Aiden's P.O.V

Well, today was Monday which meant the weekend was over and it was back to school. As much as I hated school, I did however look foward to seeing Clara. I haven't seen her since we hung out at the beach on Saturday.

Even though we only had one class together, including lunch, I still enjoyed talking to her, and I hope we can hang out sometime. Regardless of her bringing her friends...I can try and put up with them as long as she's there.

I got up, ate breakfast, got dressed, brushed my teeth, the usual routine. Nicky wasn't here to bother me this time since she was already dreaming about some new boy in her school.

Nicky thinks she's so secretive about it, but I could hear her talking about him with her friends. I have my suspicions, but I think she'll get over him. Hopefully.

Mom also let me drive to school today. It felt good to drive on my own again, rather than having mom drop me off. Once I arrived at the school, I was consumed with dread, already missing the weekend.

First period came and my math teacher informed us that we had homework due from the weekend.

The motormouth chinese guy, who I found out was named Jordi, threw his hands in the air and said, "Well fuck me backwards, we had homework?"

He was kicked out of the classroom after that.

I admit, I didn't do the homework over the weekend. I completely forgot about it. I guess my grade was fucked.

As she came to collect the papers, nearly the whole class didn't do the homework except for like two or three people. She had this "Are you shitting me" expression on her face, and I got the look as well. First F of the year. Mom's gonna be pissed.

Once first period was over, I was cautious walking down the hallway just in case Defalt or some other douchebag decides to fuck with me.

As I was heading towards second period, I caught sight of that kid in the green who sits at the table during lunch, I think his name is Josh. There was some chubby, social justice warrior looking chick talking to him.

She looked like she was a little too close to him for comfort and I could tell from Josh's expression that he was uncomfortable.

"You're soooo adorable. You remind me of a puppy," she said almost creepily. "Oh, I just wanna pinch your little cheeks!"

She began to pace towards him with her small chubby hands, but Josh was quick to move away.

"Please don't," he quickly said while trying to gain as much distance from her as possible.

I had no clue who this girl was, but I'm guessing she's done this before by the way she was speaking to him. I decided that if she tried to make another move, I'd step in.

"Why do you waste your time hanging out with those losers when you could be cool like me?"

On second thought, I'll step in now. This girl reminded me of that asshole, Defalt. I could tell this bitch was stupid by the way she was dressed. She had these round glasses on with a buttoned up purple dress shirt with a biker vest. Her hair wasn't too great either, considering she had a short mohawk.

"I don't want to sit with you, Lenni. I like my friends."

"Oh, come on, they're no fun!"

I made my way over to them and stepped inbetween the two of them so Lenni wouldn't get any closer to Josh.

"Hey, Josh," I interrupted while looking directly at Josh and avoiding eye contact with Lenni. "Want me to walk with you to class?"

I didn't know how he'd respond. Josh was a little unpredictable. Not dangerously unpredictable, but he was just hard to read at times.

"Excuse me, shitface. I was talking to-"

"Yeah," Josh answered abruptly before making his way over to me and standing beside me.

"Let's go," I said before leading him away from Lenni. I spared her a glance and she looked absolutely pissed. I placed my hand gently on Josh's shoulder, guiding him away from the monster.

Lenni kept throwing insults at me as we got further and further away from her, but I only ignored her. Once she was out of sight, I sighed in relief. I didn't have a clue where Josh's next class was, and I hardly even talked to the kid, but we walked in silence, not really knowing what to say to each other. After a couple of seconds, his eyes met mine.

"Thanks," he said, sounding almost void of any emotion.

"You're welcome," I said. There was a pause before I asked, "So who was that...weirdo chick?"

"Her name is Lenni. She's been trying to get me to be friends with her so that I can be a part of her group, Prime Eight."

"What's Prime Eight?"

"They're a group of hackers who sometimes try to use their abilities to blackmail people," he explained. "Defalt used to work with them, but now since he doesn't, Lenni, who is the leader of the group, has been trying to get me to work with them since I'm familiar with tech."

"So you're a computer nerd?"

"Not just me. Our entire group of friends are good at working with technology, but Lenni only seems to want me. I don't know why."

"If you ask me, she seems creepy."

Just ahead of us, we caught sight of Sitara leaning against the doorway of a classroom. She saw Josh and gave him a smile before noticing me. Her face lit up once she did.

"I didn't expect to find you here," she said to me before she made her way over to us. "I was wondering what took Josh so long."

"He was being held up by some weird chick named Lenni," I explained to her.

"Oh Jesus," Sitara turned to Josh and placed a hand on Josh's shoulder, "That girl is straight up creepy. I thought she stopped coming up to you."

"No, she's been doing it again."

Sitara turned back to me, her blue eyes making contact with mine. "Poor Josh has been dealing with that freak show since last year. She's an asshole to everyone except him for...some odd reason."

"Another 'Defect' we have to look out for?" I chuckled. I was starting to get used to calling him that ever since Clara brought it up.

"Where'd you come up with that name?" Sitara smirked while tilting her head to one side.

"I didn't come up with it, Clara did."

"And she never told me?"

"She thought it was lame, but now I find myself using it."

"Well...maybe when 'Defect' comes back around, you could throw him down. I'd love to see you do that," she said while giving me a playful smirk and a wink.

It didn't take a genius to see what she was doing. She's been flirting with me since last week, and news flash...I'm not interested. When will she take the hint?

"Yeah...sure," I answered kind of awkwardly.

In the corner of my eye, I could see Josh walking inside the classroom, leaving the two of us alone. Wow, so much for helping Josh. He could have at least stayed to ease the tension.

Thankfully after that, the bell rang and I realized I was late for second period.

"I got to get to class," I said, hoping Sitara would go inside the classroom.

"Alright," she sighs seemingly disappointed that the bell had rung, "I'll see you at lunch," she then disappeared inside the classroom.

I sighed in relief as I made my way to second period. Thankfully, I didn't get in trouble for being late since it was my first tardy.

After hours of classes, fifth period, which is the period I've been looking foward to, came around and as always, Clara was in class before me. She sat, resting her hands on the long outstretched table, appearing lost in thought. What was she thinking about?

She poked her head up once she noticed me come in and she gave me a smile. I returned the smile before sitting beside her.

"Hey," she said optimistically as if she was happy to see me.

"Hey," I replied back.

We were silent for a moment, simply gazing at each other until I interrupted the silence.

"What?" I chuckled.

Her smile grew wider at my response. "Nothing. It's just that I still can't believe we ran into each other at the beach."

"I really didn't expect to find you there," I said, thinking back to when I saw her in that swimsuit.

"Me neither, but I had fun. We should really hang out."

"Yeah we should, but we really don't have a way to keep in touch."

Clara was silent for a moment before saying, "Tell you what, we can exchange numbers and I'll tell you what we're doing from there. Sound good?"

A smile formed on my face, "Yeah. Sounds good."

We both pulled our phones out and gave each other our numbers. I smirked knowing that I could message her at any time.

"The only thing not to do is don't spam me with multiple text messages. I hate that, and Sitara does it all the time," she says with a chuckle.

"Don't worry, I won't. My sister used to do that type of shit when she got her first phone and it annoyed the hell out of me."

She laughs, "Very well. I trust you not to do it."

Class proceeded as it usually did. We worked on paintings, and I had to admit, Clara was a good artist. Not only could she draw, but she could paint an entire landscape. The least I could do was paint a tree.

After fifth period was over, it was lunch time. Once Clara and I sat at our table, the band of misfits (A.K.A Clara's friends) were already chatting away. Wrench was apparently staring at some girl who was sitting at another table.

"Wrench, you've been stalking that girl since middle school," Marcus said to him.

Wrench was sitting with his hands curled up in his lap. He looked almost timid and shy; very unusual for a guy like him since he was energetic and talkative.

"Why don't you ever talk to her?" Clara asked.

Wrench made an expression that looked to be discomfort, "Because...I'm afraid she won't want to talk to me because of my mask."

"Why don't you just take it off?" I asked out of curiosity.

"It's just a part of who I am," he stated.

"Or maybe it's because you don't want to traumatize anyone with your face," Sitara said before laughing. The rest of us chuckled as well.

"Very funny, Sitara, but I'm way too attached to this thing to take it off."

"Well if she's not into you then move on," Horatio told him, "I think today you should talk to her."

"I don't think I should-"

"Come on, I'll even come with you. If shit hits the fan, you don't have to talk to her again. Deal?"

"You're going to leave me there, aren't you?"

"Probably, but it's the only way you're gonna learn how to talk to a girl you like."

He sighs and takes a glance back at the girl, who was sitting alone at an empty table while eating her lunch.

"Fine..." he said after a whole minute of encouragement from his friends.

Me along with Clara and the rest of her friends watched as Wrench got up with Horatio and they both made their way towards the girl. Normally, I wouldn't be interested in this, but since Wrench was a bit of a freak, I was intrigued to see what would happen.

As they made their way up to the girl's table, Wrench shyly trailing behind Horatio, I could hear Sitara say, "I bet this will fail."

"Hey, you gotta give him a chance," Marcus said. "It's the first time he's ever attempted to talk to that girl."

"Let's hope it goes well," Clara says with a sigh, not sounding too sure.

I was a little doubtful as well, but we had our fingers crossed as they stopped in front of the girl. She looked up at them and locked a strand of her jet black hair behind her ear. It looked like Horatio was the first to talk to her. He appeared pretty easy going with talking to her and occasionally he would point towards Wrench.

Horatio then stepped back and allowed Wrench to sit down in front of her. The girl appeared to be giggling, enjoying the whole situation. I stopped watching when I suddenly noticed something in the corner of my eye.

I saw Defalt walking by our table with a few of his clown girlfriends. I caught Clara looking his direction and the two exchanged a glance. Clara had a look that showed apathy while Defalt just simply looked at her. I didn't really know what he was thinking.

After a few seconds, Clara was the first to roll her eyes and turn away before Defalt did the same while leaving. I was surprised he didn't stop at our table to torment us. What was that about?

"Did you see that?" Horatio's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. He was back at our table by himself . I looked behind him and saw Wrench talking with the girl almost timidly.

"Is he talking to her?" Clara asked.

"Yeah, and it looks like it's going well."

"I never would have thought," Sitara sounded surprised.

"Well hell yeah," Marcus said, "Horatio's the man when it comes to girls."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Sitara chuckles, "He basically whores around with most of the girls at school anyway. I'm surprised he doesn't have an STD."

"Hey," he said before laughing, "I got his shy ass over there, so you're welcome."

The rest of the day went by quicker than I expected. When I got home, I went into my room and crashed into bed as usual. I laid there for a few seconds before I heard my phone vibrate. I pulled it out my bookbag and I was surprised to see a text from Clara that read, "Hi :)"

I didn't expect her to text me so soon, but I grinned before replying, "Hi."

A few seconds later another text bubble came up, "I'm bored here. You?

"Same here," I replied back.

"Want to do something sometime this week. The rest of my friends are apparently too busy to answer my texts."

"Yeah. Maybe tomorrow we could go bowling or something?"

"Yeah, that sounds like fun."

I felt a small smile form on my lips, "I'll ask my mom if we can hang out tomorrow. If she says yes, we can meet there after school tomorrow at 5. Sound good?

"Yeah, I'm already excited."

I chuckle, "Well don't get too excited. I still need to ask my mom."

"Oh right. Lol. Let me know what she says."

After that, I jumped right out of bed and went out of my room to find mom clipping her toenails in the living room. It wasn't a lovely sight to see, but I knew I had to ask her.

"Mom?"

She put down her nail clipper before turning her full attention to me, "Yeah?"

"My friend, Clara, and I want to go bowling tomorrow at 5," I saw a small grin appear on her face and I rolled my eyes before continuing, "Can I meet her there?"

"Aw, honey, if it involves that girl then of course you can go. Just make sure you're home by 9. No later than that."

I sighed in relief, glad that she said yes, "Don't worry I will."

"And don't even think about fooling around with her-"

"Mom!" I exclaimed, "It's not like that! We're just bowling."

She stared at me long and hard for a moment before nodding, "Okay, I'll take your word for it."

I rolled my eyes once more and turned around to go back to my room before she could say anything else. I returned to my room before grabbing my phone and texting her back, "She said yes."

I could imagine the smile on Clara's face as she replied, "Great! I'll meet you there tomorrow."

I grinned before setting my phone down. I hope she won't bring her friends with her, but by the looks of her texts, it didn't seem like she was bringing anyone else. As I rested my head on my pillow, I couldn't help but look foward to tomorrow.