The Bad Girl and the Good Boy

by Karla Luna

  But anyway, Joss… well, she just seemed to be acting as normal as ever. Usually, when someone told you they liked you, you wouldn’t be able to act so normal with them anymore, right? Did you both just go on with your day as if nothing ever happened?

  Oh, Zavier, just shut up.

  “Is anybody even listening to me!?”

  That’s when I shook my head and blinked several times to come back to reality. I saw Joss pretty much glaring at something on the right (well, my right) side of the classroom, so I just nibbled on my bottom lip and frowned, turning to see what had gotten her attention and made her so angry so fast.

  My frown only increased when I noticed four of our Mathletes – all being guys – staring intensely at Evelyn as she slept soundly in a desk at the far right corner of the classroom.

  Yes, she did come with me. She said that she, and I quote, ‘wanted to come and see me in action’. But obviously she wasn’t sticking around for that. She either didn’t get much sleep last night like me, or we just bored her to death when the first math word was being said.

  All four boys, one of them being suspender-wearing Gregory, were literally surrounding her. They all had their fists at their chins while smiling and practically admiring her beauty, as if it were something completely out of this world. Yes, it was oddly weird seeing a beautiful girl with us, but really? Watching her sleep? As I had said earlier, that was just creepy. It was why I didn’t do it to Joss either.

  “She’s so pretty,” Gregory oozed, as he lightly touched a strand of her light brown hair.

  Then, that’s when his other buddies decided to say their thoughts out loud.

  “Wow…just… wow.”

  “Sighing dreamily… so, so dreamily.”

  “Look at those cheekbones. How does she even… ohh.”

  Shaking my head at their extreme weirdness, I turned my head to the left to look at Jesse and Ethan, the two boys that were in and out of the Mathletes team all the time. It was basically when and if they get bored, or if they just needed help or wanted to help. They could be good when they wanted to be. Really.

  I noticed Jesse was quietly laughing to himself with his feet propped up on top of his desk, while Ethan looked at the scene with a bit of concern and humor. And yes, I admit, it was pretty funny. But come on, we needed to get this show on the road, and with Evelyn’s fanboys pretty much drooling as she slept, the situation was disruptive, disturbing, and as I kept mentioning, just plain creepy.

  “Hey!” Suddenly, we all heard three loud claps as we craned our necks to the front of the classroom again. “We are here to discuss what to do for the Mathletes competition next month, and her being here is a huge distraction. So please, everyone, back to your original seats.”

  There was a long silence, and after a while, all the boys still turned back to look at Evelyn.

  Wow. Usually they would admire Joss, but now that Evelyn was here, there was some steep competition. Did they think Evelyn was way prettier, or did they just want someone new to be creepy with?

  Okay, so the comic book store and the Mathletes team meeting venues were two places that no girls should ever go near. See, this was why we practically creeped people out and got called nerds and freaks. I, for one, did admire Joss, but at least I didn’t scare her off. Though I was still surprised she talked to me.

  “I give up,” Joss said as she sighed and hung her head low. Gee, I would’ve liked to help her, but I wouldn’t know what to do with these boys at all. They were a bit odd, if it wasn’t obvious already.

  I just shook my head again and licked my lips, looking down at my current math packet from AP Calculus. I guess if I was going to be here, I should at least do some of the work that hadn’t been assigned to us just yet.

  But just as I was about to reach for my calculator, I found a shadow covering most of my work.

  “H-hi, Zavier.”

  I looked up at the voice and noticed Willow Rogers, shyly standing in front of me. She was gripping her lime green binder so tight against her chest, I feared she’d break it. All she did was grin at me from ear to ear and wave her hand.

  I heard chuckling, so I turned to my left to see Jesse winking at me as he hid himself behind a math textbook, while Ethan just cleared his throat to stop himself from laughing as he busied himself with some work.

  I tried to stop myself from rolling my eyes at them as I put on a weak smile and turned to face Willow. All I could remember was that Facebook status, as well as her terrified expression when Evelyn had confronted her. That made me feel really bad for her, to be honest. I really wouldn't have liked to be in her position.

  “Um, hi, Willow. What do you need?” That’s when she placed her binder on top of my work, making me raise my eyebrows at her.

  “I-I just needed some help with this problem,” she said, as she pointed to a particular problem on her own math packet. “Joss seems to be in a mood, and I wouldn’t want to disturb her any more than she already is.” Well that was nice of her. But I needed to remind myself of what she did. She lied. But she didn’t mean to either, right? Well whatever, it was the past so let’s just move on from that.

  “Uh, yeah… yeah, sure. Why not,” I responded while giving her a sweet smile and nodding to the seat at my right. She jumped for joy and took the seat, sitting a bit too close for my liking. I coughed when her strong perfume filled my nostrils. Oh, how I hated it when girls wore too much of that stuff. Sometimes I even thought it would kill me because of how suffocating it was. I wasn’t saying I didn’t like perfume on girls but just spray a little – please! That goes for the guys, too. “So uh,” I coughed once more and put on another smile as I looked over at her, “what’s the…”

  “So I heard you and Evelyn are dating,” she said way too quickly I almost didn’t even hear her at all. But I did, and it made me almost freeze from the shock that her words brought to me.

  If I had a drink, I’m sure I would’ve spat it all over her by now. What did she just say!? “I-I-I… w-what!?” Where’d you hear that from!?

  Wait. Say it out loud, Zavier!

  Oh, right. “Where’d you hear that from!?” I finally asked. It actually turned out to be a bit too loud, since Jesse and Ethan turned to look at me with confusing expressions, as well as Joss. I’m sure the other guys had heard me too, but they chose to ignore me and continued with their staring instead, as if nothing else mattered.

  “Well, from the party,” Willow responded, matter of fact, as she chewed on some crackers that she seemingly took out of nowhere. She fixed her glasses and I saw a hint of red on her cheeks as she tried to hide her embarrassment. She was a shy girl, and it was odd that she was talking to me. But she asked me for help, and I didn’t think she’d come by and ask me if the gossip she heard around the school was real.

  I hated drama and gossip that went around this school.

  “The…” That’s when I got frustrated and brushed and ruffled up my hair with my hands, completely messing it up. Then, I brought my palms to my face and tightly closed my eyes.

  The party.

  The party?!

  The party Evelyn took me to – dragged me to – and practically dressed me up for. I was going to be sick.

  “Who told you that?” I tried to ask in the nicest way possible, though I felt my teeth clenching a bit, so it caused me to snap a little.

  “I-it’s all over the school.” She innocently shrugged. “We all saw you come in together, dancing together, and she even beat up a guy for you. Not many girls here would do that.”

  “Willow, Evelyn and I are not going out. I barely met her. She just dragged me to the party and we’re still getting to know one another. Besides, you’ve seen how she is.” I paused and I could’ve sworn I saw her cringe at that last statement. “There’s no way she and I would, you know, end up together.” Right?

  “So does that mean I still have a chance?” she shyly asked with hope in her eyes.

  I took a deep breath and tried to let her o
ff smoothly. “No.” She only pouted and sniffed, scrunching her nose up as if she smelled something bad around her.

  That’s when we all turned to the right when we heard a desk scraping loudly against the tiled floor.

  “She’s waking up!” Gregory whisper-shouted, making Joss groan in irritation.

  “I see her waking up!”

  “I’ll wake her up!” the other two boys yelled out after him.

  Then, all of sudden, I had a really bad feeling, so I turned to them wide-eyed and tried my best to warn them of what their consequences would be if they…

  In that moment, Evelyn moaned and opened her eyes. When she spotted all four boys’ faces, she screamed and went into her ninja-fighting mode as she stood up and kneed and kicked all the boys where it really hurt…

  Soon, they were all grunting on the floor.

  “So I’m guessing she won’t be coming here anymore,” Ethan said to me, as Jesse chuckled and muttered a ‘nice one’ to Evelyn’s reaction.

  Evelyn turned to me as she fixed her leather jacket. “You need to keep your nerds on a leash.”

  All I did was grunt and bang my head against the table.

  •Evelyn•

  Those Mathletes sure knew how to make people feel welcome.

  And yes, I was being sarcastic, thank you for noticing!

  But seriously though, I was just trying to get some sleep and they just had to creep up on me like that! I admit, I chose to come to the Mathletes meeting to show Zavier how interested I was of the things he did during his free time. But obviously, I was never going near those nerds again.

  Jesse and Ethan were there and they were actually pretty chill guys.

  Then, there was that Willow chick I was still ticked off at. She seemed scared of me, but Zavier told me to let it all go already, so I did.

  Joss was majorly confused and seemed a bit irritated that I came in with Zavier though. But all I did was smirk, and I swear I saw a vein pop on her forehead. I was gonna name it Oscar.

  But anyway, right when Joss had opened her mouth and said ‘welcome,’ I immediately dozed off. I was never the one to stay wide awake when people talked about school subjects, and it was actually pretty surprising how I stayed awake in most of my classes these past few days. I guess I just had a lot of fun in them not learning.

  Yawning (yes, I still felt a bit sleepy… sue me!), I walked into the cafeteria where most of the tables were already filled with giddy people. In high school, you had them all. The geeks, the freaks, the jocks, and the cheerleaders. And then there was me.

  I had been coming to school for a week now and I was already known as that bad girl no one wanted to be near. But it wasn’t really true. A lot of people talked to me and thought I was cool and funny. Others though, thought I was scary, and also – for some reason – thought that if they even so much as glanced in my direction, I would beam them with my laser eyes.

  Ha, people really cracked me up.

  Although, if I have laser eyes, I wouldn’t have to move a muscle to beat someone up. That would be both awesome and very handy.

  “Evelyn!”

  At hearing my name, I turned to see Jesse and Ethan already sitting at a table near the window. Ethan had a spoon in his mouth and seemed to be licking up the very last of its contents. I just shrugged it off and jogged over to the round table, sitting down right across from them.

  “Oh, I thought Zavier was with you. I haven’t seen him come in, and I know you know that he knows that Davne Conrad is back,” Jesse said.

  That name itself had me growling in annoyance. He was a perfect bad boy, I admit. But remember, he hurt Zavier so bad that he got panic attacks whenever the guy’s name was mentioned. I was surprised at the party, but I knew he was just trying to control himself. And he did. But I was still afraid for his life.

  “Shit, here he comes…”

  At hearing Jesse announce that, I immediately started to look around, but spotted no Davne. When I didn’t find him, I turned to Jesse again and saw him hiding his whole face by burying it deep in a book, which, by the way, was upside down. “We gotta get the hell out of he—”

  “Hey! Jesse! I… is that you?!” A large hand shot out to grab the top of Jesse’s book, and slowly pulled it down to reveal a fake-smiling Jesse. I deeply sighed at the sound of the voice, knowing well whose it was.

  Jesse smiled widely and actually seemed excited, but I knew he was pretty much dying inside.

  “D-Davne!? Dude, buddy?! How’ve you been!?” That’s when Jesse turned to me and gave me a look that said ‘Please help me or just kill me now! Matter of fact, get the fuck out of here yourself!’ Then, he turned back to Davne as if nothing had just happened.

  I looked up at Davne and saw him smiling, but when he met my gaze, those lips turned into a full-blown smirk.

  Dammit, the smirks… it was always the smirks.

  “Hey. Evelyn, is it?” he asked with a wink. I rolled my eyes and turned to look out the window to try and shut him out, hoping he’d get the gist and, you know, leave and do whatever it was that he does. Just something that didn’t involve me (or Zavier) at all. “Oh come on, bunny, don’t be that way.”

  Bunny? Who the hell was bunny? He better not start nicknaming me that, because I swear to all the gods, I will kick his…

  “Davne,” I spat in disgust as I kept looking out the window without any interest.

  Davne only chuckled and sat down next to Jesse to gaze at me. I took a look at Ethan and saw him completely gone. Papers actually flew around the spot he had recently vacated.

  Damn, these boys were fast. I remembered that one time Zavier had quickly put on his mother’s scarf to hide his hickey, I might’ve thought he was a wizard for a second. Haha. Yerr a wizard, Zavier. Man, I was turning into a geek.

  “Well that’s very nice of you, Evelyn, such a proper way to greet someone.”

  “Don’t you have anywhere else to be?” I interrupted. “Like, I don’t know, to swipe a cop car, bang a random chick, get back in prison…” I trailed off, looking at his hazel eyes. He only laughed again, making me completely irritated. Seriously, how could he laugh and not be the slightest bit annoyed?

  Oh yeah, bad boys, that’s why. Guys like him and girls like me were obviously different. We were equally bad, but we had our differences, too.

  “No, not at all. Just came here to say ‘Hi’ to my fellow classmates, and maybe even to some new girl that doesn’t seem to like me very much. Ouch.” He pouted for a second, and then went back to his smirking self. I just kept staring him down, giving him the stink eye. “Oh, come on, Evelyn, what did I do wrong? Zavier’s over the whole thing, isn’t he? I apologized. I’m the good guy now. Why don’t you believe me? Right, Jess, my man? You believe me, right?”

  That’s when he paused to turn to Jesse, who was slowly ducking under the table. He cursed when he found out he had been caught, so he jumped back up to his seat.

  “Oh uh, pfft, tsk, pfft, tsk... damn, look at the time!” he said, as he looked down at his watch-less wrist. “I-I gotta go do some… thing.”

  “What thing?” Davne asked, clearly not believing his words.

  “A thing that shouldn’t wait any longer.” And before I could even blink, Jesse was gone and out of the cafeteria.

  Zavier and his friends were really pretty quick. They sure could come in handy, especially if we got caught and had to run away from the cops. Ha. Joking. Kinda...

  “And now it’s just the two of us.” Davne smirked as he sat in Jesse’s previous seat, which was way closer to me now. “So how are you and Zavier, by the way? A little birdy out there told me something pretty interesting.”

  At that, my head snapped to him, and I gave him a seething glare (if that was possible). What fucking birdy told him something interesting? About me, maybe? If so, I was gonna kill that little birdy.

  As if reading my mind, he went on and answered my unasked question. “Yeah, I uh, heard you and Zavier are dating.” He gave me
a smile. “Congrats. He’s a good guy.”

  I just stared at him, blinking and hoping I was just daydreaming. Or that I was just high… Goddammit, what the hell just came out of his mouth?

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Where did you hear that from?”

  “Oh, it’s all over the school, sweet cheeks. Could’ve fooled me. I thought you went for bad boys like me, not…” I raised my eyebrows at him, threatening him to continue on with that sentence. “… not good, innocent boys like Zavier.” He shrugged as if it was nothing to him. But I actually saw how much it bothered him.

  What, he didn’t like some competition? Because Zavier would’ve won in a landslide, come on. Okay, sadly, that was a lie. But Zavier really did have some muscle. He could beat Davne, especially with my help.

  “Well, just for the record, he’d make a way better boyfriend than you,” I stated with a smirk, batting my eyelashes at the bad boy.

  “Don’t you wanna have fun?” After he said that, I wanted to spit out that Zavier was a really fun person to be with. Honestly! He just kept it hidden. I thought better of it though and kept quiet, because who cared what Davne thought, right?

  Putting my palms on top of the table, I stood up, and Davne stared up at me before scanning my entire body. “I’d say it was nice talking to you…” I started, as I looked him over, clearly showing my disgust. “But then, I’d be lying.”

  Walking out of the cafeteria, I started to frantically look around for Zavier. Seriously, I was getting worried now. Where was my teddy bear? I needed to speak with him urgently, especially about the whole stupid rumor.

  My question was answered when I turned the corner of the hall and came face to face with Zavier.

  We immediately started to yell and point at each other in unison. “People keep saying I’m dating you! No, I’m dating you! Yes, I’m dating you! I mean, no! No, we aren’t dating! Where’d you hear that from!? It was the party thing! Stop talking! You stop talking! Let me talk!” It was as if we were those twins that always said the same thing at the same time, but claimed that it never happened when people asked them.