Chapta three, peeps.
Yeah, I know, I'm inventive. Round of applause ya'll!
{--Inky--}
Chapter Three: Right There.
EPOV
I wasn't exactly in the best mood. I had gotten sent to detention, again, for mouthing off to Banner. It wasn't my fault the man was a total idiot. He clearly didn't know a single thing about Biology, and I guess he didn't appreciate me correcting him. Maybe it's because I'm a high-school student and he's a college-graduated educator.
As if that makes a difference.
I had taken to amusing myself by watching Emmett McCarty repeatedly launch wads of paper into some poor girl's curly hair. The detention warden, Vernon, had left about five minutes ago on some emergency call from the principal and several kids had taken advantage of that absence. A couple had moved to the very back of the room and were making out on top of a desk, and a few kids had opened a window and lit up their joints, which they had pulled out from down their pants.
One word: gross.
Some girl had pulled out a phone and was texting furiously to whomever. And I was sitting here watching it all. Emmett turned to me, opening his mouth to say something, when we all heard it.
The sound of a key working the lock on the door.
The stoners hastily snuffed out their joints, throwing them out the window and attempting to pull it shut, and the couple at the back broke apart, eyes wide. The girl in the front almost dropped her phone, looking around for somewhere to hide it. Eventually she decided to stuff it down her shirt and Emmett stifled a laugh at her. She turned around to glare at him but snapped her head back around when the lock on the door clicked. Everyone was in their original seats, sitting straight and trying not to look suspicious.
The door swung open and every jaw dropped. It definitely wasn't Vernon standing there, glaring at us for doing so much as breathing while he was gone.
It was a girl, probably about seventeen. She had dark, softly curled hair that was left loose to hang on her shoulders, and she had the attitude under her brand names to match her ripped-up jeans. You could see it in her stance. Her skin was porcelain, a perfect shade of ivory, and she had deep brown eyes that seemed to know everything. Her black tank top was tight, but not to the point of absurdity and her jeans fell over sneakers, a change from all the heels you hear clicking down the hallways. She wasn't smiling and she wasn't scowling, but she was somewhere in-between, her full pink lips seemingly etched in a tiny, permanent frown.
I knew her from somewhere. I couldn't place her though. I tried to remember where I had been since I got here, and nothing fit. I definitely would have noticed a girl like that if I had really seen her before. She met my eyes, and I had to blink. They were undeniably pretty, all melted chocolate and caramel-flecked, framed by thick, long lashes and completely free of any eyeliner. A small crease appeared in her smooth forehead and her frown deepened, and I had to wonder why.
"Crazy Girl?" Emmett sounded incredulous, and she snapped her eyes from me to him.
"Come on McCarty. I'm springing you," she ordered, leaving no room for argument from him. Emmett gathered up his books and shoved them into his backpack.
"So long, bitches," he muttered under his breath, throwing me a wink as he got up and pushed past the girl into the hallway. She shut the door behind herself and we all heard the lock click back into place.
The rest of the group went back to whatever they were doing before she had arrived and scared the shit out of them, and I had to resort to staring out the window because Emmett wasn't there to throw crap at people.
I had a perfect view of Emmett and the girl as they made their way across campus, and I saw when another blond girl joined them half-way across the quad, followed by an extremely short girl who I recognized as Alice Brandon from my English class. Also another girl.
God, McCarty was just swimming in hot girls, wasn't he?
No, that's not true. The brunette wasn't hot.
She was beautiful.
There's a difference.
*******************
BPOV
My heart was thrumming as Rosalie and I walked on the doors the next morning. We had been at the school until almost five last night, along with Alice—who had shown up to tell Rosalie something about her new pumps that I really didn't listen to— and Emmett, once I broke him out of detention. When we had borrowed (Rosalie's word, not mine) Patterson's keys, I had also managed to snag the key that opens almost every locker in this entire school on accident.
That man really shouldn't keep all the important keys on one ring.
We decided to take revenge on Royce King, because it was the perfect opportunity. We located his locker and made some minor adjustments. Nothing big and I was anxious to see his reaction.
I was honestly surprised at how eager Rosalie was to help me; she was a model student, president of the School Council and all around prep. After a bit of prodding, she told me why.
Royce had dated her, screwed her and then dumped her when she told him she didn't want to do him again. Suddenly this guy was an even bigger douche than he was in Gym class, and he now had two very vengeful and creative females hating him with a passion.
He was in serious trouble.
We got into the lobby without trouble, and Rosalie walked me to my locker so I could grab my English book. We were standing there, talking about the latest episode of Lost when we heard it.
A loud scream echoed through the halls and startled everyone, followed by a string of colourful curses. Rosalie looked at me, and I looked at Rosalie, and we both burst out laughing. But we were quiet about it so no one would notice and target us as the guilty party, even though we were.
The rest of the day flew by, and I found myself actually listening to the whispers that were flowing through the halls, slithering from ear to ear like an evil little snake.
"Why would someone replace every one of his modeling pictures with ones of Barney?"
"I wonder who did it..."
"How did they get into Royce's locker?"
"I bet it was that geek from band..."
"Or that kid from the Science Club..."
By the time lunch rolled around, I was entirely sick of any word uttered that had the remotest link to Royce King. I sat at my table with Jasper, who sensed my mood and wisely didn't bring Royce King up in anyway, shape, or form. Thank god. Instead, we had an extensive discussion on Guns 'N' Roses latest album, Chinese Democracy, and whether it was as genius as their past albums. I disagreed, saying the only good song was "Chinese Democracy" and maybe "Scraped" and he told me I was crazy, which lead to a whole other debate on what is the actual definition of crazy, as judged by an individual.
Needless to say, hardly anyone else around me registered in my brain in that hour, not even the nasty salad Rosalie had forced me to order with threats of telling Charlie I wasn't eating, or the fact that Jasper kept throwing these, brooding, practically worshiping glances over to where Alice Branden sat laughing and inspecting nails with her typical cheerleading friends. I kindly ignored it, for Jasper's pride's sake. The same way I didn't mention how I'd met her last night because of Rosalie. That would most likely lead to him pathetically begging me to introduce them, which I will not do. For my pride's sake.
I walked to Biology on my own because Jasper decided that libraries didn't, after all, creep him out and wanted an new book on the Civil War. He finished the one he had last night. That made me laugh, because he'd only just started it yesterday.
I was a bit early for class, so I made myself comfortable in my seat, and turned on my iPod, not acknowledging when the bell rang and the rest of the class filed in and took their seats.
Someone sat down next to me, but I didn't bother to look up and see who it was. I could feel their eyes burning a hole into the side of my face, but I refused to turn my head, even slightly, to meet their curious eyes.
I was just stubborn like that.
*******************
EPOV
She was right there. The girl from detention. She was sitting right there.
I had noticed as soon as I entered the Biology room that there was someone slouched in the usually unoccupied seat at my table. They had their hood up so there was no way to see their face, and you could see the slight, rhythmic bobbing of their head. I had been incredibly frustrated when I realized that I had a lab partner now. They were most likely to be as incompetent as Mr. Banner seems to be, and I was going to be stuck trying to make them understand.
Oh goody.
I got a little closer and saw the ends of dark hair sticking out of the edges of their hood. I assumed that it was a girl, because a guy would have to have some major long hair to accomplish that. It didn't even occur to me that this might be the girl I had been thinking about ever since she had appeared in detention the previous day.
It definitely occurred when I sat down and saw her pink lips forming the words to whatever song she had blasting into her ears. It was something with a heavy beat and a lot of guitar, and I had to applaud her genre choice. Nothing's worse that the machine-made noises most artists in the Top 40 were incorporating into their so-called music.
She didn't look up when I seated myself next to her, and she didn't even flinch at my obsessive staring. I knew it was rude to stare so blatantly, but I couldn't seem to look away. It was fascinating how the ends of her hair would curl in and out ever so slightly when she moved her head, and how her pale fingers were so small, with bitten off fingernails, twisting in her lap.
Banner breezed into the room then, slamming the door in his wake. Immediately everyone straightened in their seats. I reluctantly turned to face the front, telling myself that everyone's lives would be simpler if I could just keep my mouth shut this class.
He stopped at my table, glaring down at the girl sitting on my right. She appeared not to notice, continuing to stare straight ahead at the blackboard at the front of the room.
Banner glared at the top of her head, and used one finger to pull her hood down, revealing a mass of curls that were all messy, now that he had taken her hood off. The girl's fingers paused from their dance in her lap, but she still didn't look up.
"Care to join us, Ms. Swan?" Banner sneered, moving to continue up the rows.
She didn't let him.
"Why should I do that?" Her voice was musical, a chorus of bells, but still somehow rough and dangerous.
"I do not stand up here and write things out for my own pleasure Ms. Swan." Banner was slowly turning red, and I found perverse pleasure in the fact that someone other than me was antagonizing Banner, for once.
"I can promise you that there is nothing you will teach in this class that I don't already know," she said smoothly, sitting up completely and looking him straight in the eye, never removing her earphones from her ears. Banner's eyes almost bugged out of his head.
"Well," he almost growled. 'If you are so sure of yourself, you can remove yourself from my classroom." Everyone could hear the malice in his voice, and I knew for a fact that no one in this room would have the guts to do what he was implying. Any normal person would have sunk down in their seat and tried to stay off his radar.
But Ms. Swan apparently isn't like any other normal person I've met.
"Gladly," she said quietly, but just loud enough for him to hear her. She stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder and gathering her books up in one swift movement. Banner, and just about everyone else, watched her make her way slowly up through the aisle of desks with their jaws open and eyes wide.
As she passed Banner's desk, she deliberately reached back and flipped her hood back up, covering her curls, and sauntered out the door, leaving it open in her wake.
"ISABELLA SWAN!" Banner shouted at the top of his lungs, face a vivid crimson and getting purpler by the minute due to his suppressed rage. He half-turned to the door as if he was about to go after her. Alice Brandon was staring after Isabella in awe, a small smile gracing her elfish features. Several other kids snickered, and Banner snapped his prematurely-bald head around to glare at them unfairly. I raised my hand to point this out to him, and he shifted his glare to me.
"Don't pull my strings today, Cullen. I just might opt for your expulsion." I put my hand down, shrugging.
Not my problem, I guess.
But damn, that girl had balls.
Oh, Eddie likes Bellie already. LLC, of course. Typical.
