleep. How the hell can you fall asleep in his class? Just looking at him is enough to keep you awake surely. He is so funny.” She sighed, looking at him with that daydreamer look in her eye. I frowned. It was slowly killing me to see all of the girls looking at him like that. Why the hell can’t they just back off?
“Freaking hilarious,” I mumbled, grabbing the assignments and heading over to Will’s desk so I could put them in his tray.
“Miss Henderson, may I have a word?” he requested.
I looked at Amy who gave me a sympathetic look and headed out. Hopefully she would wait for me by my locker and give me a ride home because I genuinely didn’t have the energy for the forty five minute walk today.
Will watched her leave. As soon as the door closed he looked at me with concern. “You okay?” he asked quietly.
I nodded and shifted my heavy bag on my shoulder. “Yeah I’m perfect.”
“You look tired.”
“Wow, thanks, I used to get ‘you look beautiful’, now I just look tired. That’s real nice, thanks,” I snapped angrily.
He sighed and shook his head, clearly annoyed. “I was just worried that’s all, no need to be bitchy about it.”
“Are we done with the concern now? Can I go?” I looked at the door hopefully.
“Yeah go,” he said dismissively.
As I turned to leave he grabbed my wrist making me stop, he turned my hand over and looked at my palm. “Please tell me what happened,” he said quietly, looking up at me with the puppy dog face that always seemed to work on me. His eyes locked on mine making me feel slightly weightless.
“I fell playing soccer, no big deal,” I said, shrugging. My whole body was tingling with the need for him to hold me, and kiss me, and tell me everything would be fine, and that he wanted me.
