In all seriousness, I didn’t mean to be rude to her. I was just joking at first when I said she looked like a kindergartener in her slightly too big uniform, but she took my jokes in full stride. I am well known for being a terrible person until like 11 o’clock because I’m tired. I had nothing against her and if anything I thought she was kind of cute if I'm being honest. Her feisty attitude caught me off guard and kind of riled me up. She was a professional asshole.

When she said that I was judging her when I walked in the room, I was kind of judging her. Not in a mean way or anything. It was just that while far away she was really pretty, close up she was absolutely gorgeous, for lack of better words. She could’ve been a model in my eyes if models weren’t so tall and slightly anorexic. Her features were as small as the rest of her and were permanently set in a resting bunny face to hide her bad attitude. She was awfully insecure about her height though and felt the need to correct me every time I got it wrong. She was 5 ‘3 but I’m just going to round it down to 5’. I’ll have to give Chloe a silent pat on the back for this one. 

But Jesus, that mouth she had on her was CRAZY. Not that I know too much about what that mouth does, if you know what I mean. Sorry, that’s not what I actually meant. Chloe’s slowly converting me to be like her one dirty joke at a time. And not that I think about Harper like that. That would be insane. I don’t even know her that well. Not that Harper isn't pretty or anything; she just isn't my type. I think. I hope so.

What I meant is that she can come up with the most VIlE insults in record time. The amount of insults and degrading comments that come out of her mouth is honestly wild. I almost feel hurt by some of the things she says. She told me I was as useless as a knitted condom! 

It’s like she wants to verbally gut me for calling her a random nickname that, frankly, most girls would swoon if I called them that. Not Harper though. I have to go up the stairs in front of her because I’m not sure she won’t push me down them.

I can see what Chloe gets out of her random nicknames she gives people. It's like some sense of power or ownership over someone. Not that I want to feel that toward Harper or anything. That’s weird. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I like the fact I can only call her by the nickname I choose. Princess works just fine because it ticks her off, but after realizing her sensitivity to her height and the fact that I never said I was a great person, I found something even better. And seeing her fuming has quickly became one of my favorite past times.

“Are you kidding me?!? What kind of nickname is Itsy-Bitsy?!? I am 5 ‘3! That's the average height for a woman! I am not small,” she says fuming as expected. I do good work.

“Well you seem to have hated ‘Princess’, so I came up with something that describes you more. Okay wait, how about Shortcake, or no, Teeny. No. I think I like Itsy-Bitsy better,” I say, watching her turn furious.

“You don’t have a choice! My name’s Harper and that’s it. It’s a good thing we’ll probably never see each other again because you suck,”

“Actually, I’m straight, so no I don’t suck anything,” It was right there. I had to.

“Okay, I’m tired. Can we get this over with? I don’t want to ever see your face again,”

“As great as that sounds, we actually have homeroom together, study hall, and child development. Oh, and math. And that’s only for A days. On B days, we have Home Economics and Psychology together,” I tell her.

“I thought you were stupid or something?!?!? Why do we have the same classes?” 

At this point, I don’t even think she noticed the rude things that come out of her mouth. They honestly just flow out or something.

“Okay, don’t be an ass. It’s only extracurriculars aside from math. You can keep your nerdy classes to yourself, sweetheart,” 

“They aren’t nerdy. I just care about my education. I bet you almost failed your sophomore year, didn’t you?”

I did, but telling her that would just give her more ammo to use at her disposal. And knowing Harper, it’ll be something I didn’t even know could be an insult. So instead, I just walk upstairs to the last part of the tour. Afterwards, I plan to leave her here and go on with my life. I don’t need the complication that is Harper Caddell. I’ll have to set a reminder that I have to kick Chloe’s butt for putting me in this situation in the first place.

The last floor was used for disciplinary action and individual tests. Unlike most schools, Pricetown chose to discipline their students with unconventional means like yelling and working them out. And one might think that these rich parents would be against that, but they actually sign off on it. Rich people would like to keep their positive image and would rather their children not ruin that.

Of course when I tell Harper all this, she makes a joke about how I must be very familiar with this hall and asks me if I have a designated classroom. I don’t even get in trouble that much. The Headmaster was just over exaggerating. Last year, I only got in trouble six times, thank you very much. And three of them were just because my teacher had some choice words for me too early in the morning, so I had some choice words back for her (Read: I cussed her out. What? I was tired and I’m terrible when I’m tired.). I can never catch a break.

When we finally walk back down to the first floor, I finally realize how late it’s actually gotten. I wasted my entire day showing this little girl around and all I got out of it was insulted. The sun is literally almost gone. I need to go home and at least enjoy the rest of my day.

On the way out of the building, Harper’s silent. Even though I’ve only known her for about an hour, I felt like this was a bit unusual for her. Not that I cared about her too much or anything; I was just nosey and knew I could bully her about whatever it was. So I asked her if she was alright.

She looked up at me and stared at me, seemingly contemplating whatever she had to say, before looking down to her feet. She was nervous, which didn’t really seem like a Harper trait. She was the most annoyingly confident person I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet other than Chloe. 

“What is it? You look like someone kicked your puppy. Sad puppy eyes won’t win you any points with me after your bad attitude earlier,” I told her.

“Okay, I don’t even know why I thought to ask you. You’d probably lead me to the wrong place anyway,” she said, walking off.

Ugh. “Where are you going? Do you need a ride?” I ask her out of the kindness in my heart.

“I can take the bus just fine, thank you very much,” she says.

“Oh sure. Then you must know that you’re walking the wrong way. Bus stop is the other way,”

She stops walking for a second before storming back to me. God this girl is a hot mess. Emphasis on "hot" and "mess" seperatly.

“Can you drop me off?” She asks so quietly I could barely hear her.

“You’re going to have to speak louder than that, Itsy-Bitsy. The air up here is moving so fast I can’t hear all the way down there,” 

Her face turns red for a second before she takes a deep breath and looks me dead in the eyes.

“Can you please drop me off? I’ve never been to California so I don’t know my way around here. So if you could, I would really appreciate it if you could take me,” she bites out slowly as if I'm an idiot.

“Oh, but you’ve been so mean to me though. I don’t think I should be nice to you if you’ve been so rude,” I say, enjoying this a bit too much.

“Well clearly I wasn’t mean enough if your ego is still the size of the Milky Way,” she says, because clearly I don’t deserve to win. 

“Wow, you have no filter. At least you’re real. Get in the car Harper. I’ll take you home because on the contrary of what you believe, I’m a nice person. But let's not make this an everyday thing,” I said.

“I’d rather swim in a pool of apple cider vinegar. Without goggles,"