~Tuesday February 1st~

Olivia and I sit next to each other, chatting softly through the conversations of the other girls at our table. However, our casual discussion is interrupted by a sudden but hushed outburst from the other side of the table.

"Olivia! Cameron's coming over here!" A girl named Laura whisper-yells. At this point, most people at our school have noticed their budding romance. Olivia's eyes widen slightly before she runs her fingers through her hair, trying to tidy it.

"Is there anything in my teeth?" Olivia asks me, showing off all of her teeth to me like I'm a dentist.

"You're good," I say laughing lightly at her. Seconds later, Cameron announces his presence.

"Is anyone sitting here?" He says, the cutest smile on his face as he looks down at Olivia, already knowing there's no way she'd stop him from sitting next to her.

"No, go ahead," she responds smiling back. He sits and they engage in a conversation which I do my best not to pay attention to. Instead I continue to eat my lunch, shoving large pieces of lettuce into my mouth and feeling mildly like a dinosaur doing so. Without someone to talk to I get bored fast, so I pull my phone out of my back pocket. Even though I don't have any notifications I unlock it, thinking that maybe I'll be able to find something to occupy myself with on it.

"Theresa-" a voice from across the table says my name and I look up to her, but she doesn't bother finishing her comment. Instead, a hand reaches from above my head and snatches my phone out of my hand.

"Noah stop," I say turning around in my seat. But, there's still a large piece of lettuce in my mouth, so I'm not even sure he knows what I've said. Hopefully my glare will portray the right message.

"Ooh, photo album," he says with a devious grin. I quickly swallow my salad to properly scold him.

"Noah Thompson, give me back my phone right now," I say as strictly and angrily as possible, throwing in my most evil glare for the finishing touch. It seems to do the trick as he looks up from my phone through his eyelashes. His shoulders slump in defeat as he hands it back to me and sits down next to me.

"You're no fun," he says, pouting slightly. I roll my eyes, not giving him the privilege of a verbal response.

"Did you eat yet?" I say when I notice that he doesn't have a lunch in front of him. It's still the beginning of the period, so he wouldn't have had enough time to eat yet.

"I forgot to pack a lunch today, but it's okay, I'm not hungry," he says. I reach into my lunchbox and find the apple that I packed with my salad.

"Here," I say, handing it to him.

"It's fine, I'm not even that hungry."

"Eat it." I say in the same menacing tone as earlier.

"Fine," he says, reluctantly taking the apple out of my hand. "Thanks, mom," he says, snickering at his own joke.

"Well, Noah, you need to eat lunch. How else are you going to feed that growing ego?" I respond with a dazzlingly sarcastic smile. Noah freezes with his mouth open, inches away from taking a bite from the apple. After a few seconds he brings his hand down and closes his mouth.

"That hurt a little bit," he says quietly, causing me to burst out in laughter. He starts to laugh too after a moment, demonstrating that I didn't actually hurt his feelings. After we calm down I continue to eat my salad and he finally takes a bite of the apple. "What are they talking about?" Noah says after a minute, nodding his head towards Olivia and Cameron.

"I don't know, I was trying not to listen."

"Well why would you do that?" He says, giving me a baffled look.

"Because it would be rude to intrude on their conversation."

"Don't you want to know what they're talking about?" I don't respond at first, wanting to keep to my morals for as long as possible. "Aren't you at least a little bit curious?" He says lowering his voice and inching his head closer to mine. It doesn't take long from my restraint to crack.

"Yes," I respond, a smile already growing on my face.

"Okay, just be quiet and act casual." We both continue to eat out lunches in silence, listening in.

"So, Olivia," we hear Cameron say. "Would you want to go out for dinner with me tonight? You know, if you're free?" My eyes widen in excitement and I try to contain a happy dance as I look up at Noah. He's biting his lip to keep from smiling, but puts a finger over his mouth to remind me not to blow our cover.

"Yeah, I'd love to," Olivia responds. I barely contain a squeal of glee.

"Congratulations, when's the wedding?" Noah says loudly, drawing the attention of both Olivia and Cameron and notifying them that we heard everything. My eyes widen at him and I whip my head around, now facing a mortified Olivia, and surprisingly a blushing Cameron.

"Don't you know it's rude to eavesdrop," he says, recovering first. Olivia's faces is only getting redder by the second. She glares at me, then gives me a rough shove right into Noah. Our sides bump, and tingles spread across my torso from where we touched, traveling across my whole body. Even still, I can't help but laugh at how embarrassed she is. "When did you even get here?" Cameron asks Noah.

"Like five minutes ago," he responds.

"Finally escape the she-demon?" Cameron says in a teasing manner. I turn back to Noah and raise my eyebrows questioningly. He glances at me for a second before looking back at Cameron to respond.

"Hopefully, but I doubt it. She's persistent - I'll give her that."

"Who?" I ask, still lost.

"Jessica," Noah responds, looking back at me and searching my face. He's looking at me like he's waiting for some kind of reaction, so I do my best not to give him one.

Jessica is one of the richest girls in our class, directly meaning that she's also one of the most popular. Nevertheless, she seems like a pretty nice girl. We've never talked to each other, so I don't really know anything about her, but I don't have anything bad to say. Well, maybe except for the fact that she's been in an on again off again relationship with Noah since they first broke it off at the beginning of junior year. I've seen her with other guys since then too, though.

"No matter how many times I tell her we aren't a thing anymore, she won't leave me alone," Noah elaborates. She reminds me of someone, I immediately think. Noah managed to get rid of Andrew for me, so maybe I should try to do the same for him. However, I don't think pushing her to the ground is the most effective way for me to achieve that.

"I bet if she found someone else she would leave you alone," I say after thinking for a moment.

"Yeah, but anyone else would be a step down from me, so that's not going to work," Noah responds right away. Cameron laughs, but Olivia and I just roll our eyes, unamused.

"Seriously Noah," I continue. "If you want to get rid of her, you should distract her with something else. Or someone else."

"Who would be willing to go out with her, she's obnoxious," Cameron scoffs.

"Hey, I'm sure she's a nice girl. Maybe she's just dealing with something," I respond.

"Dealing with something? She's got the biggest house in this town! What type of problem could she possibly have?"

"Don't worry about it Teresina," Noah says before I can respond. "I think I have a plan for her."

"Nothing too mean?" I ask, knowing Noah too well to expect anything else.

"Me? Mean? Never!" Noah responds sarcastically before taking an obnoxiously large bite from his apple, making me laugh lightly.

~~~~~

Olivia and I leave last block French side by side, over the moon about her dinner date with Cameron, but keeping our excitement in check and at a low volume. The boys could easily be right behind us.

"What on earth am I going to wear? He didn't even tell me where we're going! What if it's a fancy restaurant and I'm underdressed? What if it's fast food and I'm too fancy?" Olivia panics in a hushed tone.

"Just wear that," I shrug, gesturing to the clothes she's wearing right now.

"Just wear this?!" Olivia exclaims, quickly stopping her outburst and continuing in the same quiet voice as before. "I'm not wearing school clothes on my first date with Cameron!" She whisper-yells at me.

"Jeez, okay, calm down. Why don't you wear that-" I try to say, but she shushes me and pulls me over to the side of the hallway. "What?"

"Look!" She whispers, pointing down the hallway. I follow her finger to find Jessica and Andrew talking to each other on the other side of the busy hallway. In an instant, he leans down and kisses her, and I don't last a full second before I turn back to Olivia and gag.

"What? Since when?!" I say to Olivia who shrugs her shoulders, an equally disgusted expression on her face.

"Since me," a voice which I immediately identify as Noah says, walking up from behind us.

"You did that?" I say, turning around.

"Yeah, they were the only two people desperate enough to go for each other." As Noah responds, Cameron walks up as well. But instead of joining the conversation, he grabs Olivia's hand and gently pulls her away from us. She doesn't hesitate to let him steal her away, and throws a quick wave over her shoulder at me, which I reply to with a smile. "A perfect match," Noah finishes.

"I will never understand you," I say, shaking my head and crossing my arms. Noah smirks.

"Maybe someday, TD," he says with a wink. He walks away from me, but I don't let him finish the conversation there.

"What was that supposed to mean?" I say as I turn and follow him out of the school.

~~~~~

Written 8/13/18, Published 8/26/18

So the bad news is that school starts on Tuesday for me. And this is my senior year. So ugh.
But the good news is that next week is chapter 29!!!! I'm so excited, I have been waiting to drop this bomb on all of you guys this entire time. Like I said in the last author's note, it's gonna be insane. But there are good parts to it too so don't worry too much ;)
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Thank you for reading!!!