“Keily,” Lucas, who was sitting right next to me, whispered.
We were in Calculus, and Mr. Penson was droning on at the front about the differentiation of trigonometric functions.
It was my fifth day, and I had already made some good friends—Lucas being one of them.
Being related to Addison had played a great part in that, because never in my life had I expected to be friends with such a popular group.
Lucas threw a note at my desk, and it landed right above my textbook. I picked it up and unfolded it:
My eyes unconsciously drifted to James, who was sitting on Lucas’s other side. His narrowed eyes were already aimed at me, displeasure at my mere existence seeping out of them.
Unable to take the intensity of his gaze, I looked down, back to the note. Whoever was going to be “we,” it’d definitely include James.
It baffled me how a kind person like Lucas was best friends with the spawn of Satan himself.
Once again, my gaze moved to James, and his glare was now directed at Lucas.
Last time, Lucas asked for my help to solve a problem from an assignment that I’d already finished at home.
But the moment I picked up my pen, I became hyper aware of James’s eyes on us—as he casually leaned against the desk right in front of me—and every coherent thought vanished from my mind, leaving me staring at the sheet with a complete blank.
“I don’t know what you expected, Lucas,” James had said. “Dumb pigs can’t do math.”
I wanted to snap back and tell him he was the dumb one, because pigs are actually the most intelligent domesticated animals.
But that wouldn’t have made it any better; he would have come back with a crueler insult.
A slip of paper fell onto my lap, bringing me back to the present:
I turned my head and saw Lucas giving me an exaggerated pout. I had to bite my lip to stifle a laugh. I never expected the big quarterback of our school to pout like a child and look so cute.
I began to scribble on the note, when the bell rang.
Lucas hovered by my side as soon as Mr. Penson left. “You guys have to come,” he said, his thumbs fiddling with the straps of his backpack. I finished packing my things and zipped my bag.
“I’m not sure,” I said as I stood up. “Addison has practice after school, and I’ll be in the library to work on my English assignment.”
“If Addison’s not free, then at least you should come. It’s not just us guys. Lola and Sadhvi are coming too.”
“But my assignment.” I made another attempt at passive refusal.
“It’s the start of the year. Don’t dig yourself into studies right now. You’ll have plenty of months for that. For now, you should enjoy your last year.”
I relented, unable to hold a smile back from his big eyes. “Okay, fine.”
“Awesome. Be at the parking lot after school?”
He grinned when I nodded.
“Piggy,” James called, standing up from his seat, “don’t you have a computer class, or is flirting with Lucas more important?”
I frowned at the accusation, and a strong blush coated my cheeks. “Well, I’m sorry for daring to have a life outside of school, James. Clearly you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
He looked down at me, and I thought I detected a smile twitching one corner of his mouth. “He’ll never go for a girl like you, FYI,” he added monotonously. “A piggy that dresses like a nun, all covered up, too scared to show some skin.”
I looked at James and visibly flinched at the glare he was giving Lucas. As if he knew I was looking at him, he turned to me, a vicious smirk marring his face.
“Goddammit, James!” Lucas yelled, attracting the eyes of others who were still in the classroom. “You’re taking this too far—”
But other students were looking at us now. This was becoming too much.
“I need to go,” I muttered and stormed out of the room without looking back.
I heard Lucas calling me from behind, but I was too vulnerable to face him right now and kept my pace until I reached the computer lab.
I sat at my assigned seat and took deep breaths. My hands and legs felt shaky, and my vision blurred a little, warning of oncoming tears.
There comes a time when you can’t ignore insults, and they start sticking with you, eating away at your self-esteem. And as much as I hated to admit it, James’s words were starting to stick.
I took long breaths, looking at the ceiling to stop the tears from falling. I wasn’t going to lose it in the middle of the school lab with others around.
The chair beside me moved, and a large body slumped on it lazily. I didn’t look at James, refusing to acknowledge his presence, and glared ahead.
“At least turn on the computer if you’re planning on glaring at it.” His tone was casual, as if the last few minutes hadn’t happened.
My cheeks flushed when I realized I was staring at the blank screen.
Immediately, I pressed the power button and switched on the stupid system to avoid embarrassing myself further, because James obviously fed on it.
I felt his eyes on me, like always, trying to pin me down into a sweaty, fidgeting mess. But right now, I was too angry to give him the satisfaction of seeing me self-conscious.
Suddenly, my skin tingled, and I knew his gaze had intensified a thousandfold, almost making me squirm. I guessed it ruffled his feathers to not get any reaction from me.
“Looks like my Piggy is angry with me,” he said, and I could imagine the stupid smirk on his stupid face.
I blushed harder. God, I wanted to grab his head and smash it into the screen in front of him. Instead, I took out the notebook from my bag, pretending he wasn’t there.
When it was clear I wasn’t going to respond to him, he sighed and turned away. I thought I was safe, but then he spoke again. I tensed, expecting another insult, but it never came.
“Look,” he said, his voice softer. I could tell from my peripheral vision he wasn’t actually looking at me. He was staring at his own computer screen. “I admit I might have gone a little overboard back there with Lucas,” he said.
I frowned but still didn’t look over at him. Was he trying to apologize?
“Got a little carried away. You should know Lucas is…” It looked like he was going to say something else, but then he stopped himself. “Hey, you listening?”
I gulped, still ignoring him. This was a trick. Some kind of trap. I was not going to fall for it.
“Fine,” he said, his voice hardening. Now he was looking straight at me again, and I could feel the heat of his gaze on the side of my face. “Have it your way.”
And I did have it my way, ignoring him as if he’d never existed. Strangely, he decided to do the same with me. A few minutes later, our teacher arrived and started her lecture on web design.
My bad mood was set aside temporarily as I listened to her attentively, already well-versed in the HTML tags she mentioned.
I had worked with my dad many times, helping him design and develop websites for his clients to kill time and lighten his workload.
In the last fifteen minutes, Mrs. Green gave us a small project to design a table. I wrote my code within two minutes.
I thought about adding colors to the text and rows to pass the time but decided against it, as Mrs. Green hadn’t started CSS styling commands, and it was better not to act overly smart in front of a person who graded your reports and tests.
“Shit!” A faint curse came from my side, reminding me that my nemesis was still here. The absence of his stares and my focus on our class had almost made me forget about him.
I couldn’t resist sneaking a small glance at him. He was glaring at his computer screen, lips pursed in concentration as his eyes moved up and down the monitor.
Even though I hated him, I couldn’t deny that he was gorgeous.
I turned my head toward his monitor and sneakily went through his code. He hadn’t written the closing tags on each row entry, had used simple data tags for headings, and hadn’t written span tags in the correct places.
I internally gloated at his blunders. Before he could catch me sneaking up on him, I turned back, biting my cheeks to stop the sly smirk.
Soon, the bell rang, and school finally came to an end. I immediately picked up my bag and rushed out the door, not wanting another encounter with James.
After locking up my things, I sighed and leaned my head against the locker. I didn’t want to go out for ice cream with the others.
I was drained after the fiasco in Calculus, and I didn’t want to face James again. Heck, I didn’t want to see Lucas either after all the things he’d spouted.
He’d probably said all that to spite James, but his words had left a greater impression on me than I wanted.
I groaned, my temples throbbing. I just wanted to go home.
With that, I dug my cell phone out and started walking toward the library, scrolling for Lucas’s name to let him know I wasn’t coming.
Suddenly, I was dragged back, almost slipping on the hard floor. An embarrassing squeak left my mouth.
“Where are you going, Piggy?” James held the top strap of my backpack. He leaned closer, his breath brushing against my ears. “The parking lot is the other way.”
