CHAPTER ONE / Grace's POV.
Grace slammed her hand into her alarm clock knocking it into her messy floor the moment it began screaming for her to wake up. The raven-haired female whimpered slightly, mostly because of the early time, but also because she hurt her hand in the process.
"Fuck, I don't want to do this." the raven-haired girl spoke under her breath, referring to facing everyone at Degrassi. She knew that Zoe Rivas would expect some sort of answer or something to the kiss that was planted upon Grace on the beach, and she knew that although she could ignore the texts that poured in from Zig, Tiny, Maya and Miles's texts about the kiss that they'd all apparently witnessed, she couldn't really do the same in person. At least not as effectively.
Filled with a sense of dread, her feet hit the floor and she stripped the oversized tee that she slept in every single night off of her body and replaced it with a random black top that she found on her bed. Grace sniffed it slightly after putting it on, and decided that the slight stale smell wasn't anything that couldn't be masked by her giant jacket that held onto a million different colognes and perfumes from the thirty years that it'd been in the Cardinal family.
Grace finished getting dressed and glanced in the mirror for half a second to draw a thick line on her eyelid and run a brush lazily through her hair, which was about the extent of her beauty routine. It worked for her. She didn't know why girls spent hours in front of a mirror. The mere sight of herself kind of brought a sick feeling to her stomach, and she couldn't imagine staring at herself for so long just so she could have sparkly eyelids and rosy cheeks.
Her eyes rolled as she entered her kitchen to find her sunshine-filled tenner sister sitting at the table yapping on about some shit that didn't matter to a friend on FaceTime. She despised the fact that her little sister reminded her slightly of Zoe, and she despised even more that this comparison made her sister slightly more tolerable.
"Can you shut up for half a second so I can think about what I might want to eat for breakfast?" Grace grumbled, trying to ignore the new-found sensitivity toward her sister which was running through her mind.
Her little sister furrowed her brows. "I don't get why you're like this, Grace. You used to be nice."
Grace cringed at that statement, not allowing herself to even think about it anymore. She just grabbed a bagel and headed out for her walk to school.
She arrived at Degrassi and almost immediately felt her heart begin to beat. Why was she like this over Zoe Rivas of all people? She'd told herself after a romance went wrong in her freshman year that she'd never date in high school again. It'd just never work, and she wasn't into looking like a complete dumbass when things went down and everyone knew that she'd gotten her hopes up and her heart broken.
"Hey, lover girl." Maya came out of nowhere and teased.
"I will end you." Grace replied, half-kidding, half-not.
Maya raised her hands up, mimicking a surrender. "Fine, fine. I just didn't know you had the hots for Zoe Rivas. It's an interesting...development." Grace could tell that Maya was trying her best to be supportive or something, despite the fact that there was obviously deep-rooted dislike between the brunette actress and the blonde musician. Grace had witnessed the way that the two teen girls glared at one another every once in a while, and she'd absolutely witnessed what Zig had to deal with because of their B.S. chick-on-chick drama. The pettiness just seemed far too unnecessary to Grace.
"Have you guys texted or anything, or will this be the first time you guys see each other since you kissed?" Maya questioned.
"First time. Not that it matters. Stop acting like it's this big thing. The girl kissed me, I didn't kiss back. There's not going to be some teen drama going on here. I might not even give her the time of day." Grace lied. She was going to give Zoe all the time in the world, most likely. She'd have to see if Zoe had reverted back to the snotty brat she was before the summer or not.
Zig and Tiny arrived and before the two could even sputter a word about Zoe, Grace flipped her middle finger up at them, which made the immature teen boys giggle like children.
"Why'd you ignore our texts?" Tiny teased. "Too busy sexting with the cheerleader queen?"
Grace rolled her eyes. "Whatever, losers." She bypassed the group of her so-called friends, and headed to class early.