English class, as boring as it is, was my favorite class. The teacher wasn't too strict and he always gave us interesting projects to work on. He never asked for long essays and he always let us work however we wanted.
He came into the class and dropped a pile of books on top of his desk. "Did we start reading the book yet?" Mr. Stephen asks.
The class stayed quiet, no one daring to answer the question even though it was a simple one.
"I'll take that as a no." He chuckles as he runs a hand through his styled blond hair. "Alright, the book we're going to be starting is 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee." He says as he writes the title on the whiteboard. "Today we will learn about the author, but I want all of you to get a copy of the book by next class." Mr. Stephen sits back down on the chair and turns on the projector.
We all turn to the door at the sound of it opening. The teacher swiftly turns his chair around and stares at the student, who came in without permission, with concern.
"You didn't even bother to knock on the door?" He asks him while crossing his arms.
The guy makes his way to the back, a row behind me, and gets comfortable on the desk's chair, not bothering with the question he was asked.
Realizing he wasn't going to answer, the professor clears his throat and continues on with his lesson.
"Back to what I was saying, I'm sure many of you have read the book, but even if you did, we will be analyzing it in detail so make sure to pay attention even if you've read it already."
The guy who walked in seemed familiar. I was sure I'd seen him before.
I turn around peeking, to try and recognize him.
He seemed to be around 5'11 and had black hair, and black eyes. His slightly tan skin made him look older than he might've been and he was wearing a simple black hoodie.
Locking eyes with me, he squints his eyebrows.
"The fuck you staring at?" He spits out.
My heart drops and I whip my head back around, embarrassed with myself. He scared the shit out of me.
Plus, that was the same guy who pushed me and made me spill my drink on my shirt.
Was he never present in class or did I not notice anyone here?
I should apologize to him for staring but I didn't want to piss him off more than I had already done.
Staring at the professor, I noticed he was looking at the same guy who'd been somewhat disrupting the class.
"Sorry, you back there, what's your name?" He points at him.
He keeps a moment of silence and I hear him answer dryly, from behind me. "Andrew."
"Okay well, Andrew, I noticed that you didn't bring anything with you." He taps his foot. "Where is your notebook?" He questions him.
"That's none of your business," Andrew answers back roughly.
Taken aback, Mr.Stephen quiets down and shrugs off the attitude.
"One moody adult won't stop me from continuing my lesson." He chuckles.
"How can one person be that rude?!" Isabella yells out, a bit too loud.
"He probably has daddy issues or something," Laurie smirks, tapping away at her phone.
I laugh at Laurie's statement and shove my last grape into my mouth. Our college cafe wasn't too big, but it wasn't small either. It was one of multiple, here at McAdams College. We liked to eat and study at this one in particular because of the cozy vibe it gave off. From the fairy lights hanging on the ceiling to the forest-green bean bags, the entire room held a comfortable aura. Of course, the menu was also extraordinary.
"Wait didn't you say that he was the same guy who pushed you yesterday?" Laurie asks, shifting on her bean bag.
"Yep."
"Shocker." Bella rolls her eyes. "That guy is literally known for the worst possible things."
We all lean in towards her, waiting for her to leak the information. She stared at us in shock and laughed to herself. "Do I really gossip that much?"
We both nodded our heads at the same time.
Whenever we wanted blackmail against someone, Isabella was always the person to go to. She knew everything about everyone, thanks to her connections.
Isabella was the complete opposite of me. While I was more introverted and awkward, Bella was extroverted and definitely not awkward. She knew what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. I've always looked up to her. When we were small, she was always the one who'd get compliments all the time because she was always showing off and talking.
I know I sound a bit jealous, but I can't help wanting to be in her place from time to time. It seems as if life always goes the way she wants it to go.
She clears her throat. "Well, from what I've been told, that dude is always sleeping in his classes. Plus, just as Ari said, he doesn't respect anybody. The worst part is that he always gets into fights. Any fight you hear around here probably revolves around him." She whispers the last part, looking around to see if anyone was spying on our conversation.
I don't know who would though, it's not as if we were celebrities.
"And to think you wanted Ariana to yell at him." Laurie stares at her with wide eyes.
Isabella gives her a stare and continues. "I don't know much about it, but I heard that he beat up some frat boy... like last week."
I feel a shiver go up my spine.
That guy sounds terrifying.
I'll be sure to avoid him at all costs.
"Anyway.." I tried to change the subject because I was terrified. "Where's Layla?"
Laurie tells me that she was in class but that she should be done soon.
Getting bored, we decided to leave the cafe and walk around the hallways of McAdams.
While the two other girls spoke about random topics, I let my mind drift off as I stared at the white walls around me.
This year was going to be a hard one for me. I was in my last session before I had to apply to go to medical school. Slacking off would not be an option.
Bringing me out of my thoughts, Laurie comes up with a genius idea."Why don't we go spy on Layla's class?" Laurie grins, pushing a strand of blond hair behind her ear.
My cousin's face lights up at the idea and she grabs both of our wrists, pulling us in the direction of Layla's Mathematics class.
As we approached the class, my heart started beating a little faster. We shouldn't be disturbing their class. What if we get caught? Imagine what people would say about us.
We slowed down as the door came into view. Bella peeked inside the room, from the door window, and waved at someone inside.
"Did she see you?" Laurie raises an eyebrow.
"No," Bella replies. "Let's pretend we're freshmen who went to the wrong class." She snickers.
Oh, hell no. I'm not doing that. That's way too embarrassing for me. People will judge.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
I hesitate to back out, even though I never signed up for anything. "You guys can go on your own. I'll just wait here."
Isabella looks up to the ceiling and exhales a dramatically long breath. "Of course."
My heart dropped a little at the fact that I was disappointing them, like always.
She turns around to face me and hands me her phone. "Film us at least."
I nod.
That was the least I could do.
I back away a little from the door and press record. Bella knocks on the door and they wait until a deep squeaky voice tells them to come in. Laurie opens the door to the room and goes in first. I follow them, holding the phone tighter while trying to not get noticed by the professor. When they go inside, I go to the door and videotape as sneakily as possible.
"Oh my god! I'm so sorry!" I hear Bella yell out dramatically when I spot Layla at the front of the class, trying to hold in her laugh. "We really thought this was the Physical Education room!"
"That's on the other side of the school." The funky-looking skinny professor replies, unamused.
"Stupid ass bitch! I told you we were in the wrong class!" Laurie yells at her.
The whole class starts laughing as the teacher hurries them to leave.
The door slams behind them and the two girls start laughing uncontrollably.
"Did you record that?" Laurie asks me, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
"Duh." I smile.
I hand my cousin back her phone as they watch the replay of their prank.
"Imagine Ari came in and yelled 'Girls! Didn't I tell you to clean the bathrooms? And let that poor woman teach her class!'" Laurie cracks up.
Bella stops in her tracks, contemplating her words. She tried to comprehend what Laurie had said but was clearly unable to.
"Laurie... that was a man," Bella states.
She rolls her eyes and slaps the back of my cousin's head. "That's the joke, dipshit." She covers her face with her hands, in hopelessness.
We see the moment Bella processes the joke, light beams up her face, and laughs hysterically.
"Too bad she doesn't have the balls to say that." She goes on to say, a little late.
I cross my arms with attitude."Hey, you better be respectful. I know where you live." I joke around with her, even though her factual statement hurts.
We waited until Layla was done with her class, outside of the room.
Soon enough, she came out grinning widely.
"You guys pissed him off" she laughed. "He started complaining about teenagers, even though we're all adults."
"He deserved that anyway." Bella crosses her arms. "I heard he talked shit about some student who didn't take a test because her mom died."
I agree. What kind of teacher does that?
"Anyway," Layla cuts her off. "Some girls came in earlier and informed us about the school festival on the 20th."
We all observe her.
"So," she continues. "I was wondering if you guys wanted to sign up for the organization activities." Giving us the best smile she had, she blinked at us repeatedly.
Laurie looks away from her and continues scrolling on her phone, uninterested. Bella doesn't say anything and I just stare at her.
No one was willing to waste their time helping out the school when we couldn't even help out ourselves.
Our uninterested expressions get noticed by Layla. "What if I told you that you'd get extra credit?" She bribes, knowing that it'll pull us in.
And it did.
At least it did for me.
"Where do we sign up?" I ask, intrigued.
She tells us to follow her to the center of the building, where they had papers on top of papers hanging on the brown boards.
We all write down our names and remember to attend the meeting tomorrow for the festival.
◆◈◇
I sneeze and go back to scrolling on the TV channels. Nothing was interesting to watch. At some point, I just ended up putting on some reality show about fishermen and threw the remote on the coffee table.
[The fish we've been catching these days are so small and non-sellable. Have you any idea why, Dan?]
[I never understood why they let Dan into this team] he says on the fish-like couch. [Ever since his arrival, we've only been losing profit.]
Dan gives him a disgusted face. [Are you saying that they're small because I caught them?]
[You know damn well that you ain't built for fishing, bastard.]
[Listen here, mate. I ain't no bastard and you gon stop complaining or I'm bout to quit right here right now.]
[Go ahead! Quit! May god give us such a blessing!]
Raging, Dan gets up from his plastic chair and launches at the other guy. They start attacking each other and yelling.
Interested, I sit up in my seat and watch the scene carefully. That is until the TV suddenly shuts off. I attempted to grab the remote from where I'd left it but it had vanished.
I turned around, looking for some type of evidence that somebody had taken the controller and that I wasn't going insane.
My mom was standing in the kitchen, spatula in her hand, remote in the other. She puts down the remote on the kitchen counter and continues her cooking.
"Mamá Why'd you turn off the tv?" I whine.
She turns around suddenly and frowns at me. "Abajo el volume por favor. I'm trying to talk to tía Maria."
Tía Maria? Since when did she ever exist?
"Sí, sí these kids never listen to me so I have to do it myself." She laughs at the phone. "Dios mio, you have five kids!?" Shouting in shock, she watches the screen of the phone as if a picture of this Maria lady's five kids would pop up magically.
The hypocrisy.
She's telling me to lower the volume when she can't lower hers.
I roll my eyes back and lay on my side on the sofa.
Finally, the front door of the house opens and Cristian comes inside, singing merrily. He was a bit loud so he received a glare from my mom. Surprised, he shuts himself up and takes a seat on the couch opposite mine.
"What happened?"
I shrug. "She's talking to tía Maria. I was watching TV and she turned it off while it was getting to the good part. Now, she's talking way louder than the TV ever was." I close my eyes and rest my head on the armrest of the couch.
"Who the hell is tía Maria? Do we have some long-lost aunt or something?"
I chuckle. "Who's we? You're obviously adopted."
He rolls his eyes at me and gets up from his seat, making his way to the kitchen to spy on my mom's conversation.
From the other room, Cristian starts throwing me signs with his hands after every sentence said by her.
He points at me, then himself, then he imitates a person walking, with his fingers.
I shoot him a confused expression and tell him to speak with his mouth and not sign with his hands.
He was no gangster.
Minus his cut, of course.
He throws his arms in the air in despair and gives up telling me the information he was getting.
Bored of his tiring attitude, I scoot myself back onto the couch and rest my
eyelids for a while.
My nap gets interrupted by a notification sound. I grab my phone annoyedly and reply to the text message I received.
I grab my phone annoyedly and reply to the text message I received [https://img.wattpad.com/0cb6c0f846fb65f8e17010e358b6c49387390010/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f77354e795670514a577a337759773d3d2d313435373432343731312e313764646563363333336362633834303237393134353539343737352e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
The person likes my sent message, so I take it as a 'yes'. I didn't know what this person was trying to be but they were giving me weird vibes already. I really didn't want them to end up being someone I despised.
◆◈◇
"Hey, hey, hey! If it isn't my favorite class." Says Mr. Stephen, piling up his papers on top of his desk.
If this were a movie, cricket noises would fill the empty silence.
A whole week had passed and it was now the next class, where we were supposed to have brought the book by Harper Lee.
I looked around me to see if anyone had fulfilled the teacher's desire, only to see that most students hadn't done anything he asked.
Looking back at the teacher, I see that he was also examining the class. He had his hands placed on his hips while he stared at us in dissatisfaction.
"Not only do you guys not answer me when I greet you, but you also don't do what I tell you to do." He shakes his head from side to side.
The teacher brings a hand to his forehead and spends a few seconds thinking. "Alright," he looks back up. "Since we won't be reading the book today, let us start a year-long project that will decide the passing or failure of this class." He smiles.
Whispers make their way around the room and 'ughs' can be heard by most students.
I was also complaining.
Internally.
I could never do it in public.
"I know you're all disappointed, but now you know exactly how I feel. I hope this will be a lesson for you all. Next time this happens, I'll make sure to give you a far worse punishment." He sends us a toothy grin.
I lean back into my seat, disappointed at the fact that just because other people refused to do their work, I had to suffer as well.
"I wasn't planning on giving you this project," he walks into the middle of the room. "But you guys really pissed me off."
He looks up at us. "And just to piss you off even more," he clears his throat. "You'll be doing it in teams... that I choose."
I felt the unhappiness swarm around in my stomach. Team projects were one of my biggest nightmares, after presentations. I hated it especially when we didn't get to choose who to partner up with.
I hated this class now. Fuck the teacher, I thought we were getting along, even though I never spoke to him.
"Let's get you guys into teams first, eh?"
As he paired everyone up, my impatience grew stronger. What if I was with someone I'd hate? What if it was a person who never did their work? I dislike those people too.
My leg bounced up and down, while the teacher named student after student.
"Elena with Vladimir... Mariam with Sara... Luca with Juan... Andrew, with.."
Please don't be me. Please don't be me.
Please don't be me. Please don't be me.
"Mack."
I turned around to see who was stuck with him. It was some guy with a buzz cut wearing a Nike tech fleece. They didn't look like they'd get along too well. I mean they both looked terrifying, I'll give them that, but I don't think I'd ever catch them hanging around each other.
"Louis with Shayaan... Ariana with Ethan and finally Chelsea with Shana."
I really should pay attention to the people around me. I'm always stuck up in my head that I never notice the other people in my surroundings. None of the names he mentioned rang a single bell.
Swiftly turning back, I look at the Ethan guy I was supposed to be partnered up with.
Emerald green eyes, hazelnut brown hair, and fair skin, he looked like some guy out of a movie. I couldn't believe I'd be partnering up with such a person.
He sends me a friendly smile.
Wait, wait, wait...
That meant I had to keep a 100% performance at all times. Imagine I mess up my part of the work and embarrass him... he'd hate me, even in the afterlife. I'd be stuck in hell while he was in paradise spreading rumours about how I messed up a simple English project. I can't handle that type of pressure. Academic pressure, sure, but, social pressure, hell no.
Should I ask to change partners? No, if I do that he'll just think that I hate him and that I judge people way too easily.
I'll just suck it up and handle it.
I gulp down saliva held captive in my mouth and plop my head on my desk, reminiscing ways to off myself.
The project ended up being a three-hour-long play we had to write in a Shakespearean style of writing. It was a horrid idea. On top of that, we still had to bring in the book next class because we were only going to be working on the project at home and no class time would be given to us for it.
After class, me and my partner exchanged numbers before heading off in different directions.