Chapter 6: Just for a Moment

[T]

Tommy raised an eyebrow as Lil got her notebook out and looked up at him. "Surprised?" she said, winking. "Never thought I liked maths?"

He smiled. "I did not," he said, leaning back on his chair and looking at the stage as a guy in a leather jacket came in. There is no way that's Edward Johnson, he thought.

"Quite a turn out," Edward said, looking around, appearing to scan the crowd with his dark brown eyes. "Well, at least half," he said, nodding his head. "Twenty two of you to be exact, are hear to get out of class, but I guess that doesn't matter."

Tommy raised his eyebrow. Phil pulled his cap off his face and leaned over to Tommy, "How the hell did he get that number?" Phil whispered and Tommy shrugged.

"Simple," Edward said. There was no way he could have heard them, they were at least eleven rows back. Tommy and Phil looked up. At one end of the row, Chuckie and Kimi sat, Chuckie was getting his notes and Kimi was staring at Edward. Next was Phil and Tommy and finally Lil. "Boy with the ridiculous cap on," Edward said, causing Phil to frown. "The ones getting their notebooks out are the ones who are here to learn."

"There is no way he could hear me," Phil whispered to Kimi.

"Didn't need to hear you," Edward said. "It was written all over your face."

Edward looked out to the crowd. "There's my principle," he said, pointing to her. "She has blackmailed me to come here, how are you doing Principle Folsom?" The principle shook her head in disgust. "I see all the kids from this school have uniforms, and by the looks of it, you got them today. Nice, the head teacher of the school has decided to try and impress the others."

"Anyway, no more introductions, lets get onto the Physics that most of you won't be able to understand," he said, picking up a black marker and writing a long equation on the board. Tommy scratched his head as he read it. "This is Schrödinger's quantum mechanical modelling of a one dimensional particle trapped in a one dimensional box. I am sure most of you have researched the inner workings of quantum theory, if not; you need to when this is over. All of these lectures will be orientated to Schrodinger's equations."

Edward drew a small graph on the board. "Through simple mathematics, Schrodinger created a wave function of a second derivative, forming a field that would constantly regenerate. When squared, this wave forms a one dimensional vector space of probabilities, when one is selected, it calculates the probability of a particle in that point. Using a line integral, that is…"

Edward went on and on about maths that just confused Tommy, and most of it was overpowered by Phil snoring. Oddly enough, Lil seemed to get all of it, and it appeared that she was designing her own graphs using what he was saying. "What the hell," Tommy whispered to quite for Lil to hear.

Secretly, he couldn't care less about the lecture, he was just happy to be sitting next to her. Taking in her smell, her presence, was perfect. It was like a part of him was missing, and it was aching. It was back. Even this moment, when she probably wasn't even interested in him, was like heaven.

[P]

"Argh," Phil moaned as the five of them left their seats and headed up through the other rows to the door.

"Feeling tired, Phillip?" Lil asked.

"No, Lillian," he replied, glaring at her. "We had to sit through all of that."

"You didn't," Kimi corrected and he turned to her. "You fell asleep the whole time, we could all hear you."

Phil chortled to himself about getting away with sleeping in a lecture, for the first time in his life. He didn't even bother to look at the equations on the board. In no way was he thick, but he wasn't that smart. "So, you guys want to hit the pool tonight?" Kimi asked. Since the Java Lava had taken off, the family had become far richer and installed a pool.

"Yeah," Tommy and Phil said, looking out to the packed hall which was now being flooded with dumbstruck nerds. Kimi headed off down the hall, on her own, as Phil opened his locker (which happened to be right next to the lecture theatre, much to his annoyance).

"Did you understand a word?" Phil asked, pulling out the rest of his stuff to take home.

"Nope," Tommy said. "You sister though, man I had no idea she was so smart."

"Yeah well," Phil said, he was secretly a little annoyed with his sister, she was smart and popular, and everything Phil wasn't.

[K]

Kimi walked down the hall, looking both ways. There was something she hadn't told her friends, her parents, and she tried to avoid it herself. She was being blackmailed for money, every day, by a bullying jock from the senior year. It was driving her mad and making her cry.

"Finster," a deep voice said behind her, causing her to turn.

"Hello… Craig," she said, grabbing her bag tightly to her chest.

He smiled nastily. "You know the deal, that will be five pounds," he said, holding out his hand. "Or I'll go after your brother and break his crappy teeth."

Kimi bit her lip to stop herself crying as she handed over the money. He smiled at her as he counted it. He had stubble, and looked older than he actually was. Just as he was about to walk away, he and Kimi heard a voice. "Is there a problem?" it said.

Kimi turned, and a few metres away was Edward Johnson, from the lecture. "Fuck off, kid," he said, walking away.

Edward smiled and as the jock tried to walk away he put his cane in front of him and stared him in the eye. "How much money did he take, Kimi?" Edward asked, without looking away.

"It doesn't matter, Edward, honest," she said.

Craig grabbed the his cane, "do you have a problem?" Craig said.

Before he could react, Edward had flipped his cane back and slammed the cane into him, pinning him to the lockers. He then leaned forward and punched him in the stomach. He fell forward as he became winded and Edward grabbed his face and pulled it back up, before slamming his head into lockers. "Do you have a problem?" he asked. "Listen to me, give her back the money you took from her." As he said this he squeezed his face harder, causing him to cry out.

Craig leaned out and chucked it on the floor. Kimi bent down to pick it up. "Now," Edward said. "Onto the next part; If I find you, or anyone else, has bothered Kimi or her brother Chuckie, I am coming after you. You will think this beating was a walk in the park. Understand," he said and punched him again.

"Yes," he shouted out. Edward let go of him and he scurried off.

Edward walked away. "Edward," Kimi said, he turned his head slightly. Kimi was now in awe of him. "Thank you."

Edward chortled. "Don't worry about it," he said as he walked away.

[L]

Lil was sitting in her room, listening to the music Phil was playing loudly through his wall. She was so happy, she had been invited by Kimi to go to hers after school. This wouldn't affect her reputation, and it would allow her to hang out with her old friends again. She could barely contain her joy. There was more to it than that, however, much more.

Tommy was there, the Tommy Pickles. The guy she had dreamed about for years. To be honest, that dream was one of the reasons she left the group to join the popular kids. She couldn't stand to see Kimi and Tommy flirting, it tore her apart, even though nothing ever happened between them. Now she was coming back, but not leaving her new group. It was the best of both worlds.

Phil's music turned down suddenly and Lil checked her phone. "Lillian," he said, barging into her room without knocking, he never did, which was very irritating for Lil. "Time to go, Lil. Get up, get moving!" He always did that, spoke down to her like he was her parent or something, not her younger brother (seconds count! She thought).

The Edward guy was strange, but she didn't need to be a genius to see that Kimi saw something in him; she could see it in her eyes. Lil stood up and brushed herself off. She was wearing her best jeans and top, with her favourite bathing suit underneath, just in case. At least it was still warm. Phil, that the social outcast he was, was wearing shorts with a dolphin on. "You really should knock," she said as she left the room, locking it behind her.

[L-Later]

Phil and Lil arrived at Kimi's about five minutes later and Chuckie directed them out the back. Lil took in the sights, she hadn't been in this back garden for almost a month, before she almost lived there. Her stomach tightened at the thought of her childhood slipping away from her. She didn't want it to, but it did.

Tommy waved, he was lying on his back in the pool. Kimi was doing laps vigorously and Lil could only assume she was angry or training for something. Chuckie was sitting on the swing nearby playing chess against a pocket computer. Wow, Chuckie is cool, she joked in her head.

"Oh yeah, baby," Phil said, pulling off his shirt and sprinting to the pool, jumping in screaming "cannonball" at the top of his lungs, landing right beside Kimi and Chuckie, who laughed when he did.

Lil didn't know what to do. "Come on Lil," Kimi said, smiling.

Suddenly the awkwardness was gone. She ran inside and got changed quickly, before diving in expertly. Just as she hit the water, she remembered how many times she had been in this pool. Just for a moment, it seemed, things were back to normal. Just for a moment, she was whole again.

End of Chapter 6

In case you haven't noticed, this is the first time I have written in any detail about Lil's feelings. She is now in the story more, much more, and will become a main character more. For fans, the story romances will now be (but not always, you will have to wait and see ^^):

PhilxNat

KimixEdward

LilxTommy