The constant bickering between Oliver and me had stopped during the past week. Before he wouldn't leave me for a second without the name calling or cat calling. Now he greets me in the hallways with compliments. I avoid him; I expect this is part of some silly scheme.
Poppy and Elliot had become better friends, and they would often hang out even without Lucy and I. Lucy was jealous and concluded that hanging out with me would make Poppy envious as well. But It didn't work. She didn't even notice. I felt slightly bad for Lucy after that.
The blazing afternoon sun shone persistently on everyone at St. Clovers. Girls who wore their black pants instead of their green skirts instantly regretted it, such as Poppy. The boys, however, didn't have a choice. Most were insecure about their hairy legs, which is rare, but I guess private schools are for the extraordinary.
Poppy sat beside me on the bench right in front of school, thinking out loud. This happened to me a lot. People would pour out of their thoughts to me and not wait for a response. Poppy rarely did this, but she and Lucy have been going through a rough period in their relationship because of Elliot.
"She keeps ignoring me." Poppy sighs loudly. "Whenever I ask her to hang out, she says, 'did Elliot cancel? Is that why you're finally asking me to keep company with you?'."
I look up at the sky; I hate summer. Poppy rants about Lucy and how insecure she's getting, then she calls her pretty and says she never wants to lose her. She yells about how Elliot isn't her type and she wouldn't even date him if she was straight.
Poppy joins me, squinting heavily, then she looks down again. "I'm gay for christ sakes, why's she jealous of him?" She stopped talking for a while.
I faced her. Oh, she's waiting for an answer. "I'd be jealous too. You and Elliot look like a dream couple from Tv or something."
"What?" Poppy says. "No way." She shook her head. I knew she was blushing a little.
I shrug. "I'm telling you the truth, the entire school is literally shipping you guys."
I wasn't lying. It had been quite the talk the past few days. A bunch of girls have been slobbering over Elliot, but he rejected them all and they thought it's because of Poppy.
"That can't be." She shook her head. "I'm fucking lesbian!" She shouted a little too loud.
A few people looked our way. My ears burned.
"Maybe come out again?" I joked.
She glared at me. "You have no idea how hard it is to come out at once."
Last year, some guy caught Poppy kissing a girl named Charlotte in the boys' locker room after school on her 2nd month here. And she had no choice but to come out. Most people didn't care. There was no actual mocking of gay people here, which is one of the few things I liked about St Clover; we genuinely don't care.
The bell rang, and it startled me. Shit, we're late for class.
"Bye!" I waved out to Poppy before running off and leaving her in a depressed state on the bench.
I have an honor science class. Since I was smart enough, I got in. I'm taking a lot of honor's classes except in English; I hate English and even my parents couldn't force me to do that.
As I walked into the Science room, the teacher, Mrs. Rowley, shouted at me to get to my seat, which was at the very back of the room. My head was down in embarrassment. I hated being late for class. Everyone would stare at you all weird and my ears would burn to the point I thought like they were going to fall off.
I stopped at the last table when I saw him, Oliver. My eyes got wide. When did he start taking honors? Oliver was so lazy that even with his IQ nearly being better than mine, he refused to take any honor classes.
Oliver sneered at my reaction and I wanted to strangle him right then and there.
I sat down and moved my stool as far away from him as possible. Is this some kind of nightmare? The teachers must know about our family's dilemma. They gossip about it all the time. They're even worse than the students sometimes.
"Mrs. Rowley?" I called out. She looked directly at me with stern eyes and I felt like dying in that spot. "Can I move seats please?"
"Miss. Andrew, stop delaying our class any further." She sighed and went back to writing random things on the board that I am too distracted to read because of Oliver's eyes on me, intensely staring at me.
"Why're you so sad?" Oliver whispered. "I'm not that bad."
I looked at him accusingly. What is he up to?
Oliver held up his hands. "Okay, I know, but I'm sorry I'll try to be nicer."
"I don't know what little joke you're playing on me Oliver, but I don't have time for it." He was about to respond, but I cut him off. "At all."
"I'm not joking." He said seriously. "I'm really sorry for what I've done to you, I'm trying to rebuild my image."
"Then maybe say sorry to every girl you've fucked." I laughed in my head at what I was about to say. "They probably got STDs."
Normally he would curse at me, or say something even more offensive back. I was ready for whatever was about to come.
"I will if you think that's what I need to do to rebuild my image." He smiled. "Thanks."
Does Oliver have a twin or something? There's no way on earth this could be him.
I ignored him and faced the board. I couldn't think of any reason that Oliver would act this way other than actually trying to get better, but that sounds absurd. Why does he want to change? And why now?
"Look at the person next to you." Mrs. Rowley said, interrupting my thoughts. "That's the person you are going to work with for this semester, on all projects."
I'm bewildered. This had never happened before.
"What about group projects?" I shouted out, my voice trembling. Last year we did group projects, not that I enjoyed them, but they were part of our grade.
"No such thing in this class." Mrs. Rowley smiled innocently. "I have posted 10 assignments for Physical Science. Pick one and complete it with your partner."
I pack my stuff. I hurry out of there, but Oliver still catches up to me.
"Fuck." I breathe out.
Oliver ignores my curse. "Come over to my house after school to work on the project." He told me.
"It's due in three days. Why can't we do it later?" I asked him.
"I have football practise and baseball for the next two days, so if you want to fail, don't come."
He shrugged and left me alone to catch up to his friend that passed us.
My back slumped. Dang it.
I made my way to the library. Poppy was always there with Elliot at breaks. This time Lucy was there too. I made my way to their little comfortable corner.
Everyone noticed how upset I was and looked at me, waiting for an explanation.
"What?" I accused them of staring at me.
Poppy rolled her eyes, "What happened?"
"Oliver Diaz is my science lab partner."
Lucy laughed slightly. "You're joking, right?"
I shook my head.
"But he never does honors." Poppy pointed out.
"He's WAY too lazy." Lucy added.
"That's what I was thinking." I told them. "I think he's up to something."
"Like what?" Elliot asked me, choosing to join the conversation.
"I don't know." I sighed, "he was all like 'I want to improve myself and change my ways.'"
Poppy shook her head in disbelief. "You're lying, I don't believe you"
I slapped her arm. "I'm telling the truth."
"Didn't his dad get back last week?" Elliot said.
His dad had gotten back? I knew Oliver's dad; I hated Oliver's dad. Since my parents go to a lot of fancy work parties, they drag me along as their obedient smart daughter who's in one of the best private schools around. They do the same to Oliver. I see what many people don't see. When the cameras are not watching, Oliver's dad shouts at Oliver. Things like "straighten your back, you look like a turtle" and "why didn't you bring a girlfriend? You're handsome, use it to your advantage." I'd always chuckle at the comments about getting a girlfriend. If only he knew how many girlfriends Oliver had and dumped 1 week later.
"I don't know what that could do with him trying to get on my good side though." I told Elliot.
"I don't know." Elliot said. "Aren't your families in some big rivalry?"
I frowned at him. Of course he knew. "So what?"
"Nevermind." He looked away and scrolled through his phone.
"Anyway." I faced Poppy and Lucy. "I have to go to his house tonight to work on our science project."
"Make sure he doesn't make any moves on you." Poppy jokes but I know she's genuine.
I checked the time on my phone. "Hell no, he can keep dreaming but I won't let him lay a finger on me."
I get up and pack my things and say goodbye to Poppy. I wave goodbye to Elliot, but he ignores me. What's up with him?
My phone chirped, it was Oliver: I got your phone number from Elliot, come to my place in 30 minutes.
I didn't bother replying. I was pretty speechless about Elliot giving Oliver my phone number. If he knew about our family rivalry, then why would he do that?
My home was a 10-minute walk from school. My plan was to go home and change out of my uniform, go to Oliver's house and do as much of the project as we can then sleep.
I wore my jeans, my brown crop top, and I brought my brown bag, with all my science notes I copied from Cassy in our honor's science class and a sound measurement kit, that I bought from Shein. I put my curly brown hair in a messy bun.
Oliver's house was just around the corner, so I biked because I didn't feel like walking. My mom was in her office, working. She didn't say hi to me. I text her I'm going over to someone's house to work on a science project. I don't tell her it's Oliver.
Our garage could be somebody's apartment. My dad owns a bunch of cars and he stores them here. He's never here to use them, though. He's always at his job and he can't be as flexible as mom even though they own the construction company together. I get my little purple bicycle out from the corner of the garage and ride to Oliver's house. Since all the houses looked the same, I watched out for Oliver's house number, 7234.
When I got there, I felt really nervous. I knew for Oliver to invite me over because his parents and elder siblings weren't home. If he invited me over to his parents' home, he would ask for a death wish. I ring the doorbell a few times. Oliver comes to the door wearing grey sweatpants and a black tank top. He eyes me up and down and I roll my eyes.
"I'm honoured, but you didn't have to dress up for me." He said, inviting me in.
"I didn't dress up for you, I did it for myself." I told him.
"Okay, whatever you say." He leads me to his room and I look around his house. It's almost identical to mine. He has big awards: football, baseball, hockey, basketball.
"Wow, you play a lot of sports." I wonder out loud.
"That's how I got these big guns." He kissed his muscles.
If any other guy did that, I would've laughed a little cute laugh, but not for Oliver. He noticed I had no reaction and I could tell he felt embarrassed.
I placed my brown bag on his desk and put my science notes out; he put his notes out in front of us too.
"I want to do the 'study acoustic models and methods of noise control' one." I told Oliver.
"Did you bring the sound measurement kit?" He asked me.
I take it out of my brown bag. "Yes, I set it up and you watch videos on how we should organize and study this."
"Okay." He nodded. "Cool."
We sat in silence, working. While he was watching the videos, I scanned his room. He had a lot of pictures of himself up. His room was big, almost bigger than mine. His room seemed pretty clean. Did he really clean up for me? I wonder if I would've done the same.
"Hey." Oliver waved in front of my face. "You are supposed to focus on making that sound measurement thing, not my room."
"Shut up, I am." I get flustered. Oops.
"Sure you are." He laughs at me.
Why does us fighting now sound like flirting?
I finish putting together the sound measurement instrument and then we get to work. Oliver isn't a good person, but how smart he is really helped us. I kind of forgot about hating him and our parents as we talked about science like we were professionals. Maybe being with him all semester wouldn't be as bad if it was going to be like this all the time.
I hear a click on the door and jump. Oliver's expression goes blank.
I whisper in his ear, "Who is that?"
He doesn't respond
I pray to God, please don't let this be his parents
───
Thx for reading. Chapter 3 will be up by the end of the week.
First chapter was 1573 words and this chapter was 2310 words, do you prefer 1000-1500 words or 2000-2500 words
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