"Oh, my god," I said, burying my face in my hands. "I can't believe I was that stupid." I shook my head.

It was English, and currently, I was being forced to relive what happened at the football game.

"Welp, you're always stupid." Cooper shrugged with a teasing smile. "Actually, you're so dumb that I don't even know how you passed Calculus." 

I scoffed. "Please, you guys are the idiots here." I rolled my eyes as I looked at Xander who was next to Cooper. "You were so freaked out. Like I was only hit once." I jokingly narrowed my eyes at Xander at the last part.

He rubbed his neck and goofily smiled. "Yeah, sorry about that, gem. I'll make it up to you though."

"You better, Kings." Cooper punched his arm. "She went unconscious because of you!"

"And I turned out fine! And you're not even in this class." I raised my eyebrow at him.

"Whatever."

"Ms. Westley's coming."

"She's been gone for half the period. She probably isn't."

"Well she's about to walk through the door." I pointed at the door that Ms. Westley was turning the doorknob.

Cooper's eyes widened as he lugged on his backpack and rushed out the door before Ms. Westley had the chance to say anything, leaving us in laughter.

Ms. Westley entered through the door after looking at a running Cooper, flailing his arms running through the rows of lockers. She simply shook her head to herself and adjusted her small glasses to scan the class.

"No absents. Good."

I looked over at Xander who employed the seat beside me, realizing that he hadn't been missing his classes as much.

"Students," she announced, looking over her lesson plans, "today is the day where you can just practice your scenes." She yawned, sitting down in her spinning chair to harshly grade papers with her red pen. "To be honest, I have detention watch today, and I'm really not in the mood."

The class laughed quietly at Ms. Westley's unusual and blunt behavior that I cracked a smiled at momentarily.

"You and your partner are presenting your scenes tomorrow, so be prepared." 

I sighed, turning to Xander.

"How's your face?" He asked, moving his desk closer to mine.

"Great, obviously," I replied sarcastically. I wasn't doing great. Partly because there was huge bruise on my jaw, and also because my ego wasn't doing so well knowing that I could go unconscious from literally one punch.

"Sorry, again."

"It's fine; I told you that, like, a billion times." I rolled my eyes at his never-ending apologies. as I pulled out our sheet that had our scene on it. "Let's just practice the scene, yeah?"

He nodded and leaned over my shoulder to read his line first. "If you're offended by the touch of my hand, my two lips are standing here like blushing pilgrims, ready to make things better with a...kiss. Kiss?"

My eyes quickly widened as I read the rest of the scene. "She gave us Act 1, Scene 5?" I asked, making sure we were reading the right scene.

He nodded hesitantly.

"You sure?"

"Well, I do believe that my ears are pretty good at listening. So yes, I am sure."

I looked at the page with widened eyes as I scanned it again for the tenth time.

I looked up to see his eyes widened as big as mine at the newfound knowledge before I stuffed my face in my arms.

"You're sure it's this one?"

I snapped my head up to narrow my eyes at him in annoyance. "My ears are pretty good at listening. So yeah, I'm sure," I mocked with a hint of amusement, repeating his earlier words.

Xander sighed and rubbed his eye. "She can't possibly expect us to actually kiss, you know."

I shrugged before walking up to Ms. Westley's desk with an innocent smile.

"Ms. Westley," I started as she continued to grade the papers on her desk, "would it be possible if-"

"No," she simply stated while keeping her head down at the papers. When she realized I wasn't leaving anytime soon, her face finally rose up. "Why are you still here? Run along now."

I sighed, and retreated back to my desk where Xander was making a contraption out of paper clips.

"Well, we can't switch scenes," I started. "I don't think she knows, but she isn't going to listen, and I desperately need to get my grade up in this class."

"We probably don't have to actually kiss, you know," he said slowly as if he were talking to a toddler.

"I know, smartass," I narrowed my eyes at him. "I just don't want her to take away points or whatever."

"You'll get a good grade, calm down, gem." He leaned back in his chair, putting his biceps on display. "And with my amazing acting, we might even get extra points."

"Seriously?"

He nodded with his usual full confidence and a wide smile. 

Yeah, we were definitely going to get terrible scores. No doubt about it.

♛ ♛ ♛

"Dammit!" I whisper-shouted to myself as I looked at the single textbook on the tiled floor. I sighed as I just glared at it, expecting it to fly up to my hand. 

These are the times that the Force would really come in handy. 

Narrowing my eyes at the floor, I reached down to get the book and successfully shoved it back in my locker.

"I know you got your face done, but you need a better surgeon, seriously," the familiar nasally voice came on the other side of my locker door, disrupting the silence of the hallway.

I shut the metal door to be met with Mckenna and her sad excuse of a friend and the school bike, Holly.

"You know what happened, Mckenna." I rolled my eyes as I turned to face her. "Everyone knows."

"Yeah, that Xander punched you in the face," Holly added, flicking her stringy red locks over her shoulder. "Pathetic."

"Well, at least he's willing to be closer than ten feet to me," I snapped, narrowing my eyes at her.

Holly scoffed. "Do I need to remind you that he actually-"

"Yes, we get it, Holly," I said with a sarcastic, over-enthusiastic smile as I applauded her. "You've slept with half the male population in this town. Good job, I applaud you."

"I applaud her also!" Mckenna added, looking me up and down while smacking on her gum. "It's an achievement!"

"Shut up, Mckenna," Holly whipped her head around to her. "You're not helping!"

"I so was helping, Hol! Stop being so rude!"

"It's not my fault for getting pissed at your stupidity!"

Rolling my eyes at their childish fight, I turned on my heel and headed outside, leaving them to bicker among themselves.

After collecting my cafeteria lunch from inside, I made my way outside and spotted the blue table occupied with my friends. I noticed Joey was sitting with us, but he sat with us on occasion so I paid it no mind.

"It's wet!" Sabrina shouted, clutching her fork in frustration.

"No, it isn't," came Joey's scoff.

"What's wet?" I asked, setting my tray down in the only unoccupied seat between Olivia and Xander.

"You are after I'm-" Joey started what was supposed to be an innuendo but was cut off by my harsh glare.

"She's taken, bro," Xander laughed, patting his back.

"Do you think water's wet?" Sabrina asked me.

"Yeah," I said slowly. "It's water."

"Ha! I told you!" She yelled at Joey and threw a chip at him.

Michael scoffed, joining the argument. "No, it makes things wet, but that doesn't mean that it, itself, is wet."

"Take my side! You're supposed to love me!" Sabrina whined to Michael.

I rolled my eyes playfully, turning my body to the quieter half of the table.

"I don't even wanna ask," I sighed.

"So did you get your face checked out?" Olivia bluntly asks, inspecting my face.

"Nah, nothing feels wrong."

"You didn't?" Xander asked, leaning forward. "I thought you had went after you woke up on Saturday."

I shook my head, biting into an apple. "Nope, thought you knew I didn't."

He sighed. "I'll take you to the doctors later."

"I'm not going, Xandy."

"Too bad-"

"Xander Kings to the office," a voice over the speaker loud intercom all over the school came. "Xander Kings to the front office."

I looked up at Xander along with the entire student body here. 

"Hey," I whispered, putting my hand on his arm to prevent him from standing up any further. "What happened?"

"Probably just what happened at the game." He shrugged. "Don't worry, I'm not about to get expelled over that, gem."

I nodded and offered him a smile to which he widely returned. "Good luck," I said to him before he turned around to meet his inevitable consequences.

"My god!" Olivia scoffed. "And you say you're dating Tommy."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" I asked to which everybody responded at once.

"You two are meant to be!"

"I think the ship sailed long ago."

"The sexual tension between you two is heavier than a narwhale on stilts."

"You'll have hot babies!"

Joey gave an exasperated sigh. "Tommy is my best friend and all, but it's so obvious that you and Xander are into each other!"

"And when was the last time you talked with Tommy?" Sabrina asked with a knowing smile.

"The track meet," I averted my eyes from her to the table in realization that my boyfriend and I weren't actually acting like a couple.

"See?" Michael said. "You spend all your time with Xander, and there's a simple reason for that."

I sighed. "And what's the reason?"

"You like Xander, of course!" Olivia shrieked.

My eyes widened before I sunk into my chair and buried my blazing cheeks in my hands. "Shit."

I was in some deep crap now.

♛ ♛ ♛

Well that was fun lmao! But seriously, I'm soooo sorry, guys! I took an unintentional hiatus from Wattpad for a bit, and I'm glad to be back and writing though! A lot of things have been going on in my personal life, preventing me from actually taking the time to write. But I was only gone for, like, 12 days or something (please don't hate me lol). I honestly don't like this chapter at all, but what can you do lol.

Honestly, I had to write literally five argument essays for my English class this past week and they were all due the next day so as you can imagine, I was sick of writing that much ahaha.

Anyways! I'm actually going to start updating every 2-3 days instead of trying to update every other day because that old schedule was causing me so much unnecessary stress ngl. And I kinda wanna upload a new book, I'll put a synopsis of it next chapter if you want! I'l definitely finish this book before starting a new one, though!

So I hope y'all liked this one and don't forget to comment or hit that lil star to vote! Love you so so so much :)

-sophia