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"𝙅𝙐𝙎𝙏 𝘼 𝘽𝙄𝙏𝘾𝙃, 𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙉?"

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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐋𝐘 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋, something that Mollie had definitely not missed about school. The Wilson girl followed her class into the hall and took a seat beside Shannon, a girl from her old school.

As Mrs Carter began to drone on about integration and cooperation (something that the students had heard pretty much a million times before), Mollie couldn't stop herself from looking around the hall curiously. It was filled with row upon row of faces, some that she recognized from her previous school and many new faces too. But her gaze stopped on one person in particular, who happened to be sitting right next to her.

There was no mistaking who it was. Tall even when sitting down, styled dark hair and handsome features. Even more handsome this close up, if she was being honest.

Rich Pizza Boy.

Before she could stop herself, she nudged him gently. "Hi."

His eyes widened in surprise as he glanced down at her and recognized her.

"I'm the pizza girl. From yesterday." She whispered with a nod when he didn't reply. Not that he needed any reminding, though.

"Um, yeah. I remember." He mumbled with a small smile, still caught off guard.

"Mollie."

"Riz."

She smiled at the name, and couldn't help but think about how well it suited him. Also at how good looking he was. And he had braces which, for some reason, actually looked really good on him. "Did you enjoy your pizza, then?"

He looked down to see a smile on her face, her dark hazel looking up at him curiously. Feeling a small heat rise to his cheeks, he did his best to play it cool. "It was alright. I've had better."

"Better than Massimo's?" She gasped in offense, a little too loudly which caused a few people around her to turn and stare at her. She sunk down into her seat in embarrassment while Riz just chuckled from beside her, clearly finding humour in her humiliation. He waited for a moment until the many pairs of eyes had turned away from them and whispered again. "I'm joking. It were great."

"I'm glad." She smiled in satisfaction at the boy, a comfortable silence falling between the two. Before either of them could make any further conversation, she felt a sudden kick to the back of her chair. Turning around, she saw Cory sat behind her with an angry expression on his face, nodding his head towards Jordan.

"He's up to something." He mouthed.

One look was enough to confirm his suspicion. Jordan's face was a picture of complete mischief and while neither of his siblings could predict exactly what he'd done or was planning to do, they both knew one thing. It wasn't going to be good.

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"𝐒𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐃 𝐈𝐍?" Missy asked Mollie as they walked arm in arm towards the canteen to get some lunch.

"Yep." She replied with a huff. "He's been sent home for the rest of the day and put on report. Dad won't be happy, but what he did was dead stupid so he's not getting any sympathy from me."

As it turns out, Jordan couldn't stop himself from causing trouble and had made a very big, very offensive sign that he'd hung up for everyone to see. Some people laughed, while others just wanted him dead, and in the end Miss Carter called in the Wilson father to take him home. Or more accurately, to drag him home by his collar.

"Tell you what, a bit of lunch will cheer you up. Come on." Missy squeezed the girl's arm as they made their way into the canteen and queued up behind Nas and two of her friends. "Do we get free stuff, Mrs Paracha?"

"Do I look like charity?" She retorted with a chuckle. "You not refugees, you know."

"Worth a shot, babe." Mollie muttered to Missy, patting her arm.

"Hey, who's the fittie with the braces?" Missy whispered to Nas, although in typical Missy style it wasn't very quiet at all and the boy she was talking about turned around with a smile.

It was Riz again, and Mollie began to feel like he was stalking her. Or maybe she was the one stalking him since she was behind him in the queue. Either way, she gave him a small wave and a smile when his eyes shifted towards her.

"Um, that is Alya's twin. Riz." Nas answered her, awkwardly nodding towards the girl next to her who simply looked them up and down. Now Mollie knew what Missy meant when she said that Nas' friends were proper judgey.

"Don't worry, I don't go out with schoolboys. We like real men, don't we girls?"

"Yeah, we saw that this morning. Made quite a show of yourself with that boyfriend of yours." Alya fired, shooting Mollie a look of disgust.

Mollie just rolled her eyes at the girl, while Missy gave her shoulder and gentle squeeze and muttered quietly. "She's just jealous, Mol. You and Kieran are well cute together."

"We're gonna go to the Sixth Form Hub. You coming, Nas?" Alya said to Nas, shooting one last look of judgement towards the two girls before sliding past them and towards the door.

Despite their smiles, Nas frowned at Mollie and Missy before storming out after them.

Out of pity, Mrs Paracha held out two apples for the girls to take on the house. Sure, it wasn't the same as a completely free meal but it was better than nothing.

"Thanks Mrs P. Now come on, Missy." Mollie slipped her arm back through hers and pulled her towards the door.

"Where we going?"

"To the Sixth Form Hub, duh." She squeezed her arm reassuringly with a smile. She had absolutely no idea what was up with Nas, but she wasn't going to let it bring herself and Missy down.

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"𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐋𝐘, 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐒 𝐒𝐎 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄?" Missy asked as she sauntered into the Hub and all eyes travelled to her direction.

"It's got a coffee machine which is pretty cool. You name it. Cappuccino, Latte, Flat White-" Mollie began listing off, until she was interrupted by Cory's friend Dan who piped up. "Flat white? Bit like you then, Mollie?"

He had a cheeky smirk on his face as he pointed to Mollie's chest, which only earned him a shove from the Wilson girl.

"That's impressive and everything, but it's still school." Continuing on, Missy shrugged as she surveyed the room and received a few dismissive glances. "I'm your age, don't worry. Just all got to be dead to me 'cause you passed your exams."

"It weren't her fault." Mollie defended her while taking a seat and Nas hummed in agreement. "She's in our year really, she's just got to retake."

"Thank you, girls. Dead sweet." Missy fell into the space between Nas and Mollie and placed a kiss on each of their cheeks.

She leaned her arms across the sofa, giving Cory Wilson the perfect opportunity to flirt with her by brushing his hand over hers slightly. "Missy Booth, good to see you in uniform for another year."

"Got a thing for it, have you?" Missy replied, her fingers dancing playfully along his hand for a moment, before she retracted her hand. "You'd be so lucky."

Turning back to the girls, she offered a smile to Nas' friends. "Teachers would be well pleased to see me talking to you all. Isn't that the point in this school, to make us all friends?"

None of them replied, simply looking Missy up and down judgmentally. "You're real nice, you. Loving your friends, Nas, not prejudiced or nothing."

"Please." Alya let out a sarcastic chuckle.

"Just a bitch, then?"

"Missy!" Nas scolded, looking at the blonde with wide eyes.

"What?" Mollie rolled her eyes. "She hasn't done anything wrong."

But when no one said anything, Missy grabbed her bag and got to her feet with a sad expression. Mollie grabbed her hand and tried to stop her, but Missy simply shrugged it off and headed towards the door.

Frustrated, Nas rolled her eyes and looked at her friends. "She's alright, you know. You've just gotta give her a chance."

"Nas, drop the kanjari." Alya muttered with a smirk, earning a few laughs from the girls next to her. Nas, however, simply frowned.

"That's really rude."

"Calm down." Alya rolled her eyes. "If you want to play with your gori mate, we're not stopping you."

Nas simply rubbed her temple in frustration, not willing to fight it any further. Although she had no idea what Alya had said about , Mollie could tell it wasn't a compliment and, unlike Nas, she wasn't willing to let it go.

"God, you really think you're something special, don't you?" She rolled her eyes, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and standing up. "Well maybe if you took your head out of your arse for two seconds, you'd be able to see what a great person Missy is and, just maybe, people would actually start to like you."

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𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐇 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐆𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐏 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐒, Mollie made her way to her next lesson, which happened to be biology.

By the time she got there, most people had already chosen their seats, so she just took a seat by Shannon, who was on a table with a few boys. One of which happened to be Riz. He did a double take when he noticed her, offering her a half-smile which she returned.

The lesson started and after about ten minutes, one of the other boys looked over at Mollie. "Let me guess, you're a racist just like your brother then?"

She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. She figured she couldn't really blame him for his hostility since Jordan's prank was completely idiotic, but part of her just wished people wouldn't take his actions out on her. Opening her mouth to respond to him, she was surprised when someone else spoke up.

"Shut up, Amin." Riz said, shoving his shoulder slightly.

"He needs to apologise. If that was one of us, we'd be arrested by now. You just don't get it." Amin persisted, now frowning at Riz instead of Mollie.

"I do get it, man. Yes it was stupid, but there's no point starting a bloody war about it." He replied in frustration, before glancing over at Mollie. "And there's also no point blaming her for something that her brother did."

"Um, thanks Riz." Mollie muttered, feeling the corners of her mouth twitch a little bit, as if to smile. He nodded his head at her understandingly, which for some reason made her blush slightly. She simply pushed it away and turned back to Amin. "For the record, I'm as angry at Jordan as anyone else. I can't excuse what he did, but I apologise on his behalf."

Amin's face softened a little bit, and Mollie knew that he was clearly surprised by her reaction. Family loyalty meant a lot to her but she wouldn't defend them if she thought they were in the wrong and this was one of those occasions.

The teacher butted in before anyone could finish the conversation, and she started droning on about Oasis or Osmosis or something. When the bell went to signal it was over, Mollie couldn't have been any quicker out of that door and to her locker. Opening it up, she heard the sound of someone clearing their throat from behind her. She turned to see who it was, and was taken aback by surprise to see Riz shifting on his feet.

"I'm sorry about Amin in there. It was really unfair of him to talk to you like that." He said, sincerity clear in his voice. "And I just wanted to check you're okay, I guess."

"You don't need to apologise, Riz. I'm all good, and I totally get where he was coming from." Mollie admitted with a shrug, turning around to face him completely. "But I really do appreciate you sticking up for me, and coming to see if I'm okay."

He looked down at his feet with a sheepish smile, before quickly looking back up at the girl. "Don't mention it. I get how hard it can be when someone blames you for what your sibling does. Alya's my twin, and she can be..."

He paused, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to think of the best way to put it.

"Extremely rude?" Mollie suggested.

"Well, I was gonna say a judgemental bitch, but I guess that works better." He said with a laugh, causing Mollie to chuckle along with him. "Anyway, um, do you have English with Miss Keane next?"

"Yeah, I do actually." She smiled.

"Same. And don't worry, I'm not a stalker. I just heard you talk about it with Shannon in there." He quickly reassured her, his face dropping at the idea of the girl thinking he was some sort of creep. "Um, do you maybe wanna walk there together...or something? If you want?"

"Yeah, I'd love that actually." Mollie bit back a smile at his adorable awkwardness, and nodded before checking her phone quickly. "Oh, shit, we're five minutes late already."

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