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Read the A/N at the end of the chapter.

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Chapter 20 *Surprise*

~Sophia

“Taylor Swift.”

Clever, whoever thinks of putting our last names together. I haven’t even thought of that, even when I had a crush on him before. I didn’t even consider it.

 “Taylor Swift,” a cheerleader says in a singsong voice.

Ignore it Sophia, they’re just bunch of immature seniors. I close my eyes and pretend that I am not here, that I’m somewhere else, and that I’m not experiencing this.

Someone even plays You Belong With Me in their IPod and turn the volume up so that everyone in the room can hear it.

Glancing behind me, I know that he’s not there yet.  They will not play a prank about us if he’s here.

Ugh! I should have just come when the bell rings! I have to endure this teasing for three more minutes. If I go out now, they will be surely happy about it. It just means that I’m affected. In reality, not really. I’m just not used to people noticing me. I’m already a senior but they just become interested in me now since I live in Andre’s house and when I started to talk to Draky. Yes, he’s making my life miserable.

My head snaps to the front of the room when I hear the door opening. Someone turns off their IPod.

Draky walks inside with his hands on his pockets. Girls stop talking about me and stare at him. He bumps some boys’ fist and continues to make his way towards his seat behind me. When he catches my eye, he nods. That’s it. It’s like he’s ignoring me. Okay, whatever. I don’t even like you and besides, I’m angry at you.

The loud ringing of the bell makes me jump in surprise. He even coughs a laugh!

Jeez! Why am I nervous? It’s just an ordinary day, except that Parker is here. What does he mean that I’ll see him later? How many days will he stay here? Where? Perhaps in our house?  My mom won’t mind but. . . Will I be stuck at Andre’s? What’s happening in the house? Why did my parents want me to move out?

Where is Ma’am C? She has not been late, ever. Maybe she’s absent? Maybe something happened to her?

“Sophia.”

I look up to see Parker smiling at me. Parker! I’m about to rub my eyes when he bursts out laughing. My classmates stop whatever they’re doing and stare at him. At me. At us.

He flashes them a smile and takes a seat in front of me.

“Parker,” I whisper.

“Oh, hey Sophia,” he says, as if surprise to see me.

I can’t help but roll my eyes at him. “What are you doing?” I ask. In my classroom?

He ignores my question and looks behind me. “Hi Drake,” he says.

I twist in my chair to see Draky with a furious expression on his face. He got up from the wrong side of the bed in the morning. He doesn’t even greet Parker in return. So impolite!

He turns his back to us and talks to Cassidy; the head cheerleader of our school. Of course, the jock and the cheerleader. How perfect! Too bad he quit the basketball team last school year. No one knows the reason why; maybe Andre and his close friends because Driana certainly doesn’t know anything about it. Anyway, why do I care about his shining glory?

I’m just  . . .

I should be plotting against him, not—

“Sophia!”

I turn to see Parker smiling amusedly at me.

“What?” I ask. He’s the one ignoring me.

“If I know, you’re interested with Drake,” he tells me.

“What?” It’s even hard to let the word out of my mouth. I glance quickly behind me to check if Drake hears it.

Absolutely not. He’s too busy flirting. Inside the classroom. He’s not even shy about it. She’s not even trying to control her giggle. Get a room! Even if they’re not doing anything besides looking at each other with gooey eyes, it makes me want to puke. Drake is faking it. I can see right through his façade. Can I, really?

 A loud clearing of the throat makes me stop from staring at the two people behind me.

“Sorry,” I say sheepishly.

“It’s okay,” Parker says.

And then I remember my question earlier, the one he didn’t answer. “Why are you here?”

“I failed Literature, so here I am,” he says. He ruffles his hair and laughs to himself.

“Really,” I say, not bothering to roll my eyes this time.

“How can you know?” He asks. “You left at the end of my third year high school. Really, I failed Literature 4." He gestures to himself. “I enrolled here to see you.”

I scowl at him. As if he can fool me. He’s a smart student. I like studying because of him. Besides, he’s three years older than me. If he failed it, he already took it the next year.

“Do you know my major?” He asks, changing the subject. At least he stops fooling around now.

“No,” I answer. “You were going to be a senior in high school when we left.”

“That’s right,” he says.

“But you liked to be a manager,” I say matter-of-factly. That’s what I remember.

“But I get Education.”

“What?” I ask incredulously. “That was not one of your options!”

“Yes,” he says sheepishly. “I don’t know why I picked it.”

Wait, my mind is having a hard time processing his words. The last time I saw him was four years ago. He was one of my closest friends back when Matt was alive. I used to pretend Parker was my old brother, considering he’s older than me.

Last I checked, he doesn’t like teaching and now he’s studying it? I have a lot of questions for him. How are our friends back home? What’s his major? How long will he stay here? Why is he here? I guess I have to speak my thoughts, otherwise he can’t answer them.

“Wait,” he says, before I can open my mouth. He raises his forefinger. “I see you have a lot of questions in your mind.”

I nod eagerly, and glance quickly at the door, afraid that Ma’am C will just enter and will make Parker leave the room.

“What’s your first question?” He asks. He brushes the hair that falls on his eyes and then I realize something.

There’s something weird about him.  I can’t put my finger on it. He’s the same Parker but at the same time, he’s not. I wonder why I just noticed it now. Maybe because of the joy of seeing him? That’s possible.

My brows furrow in confusion as I analyze what’s new with him. A light suddenly switches in my head. Why don’t I just ask him?

“Parker,” I start, “There’s something new about you.”

He grins, showing all his perfect white teeth. “I’m waiting for you to say that!”

“What is it?” Suddenly, I think of Driana. Does she like Parker? I’ll ask her later in Arts.

“I won’t tell you. You should guess it.”

Typical Parker! I’ll just leave that subject alone because I know he’ll tell me about it when he wants to.

“Why are you here?” I ask instead.

“My major is Literature,” he says, ignoring my question. “Your school asked the administrator in my university for college students’ substitutes.”

I don’t know where this is going. Ma’am C is six minutes late.

“I am on my third year in the university, and our Director picked me and my other colleagues to go to your school. This will help us to improve our studies and it’ll be a first experience to us.”

I still can’t wrap my mind around it. There are a lot of possibilities. “You’re saying that . .” I trail off.

“That I’m going to be your substitute for this class,” he says obviously. “Some of my other colleagues are in other classes right now. We are seven chosen picked to substitute your teachers.”

“That means—“

“Yes, there’s one for Calculus, Biology, History, Arts,  PE, Geography, and of course me, for Literature.”

“Why not the graduating students?” I ask.

“Because they’re already having their on the job training,” he answers. “Anyway, only the senior high school students are affected. Your professors are now having a professional meeting in my university. It should have started on Monday so it’ll be a week but something happened.”

“What—“

“It’s a long story, and it’s pretty gruesome,” he cuts me off. “Oh, and we’re staying in a hotel,” he says excitedly. “Because you know, this place is far from our university.”

“But my other professors are here,” I say. I still can’t believe this is happening.

“Of course,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “They just chose seven professors in your school.’

“Why?”

“What do you want? Leave the senior high school students with bunch of third year college students? We don’t even have a license to teach. Before we went here, we had trainings. Luckily, I was one of the chosen. I did my best, you know, especially when they said this is the school we are going to teach.”

“You mean . . .” I trail off, not knowing how to organize my thoughts. Actually, my mind is like a blank sheet of paper.

First things first. Parker is here because he’s going to be a sub for Ma’am C. “How many days will you stay here?” I ask.

“I’m not sure," he says, frowning. “They told us to pack clothes for one week.”

“A week only?”

“At least I have time to see you.  Fouryears is a long time.”

“Yes,” I say with a sigh. I should be thankful. At least I can have time with him, instead of nothing.

“Sophia,” Parker says in a low voice. “I think it’s time to introduce myself to your classmates.”

Glancing in front of the room at the wall clock, I say, “That’s a good idea.” Ten minutes have already passed since the ringing of the bell.

Parker takes a deep breath and exhales it slowly.

“You can do it,” I encourage him.

He gives me a nervous smile and stands up. He walks in front of the room and puts his satchel on the desk. “Good afternoon,” he says.

My classmates don’t even bother to stop talking. Some girls are staring at him like he’s a male model. Someone snorts from behind and I don’t have to turn around to see its Drake. I’m about to twist in my chair and glare at him when Parker looks at me for help.

I bite my lip and shake my head a little. I want to help him but there’s nothing I can do. My classmates don’t even listen to me and they just talk to me when they feel like teasing me. I just ignore them because it’s not true.

“Good afternoon,” Parker says again.

Half of the class stops whatever they’re doing and stare at him. After a few seconds, they continue to ignore him. It’s hard to tame graduating high school students. Parker is running out of patience.

“What’s your friend doing here?” Drake asks curiously.

Now he's talking to me? “He’s going to be—“

Clack!

I look in front of the room where the sound comes from, to see Parker’s hand on the table.

Oh. He slapped it. No wonder why there’s a loud booming voice slash clattering noise. He smiles triumphantly. Give it to Parker to do something unthinkable. At least he gets the attention of the whole class now.

“Good afternoon,” he says for the third time.

A complete silence follows after that. Some are looking at Parker like he’s crazy and some are curious about him.

“I’m Parker Condie,” he says, “and I’m going to be your substitute teacher for Literature.”

There are a lot of questions after that, so Parker tells them about the things he explained to me, except he shortens this version. He omits some parts, like he’s not a college student.

After that, he says, “Let’s do something.” When he sees the expression of my classmates, he adds, “No, it’s not a school work. It’s an entertaining,” he pauses and thinks for a moment, “game.”

He instructs us to move our chair so that we’ll have a big circle and we’ll be sitting seeing all our classmates. He puts the desk on the center.

I glance at my classmate to see that they’re all eager to get started with the “game”. Drake is a few chairs away from me. Suddenly, he catches me staring at him and turns to talk to Cassidy.

“Get a paper and a pen,” Parker says, “and write your name at the top.”

What game involves a pen and a paper? Parker should know what he’s doing. Getting a piece of paper, I write my name at the top in bold letters.

“Done?” Parker asks.

“Yes, sir,” My classmates says simultaneously.

Parker’s lips quirk into a smile at the word ‘sir’. “This is what you’re going to do,” he says. “You’ll pass the paper on your right and then you’ll write something about that person’s paper. Like, if he’s kind, or if she’s pretty. Anything. You can write your feelings too, but there’s a time limit so that you can write on everyone’s paper.”

There are choruses of Aah’s and Ooh’s from my classmates. I have to admit, Parker is really creative to think of a game like this.

“Wait,” he says as an after thought. “You cannot write your name on your classmate’s paper. It’s a rule. Let them wonder who wrote it.”

Nervous laughs erupt from the class.

“And then when I say ‘Pass’,” Parker continues, “you should pass the paper to your right. It will continue until you receive your own paper. So, let’s start.”

“Pass.”

This time, I get Drake’s paper. It’s not as if I can help it. There are words like: You’re so cute, Handsome, I like you, I love you. And so on and so forth. And yes, there’s a heart shaped thing on the paper, both our names are written inside it.

What will I write? Usually, I write: Kind, Nice, Smart; because I don’t really know them.

Before Parker can say ‘Pass’, I write: You’re my first crush.

I don’t know why I wrote it, but it’s true. Drake is my first crush. I never had a crush on Parker. He’s just like an old brother to me. He just teased me a while ago because he likes doing it to annoy me.

Drake Swift is my first crush. Sadly, there’s nothing that can change it. You can never change the past, but you can always make a bright future. As they say, tomorrow’s another day.

I don’t know what I write after Draky’s paper. Before I know it, I’m holding my own paper. Someone puts ‘Swift’ at the end of my last name so it looks like: Sophia Taylor Swift. The idiot even copies my hand writing.

Someone even wrote: Drake is mine. I scoff. As if I’m taking him away from her.

There are some words like: Smart, Cute, Pretty, Intelligent, Beautiful.

Wow, there are a lot of compliments. My heart is fluttering in my chest and a smile forms in my lips.

Like in Draky’s paper, someone drew a heart and put our names in it. We’re already seniors but they’re still childish. I scan the paper quickly and then I find two interesting things at the bottom of the paper.

One is: I’m sorry. Below it, with a different hand writing are the words: I like you.

I wonder who wrote these.

Parker tells us to submit our paper, but he says that he will not grade us base on what our classmates wrote about us.

My classmates thank Parker for the game and for the wonderful experience. For sure, they are happy about the words written in their paper. I hope he’ll not read mine.

When the bell rings, Parker tells me that he’ll walk me to my next class.

“We’ll see each other later, right?” I ask hopefully.

“No, unfortunately,” he says, frowning. “It’s my first day here and I’ll have a meeting with my colleagues and prepare for tomorrow’s lesson. I’m just not here to have a vacation.”

“Yeah, right,” I mutter. I thought we can hang out and catch up on what’s new.

“I think I’m free tomorrow,” Parker says, trying to cheer me up.

“I don’t know. I have a lot of—“

He pokes me on my side, beside the ribs.

“That hurts,” I say, scowling at him.

“You’re pretending to be busy,” he says wearily.

“Yes,” I admit. “I’m free tomorrow after class.”

 A grin lights his face. “Tomorrow then,” he says.

We’re already outside my classroom in Arts. I can see Driana sitting in her chair. She waves when she sees us. Parker smiles at her.

“See you tomorrow Prof,” I say.

“I like that,” he says, his eyes glitter in delight.

I walk inside the room but turn around when Parker calls me.

“What?” I ask.

“Drake,” he says, while backing away.

“What about him?” I don’t know why he suddenly says his name. A nice way to say goodbye.

He’s already a few feet away, walking backwards, when he says, “He’s cute.”

What does he mean? “Parker!” I call after him.

He continues to walk, pretending he doesn’t hear me. He has a lot of explaining to say tomorrow.

*****

Cassidy is a new character.

Some of you guessed it right -- that Parker is a substitute teacher :D

The song is Liar, Liar by Nevershoutnever :)

If you are wondering where to send me the links for the banner, just send it to me in private message. And then I'll post it here -- on the story, and the facebook page.

Thanks to libertyk for the banner in this chap :>

Thank you for reading! <3