A/N: Oh my God, I have fifty reviews! I'm so happy! My Internet has been down all day and I checked it as I was on the phone with my best friend, and I was like "oh my god! Oh my god!" and she was thought I was retarded. Maybe I am. I dunno. Anyways, huge major effing shout-out to all my reviewers! I love you all! I had a sucky day today, and then you all made it not sucky. In response to Lobs-StAcEy-Ters' question, they are actually, in real life (well, not real life… on the show. Whatever.) going into senior year. Josh Schwartz said that they were indeed going into senior year for third season. I know that the whole Oliver quote from first season was like totally misleading, but whatever. Also, there wasn't any college prep stuff last season, which would have been weird if they were heading into college. Anyways, yeah. So far, for names we've got, for girls, Autumn, Tawny, Emily Kirsten, Olivia, Faith, Claire, Madison, Samantha, Grace, and Jenna. For guys, Austin (two people said that), Evan, Trevor, Andrew, Tom, Matthew, Dylan, and Trey (were you serious?). Keep up suggesting names: they all rock! I have to say though, if I pick a name of a person I know well, I will probably unintentionally model their character after the real person. Example: I baby-sit a ten-year-old named Andrew, so if I chose Rainygal's suggestion their kid would be a kid who like, bounces off the walls. At two AM. LOL, but I like that name. You will have to wait and see what I pick. Gimme more ideas! LOL. And, as always, make my day and review :-D.
Also, BTW, in case you'll be confused, Marissa's teacher for World History, Mr. Smith (and by the way I own him. He's mine! ©), used to teach juniors but moved up a year. This chapter is rated PG-13 for somelanguage near the end of the chapter. I'm warning you now!
Marissa took in a deep breath. It was time.
She had managed to squeeze into her lucky jeans, thank heaven, and had donned a new turquoise tank top from Delia's (she had picked it up after another countless day of baby shopping at the mall. They were trying to get her to buy it as the 'layered look' but yellow just wasn't her color.) Ryan had gone shopping with her that day, she had finally convinced him to come, on the guarantee that if any salesman at Penny's or Sears tried to sell him cologne (or worse, spritz perfume in his face), they were going home. Marissa didn't tell him that they were skipping the whole jewelry and perfume floor.
She wasn't thrilled at the fact the fact that she had only one class with Ryan (even less pleased that the class was P.E., which the school had decided to require this year). But for homeroom, he was right next-door, and was waiting with her, outside the classroom, holding her hand as she double-checked that she hadn't left anything in her locker.
She finally exhaled, as the final warning bell rung, on the firrst day of her senior year of high school,and let him go with a kiss on the cheek.
"Bye," she said, longing to dash into Biology with him.
He smiled at her, and headed in.
One deep breath and fifteen seconds later, she walked into class, and mentally killed herself.
Damn, damn, damn. How could she have forgotten? Mr. Smith was teaching World History, and it was not a good idea to be late, even if it was thirty seconds, to his class.
"Ms. Cooper," he said, without looking up from his desk. "You're late."
"I'm sorry," she said. "I was talking to Ryan."
Excuses didn't work either. Damn.
"Ms. Cooper, I really don't care. You are late, therefore, you get a detention." He blew on his fingernails.
"It was only thirty seconds!" she protested, her temper rising.
"Do you want to make it two?"
She was on the verge of tears. "No," she muttered, and quickly took the nearest seat.
"All right then. I hope you have learned your lesson, although I sincerely doubt that you have. Today's assignment"- he rapped the chalkboard with his pointer stick- "is mainly review, on none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. I'll give you ten minutes to write down everything you know about him, and I want to see at least five full pages on everyone's desk about it, in three hundred seconds. You may begin."
"What an ass!" she thought.
"I know, what an ass, right?" a quiet voice said to her left. She turned to see Seth sitting in the seat next to her.
"Hey," she said, happy to find a familiar and friendly face.
"Detention with Smith sucks. I was in there so many times last year," he continued.
"Why? You were always around after school last year," she smiled despite the situation, "attached to Summer at the mouth."
He chose to ignore the second comment. "After the first few, which I got for talking out of turn, or whatever, I decided it was shit and skipped 'em."
She suddenly noticed a shadow fall on her empty sheet of paper.
"Ms. Cooper, is there a reason that there are no notes on your paper, with only three minutes left?"
Well, duh, because I didn't take any, Marissa thought. "Sorry, sir."
"I want to hear less sorry's and see more work." Smith tapped her paper. "Get to work."
He turned around and Marissa gave him the finger under her desk.
The rest of the day went just as well. After returning from the nurses office in gym from getting hit on the head with a baseball, she sat out, and talked with Ryan when he wasn't in the field or up to bat. He was upset that she had gotten detention from that "stupid little bastard," as he called their teacher, and said that he'd do something about it when he had Smith last period.
Marissa walked into detention, and sat down. She was about to start twiddling her fingers, when someone tapped her on the shoulder.
For the second time that day, she turned and found someone she knew.
"Hey," Ryan said.
"Hey. What are you doing here?"
"Remember how I told you that I'd do something about Smith?"
"Yeah…"
"I told him that it was my fault that you were late, and I took responsibility for it."
"And?"
"And he said if that was the way I saw it, he was fine with it, and gave me detention for talking in class and said you had to keep yours because I didn't willingly stop you from coming into class at the right time."
She couldn't help smiling, a little bit. At least Ryan was there. If there was one thing Marissa hated most (if you didn't include people), it was being alone.
Smith walked in, and rapped his knuckles on his desk. When that didn't seem to get anyone's attention, he walked over to the chalkboard and ran his fingers down it.
Marissa covered his ears. Ugh, what a repulsive noise.
"Detention has begun. For the next hour, you will all sit, silently, without moving."
Barely five minutes into the detention, Smith called her out into the hall to have a word with her.
"Listen, Cooper," he said, practically breathing down her neck. "I'm on to you. I know your secret."
"What secret?" she asked, voice trembling.
"Do you think it's not obvious? Cooper, you're pregnant. And Harbor doesn't need pregnant, murderous scum like you filling up classrooms. I suggest dropping out. Maybe attending… Orange County High School?" He smiled cruelly, knowing that OCHS had the areas highest rate of pregnant teens.
She fought back tears. "Mr. Smith, I am not scum. And I'm telling you right now; I have every right to be here. There is no rule against it. My tuition is paid, and there's nothing you can do about it."
"Wanna bet?"
"And I'll also tell you that right now, my legal guardian is Sandy Cohen, who would just love to sue you for discrimination."
"Cohen… Cooper, I am telling you right now that you are not off the hook in the least. Go back, serve your detention, and prove to me that you aren't scum."
She began to head back to the classroom.
"And, Cooper?"
She didn't turn around. "Yeah?"
"One more time being late to class and it's detention for a month."
She rolled her eyes and went back to the World History classroom.
She noticed a note on her desk, and she grabbed it and put her hands in her lap in the millisecond that Mr. Smith wasn't back in the classroom yet.
As soon as his attention was diverted, she unrolled it, and found it to be in Ryan's handwriting.
What was that all about?
She wrote back, her eyes never leaving the blackboard.
Smith, that fucking asshole, told me that because I'm pregnant, I should drop out of Harbor and go to OCHS.
She watched Ryan's eyebrows raise about three inches as he read her note and wrote furiously back to her.
Are you kidding me? That asshole, I'm going to kill him. Who does he think he is?
She knew Ryan would probably kill their teacher if he got a chance. She had so downplay the situation.
Ryan, it's nothing. Forget it. He probably is just jealous that we're young enough to have kids, that ass. He's got to be like what, 50? 60?
She tried to put humor into the situation, hoping that Ryan would forget about his promise to kill Smith. Apparently, it didn't work.
Marissa, don't even try. I'm not gonna kill him, although I probably should. Promise me you'll tell Sandy about this.
I can't. He already spent forever trying to save my ass in court, we don't need to worry him anymore. I can take it.
If you say so… but I'm keeping my eye on that guy. I don't trust him.
Marissa stifled a small laugh as she read his last note. Since when had Ryan trusted any teacher?
The hour passed surprisingly quickly, and Marissa threw the notes into the trashcan on her way out.
Unfortunately, it didn't quite make it in, and the white paper lay, crumpled up, about two inches away from the garbage.
Some kid picked it up, and announced loudly to those remaining in the room. "Yo, everyone, check it out! Cooper's pregnant!"
"What a slut!" someone said.
"She's so brave," another person remarked.
"I wonder who's it is?" a guy asked.
"Duh, it's Atwood's. Did you not notice that his name was all over the notes?" a girl haughtily answered him.
"So does that mean she's off the market?" the guy asked disappointedly.
"Hello, they've been all over each other for, like, ever!"
Out in the hall, Marissa stopped. "Did you hear something?"
"Huh?"
"I thought I heard someone say my name." She shook her head. "Never mind."
The girl who had been confirming the guy's suspicions about Marissa rushed out of the classroom.
"Marissa!" She ran to talk to her.
"I told you so," Marissa informed Ryan, as the girl stopped at her side.
"I just wanted to let you know, that I think that you're so like, courageous for having a kid. Like, people are saying that you're slutty, but you know I've always looked up to you, and I mean I would never do something like getting pregnant, but-"
A million questions were running through Marissa's mind, like 'How did you know that I'm pregnant?' and 'Who called me a slut?' and 'Why the hell am I courageous?' but there was one question that seemed top priority.
"Who are you?"
The girl blinked. "What?"
"Who are you?" she repeated.
"Me? Oh, I'm Katie Davidson, I'm the president of Student Council and the Environment Club, and I just got elect-"
"I've got to go." Marissa walked out of the hall in a daze, leaving Katie behind.
She stumbled down the steps, unaware of where she was going.
She turned, at the entrance to the parking lot, and was surprised to see Ryan standing next to her, holding her hand.
"How did they all find out?" she asked. Stupid question. How would he know?
"No idea."
"This sucks." She had reached Ryan's car, and he held open the passenger door for her. "I told you. I told you. People are calling me slutty. Everyone's disrespecting me."
"Well, didn't that girl back there just say that she's always looked up toyou?"
Marissa rolled her eyes. "She doesn't count. She's psycho."
"Marissa, why do you care what these people think?" He had always wondered why popularity was so important.
She seemed lost in thought, as he backed out of the parking space and started driving them home.
It wasn't until he had pulled into the Cohen driveway that she had an answer for him. "I don't know."
"Don't know what?" he asked. He had since forgotten that he had even asked her anything.
"I don't know why I care what other people think."
He was satisfied with her answer, until she finished her thought as they headed through the front door.
"I don't know why I care what anyone else thinks. But I do."
A/N: I just wanted to remind everyone to submit baby names, and of course, please review. Also, just wanted to mention that today I sprained my ankle (it's kind of embarrassing, but I did a grapevine in dance class and tripped over my own feet and landed on my ankle, therefore spraining it. I feel really stupid), and it would make my day less sucky, and help me forget about the constant pain in my left foot, if you guys reviewed. LOL.