"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."
-Anonymous
Ch.1 : The Project
"Ugh, I hate Mondays." Lillian muttered. The bed was just so comfortable and school was so far away. She wanted to just go back to sleep but obviously her alarm clock wasn't having that. It was screeching some loud song from the radio and from experience she knew it wasn't stopping anytime soon.
She threw the covers off of her and sat up, moaning from the head rush she got. Lily slowly got out of the bed, careful of her wounds, and made her way over to the closet. Every part of her body ached and she could still feel the dried blood caked on hands. All in all she felt gross and dirty and tired.
On the way to her closet she switched off her sleek black alarm clock. Silence greeted her ears and she welcomed it. She didn't need an even bigger headache than she already had. It's boxy green numbers were flashing, as if it were showing it's irritation towards her. It read 7:48. Lily's school didn't start until 9:30 but she knew that her parents usually woke up around 8:40ish and she planned on being long gone by then.
The drowsiness was beginning to wear off, which was always a good sign, so she continued on towards the closet to choose what to wear. Lillian pulled out the doors, revealing her extensive wardrobe that, secretly, she was very proud of. On one side were all of the tank tops and mini-shorts that she loved ever so much and on the other long sleeved polos and a variety of pants. From the sun that drifted into her room she could tell that it wasn't going to be in the slightest bit cold outside but she also knew that she wasn't allowed to bask in the warmth like normal teens did.
After a long minute of careful contemplation she decided on a light blue button down shirt, navy pants and a black jacket.
Lily sighed again before slipping into the shower. Could sighing too much cause you to age prematurely? Hopefully the answer was no, because otherwise she was going to be old and gray before she graduated from high school.
"Trigonometric functions are commonly defined as ratios of two sides of a right triangle containing the angle, and can equivalently be defined as the lengths of various line segments from a unit circle."
The teacher's voice drifted in and out of her consciousness. It was Monday so she really didn't care what the teacher had to say. Lillian already knew all of the material anyway. The only reason she was in the class was because she didn't feel like moving on to Calculus.
"More modern definitions express them as infinite series or as solutions of certain differential equations, allowing their extension to arbitrary positive and negative values and even to complex numbers."
Someone raised their hand, stopping the teacher's boring monologue. Thank God!
"Yes, Mr. McCloud?" She said in her raspy voice.
"I was wondering if we could do independent work since we already know the material." Then he flashed a 'Star Student' smile that made even their boring teacher smile back. "If nobody disagrees…?" he added as an afterthought, scanning the classroom. As his deep blue eyes landed on Lily he grinned. She hurriedly looked away, a blush on her face.
Nobody disagreed so the teacher left them to the problems on the board. She immediately started. Nothing better to do…
Even thought it was just a boring dreary Monday she couldn't help but think that something interesting was going to happen that day.
Lillian sat on a low branch of her favorite tree on campus. She wasn't exactly a socialite so she always went there during lunch to eat. It had a good view and she liked the calmness that seeped into the air so high up.
A shrill bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. She jumped down, landing perfectly on the balls of her feet. Five years of gymnastics did that to a person.
On her way to class Lillian passed by a large group of people in her grade. She only recognized a few who were in her classes. More specifically Keith McCloud and his best friend Zach Joyce. They were probably the most popular people in the whole school. The guys that every girl wanted but knew they couldn't have.
Being seniors helped a bit too.
Lily just kept on walking. She didn't even bother with those type of people anymore. If it were a few years ago then she might have said hi, but now she had no reason to. It would only complicate things.
Lillian hurried past them to her fifth period Honors Biology class. The teacher, Mr. O'Leary, was pretty nice and hardly gave out work. He was more of a "Here's a worksheet, have fun" sort of guy.
She shuffled into the classroom, going directly to her favorite seat in the back. It was farthest from the teacher, the door, and was next to the only window in the classroom. She sighed, resting her head on her Science book. The day was almost over. She still had to be careful of how she sat and what not though. No use in opening up old wounds.
She heard more people enter the room. They were talking and laughing too loud for her liking and she sighed gratefully when Mr. O'Leary called for attention.
"Okay class! No worksheets today! Instead you're being assigned a project that will be you're end of the semester mid-term, giving you about two months to finish it. The only catch is that you have to work with a partner that I've already picked since there's no way I'm grading forty projects!"
By now the whole class was talking and moaning for some reason or other. Lillian just sat, chin resting on her arms, waiting for him to finish.
"I'll have someone pass out the requirements. You and your partners' names are on the packet so you know who to work with. Good Luck! I'm off to search the web!" He retreated back to his desk before the mob of students got to the kid with the packets. Poor him. Didn't know what he was getting himself into…
Rather than racing up to the front to fight for three pieces of stapled paper Lily sat patiently at her desk. Either she'd get it after or her partner would come to her with it.
Once all the packets had been…distributed…everyone started looking for their designated partners. She saw a guy walking up to her, a sloppy grin plastered on his face. She assumed he was her partner since nobody ever talked to her without some sort of purpose. As he got closer she realized that the project wasn't going to be as easy as she'd hoped.
"Lillian Honya? Hi, my name is Keith McCloud. I guess I'm your partner."
It just had to be Mr. Popular, huh? Out of everyone in the class. Someone up there hated her…
"Yeah, that's me." There was an awkward silence before Keith finally said something.
"Well the paper says we have to do it on any genre of living organisms. The project includes writing an essay and doing some sort of visual. Hmm, got any ideas?" His chair was turned backwards so that he could face her more easily, his legs circling the back.
She thought about it. If it were just her she'd do something she personally loved, like the sky but since it was both of them she settled on something easier. "How about sea life?" Couldn't go wrong there right? He agreed and they spent the rest of the class period talking over details.
She didn't know if she particularly liked Keith but she was going to be spending the next two months with him so she'd just have to get used to him.
It was only a project. Nothing life changing about doing a project with Keith McDreamy…right?
A/N- I'll keep it going if you want me to:) Review?
