a/n: sorry i took a couple weeks..but here it is! enjoy! :)
"Okay, so the blue one definitely looks better on you." Naomi Clark told her long time friend, Silver. Adrianna and Annie looked over to the tight fitting, teal blue, off the shoulder blouse that fit their friend so well and nodded in agreement.
"Alright, so I should get it?" Silver asked while staring at herself in the mirror. She thought the shirt looked good on her and it brought out the blue color of her eyes. Plus, she was sure her boyfriend would love the shirt on her…and maybe off her too.
"Yes, get the shirt!" Naomi insisted and Silver nodded while taking off the teal shirt and grabbing her regular one. As she went to pay for the new shirt she slipped on the one she had been wearing all day.
"So where to next?" Adrianna asked as the four girls left the clothing store. Being 2 pm on a Saturday and all, they had plenty of time to shop.
"More shopping?" Annie asked amazed. Naomi Clark herself had called Annie at eight that morning to ask her if she wanted to go shopping. Of course Annie couldn't say no. They had been hanging out for the past four days in school and now that the weekend had finally come, Annie saw it as the perfect opportunity to really get to know them.
"Yes, of course more shopping!" Naomi exclaimed looking at Annie as if she'd just uttered that she hated puppies.
"Okay," Annie said unenthusiastically. Never being the type to be able to shop for a full day, Annie found it tedious going from store to store and always having to try on clothes and then figuring out if they fit well and whether you wanted to buy it or not. It was a long process and she found it exhausting so she always chose to shop for a couple hours then just go home. Now having been out for five hours and a couple minutes, Annie was completely worn out; she just wanted to go home and keep sleeping.
Silver looked at the bags under Annie's eyes and her sagging shoulders and realized her friend was actually tired from shopping. Apparently, she had never done this in San Francisco. Feeling sorry for her friend led her to utter the next words that popped out of her mouth.
"Maybe we should take a break. Let's go get a snack or something."
After a lot of begging from Silver and Annie's part, Adrianna and Naomi reluctantly agreed. They all walked together across the street and down a couple blocks to the Beach Club for lunch.
"Hi, welcome to the Beach Club. I'm Claire, what can I get you?" a youngish looking girl with pin straight, bleach blond hair and olive green eyes asked the group of friends. She smiled a brilliant, visibly white, straight teethed smile.
"I'd like a Chicken Caesar salad with the dressing on the side and some water." Naomi ordered knowing exactly what she wanted.
"Uhh, same" Adrianna ordered more hesitantly than Naomi had.
Silver looked at them with disgust and then said, "I'd like a double cheeseburger with fries and a diet coke please."
The three friends looked at Annie as she contemplated what she wanted to have. Should she go the healthy route or the fattening route? She wanted to eat healthy and she desperately wanted to fit in with the group especially Naomi. She might've just followed Naomi's trend and picked the salad for the day, but she loved burgers. Annie was the kind of girl who ate like a pig. She loved junk food and thankfully she had a fast metabolism so it was halfway impossible for her to gain any weight. As she felt three pairs of eyes bore into her side, Annie finally decided on what she wanted.
"I'll take the same, please." Annie said referring to Silver's order. She wouldn't conform just to fit in with Naomi. She would be herself.
"Alright, that will be $15.73" Claire said punching in numbers on the register.
The four girls looked at each other and all pitched in with the money. They stood in silence as their orders arrived and walked in a single file line, each carrying their own trey, to a rectangular shaped table situated outside the building.
"So, Annie, you find any cute boys at West Bev yet?" Naomi asked wanting to know the full details of the new girl's love life. Not only because she lived off gossip, but because so far she considered Annie a friend.
"Um, no not really." Annie answered taking a sip of her coke.
Adrianna stared at Annie in disbelief, "You're kidding? You've been at our school a full week and you haven't seen one guy that interests you?"
To Annie, being in school for one week was a short period of time. Ade had made it seem like she'd been there an eternity. Truthfully, the week had felt like an eternity to her. With trying to get adjusted to the atmosphere, her new schedule, trying to make friends, and plus having Liam flirting with her every chance he got (which was more than she thought he would have considering they have three classes together) made the week go by slowly.
"Liam." Annie exclaimed suddenly without realization of what she was doing.
"What?" Silver asked with a frown. Hopefully she was talking about another Liam.
"Liam Court?" Naomi questioned ignoring the food she was about to pop into her mouth and putting her full attention on the girl sitting in front of her.
"Um, yeah, that's him." Annie said, feeling a little insecure about telling her new friends about Liam. Maybe they were close to him. If she started talking about how obnoxious he was and then have the three girls tell her that he was one of their closest friends then their friendship could possible be ruined.
"Do you like him or something?" Silver asked cautiously. She couldn't let Annie fall for that asshole.
"God, no," Annie cried out, "definitely not! Liam's just been bugging me all week and it's getting annoying."
Silver smiled widely, "So he's been flirting with you?"
"Ughh, it feels more like harassment or something. He just doesn't get that I'm not into him. He's a major player and I don't like that." Annie answered as the image of her and Liam at the grocery store the other night drifted into her head. That night had been haunting her thoughts since it happened.
"So then just play him." Naomi suggested.
Annie looked at her confused, "What?"
"Play the player." Naomi said more slowly.
"What do you mean?" Annie asked. Naomi rolled her eyes and looked to Silver for help. As Silver caught on she smiled a mischievous grin.
"Play his little game, but turn the tables on him. You pull the puppet strings not the other way around. Have him fall for you and then break his little heart."
"Little heart? I don't think he has one at all." Adrianna chipped in, "And if he does, I doubt his heart holds the capacity to feel anything. He's like immune to feelings."
Annie laughed, "I can't do that though." She replied.
"Ehh, it was just an idea." Silver said not wanting to put pressure on Annie. Silver knew that Annie was a good-hearted person. She'd never be able to pull off hurting someone like that.
"Worth a shot" Naomi added, "I was just wondering if anyone would have the guts to play the player."
"Why don't you do it?" Annie asked curiously noticing that Naomi would be the type of person to go through with such a wicked plan.
"Please," Naomi scoffed, "I don't do feelings. I can't have someone fall for me and I can't have myself falling for anyone. Liam and I are two of a kind, I am probably the only girl he's ever had sex with that hasn't fallen in love with him right on the spot."
"Oh so you two have slept together?" Annie asked a little shocked at the revelation, although she didn't know why.
"Hell yeah, we fucked occasionally. We were just having fun. No strings attached, as they say." Naomi replied nonchalantly as if sleeping with a guy was no big deal to anyone.
"So you're pretty much the female version of Liam." Annie stated.
"Hmm, yeah, I guess you can put it that way." Naomi said looking thoughtful, "but I'm way hotter than he is."
Annie, Adrianna, and Silver broke out into laughter. Naomi attempted a serious look at first but then gave into temptation and laughed with her friends. As the four were laughing Annie thought about what Naomi had suggested. Play the player she had said. It seemed genius to play Liam; to tease him and make him fall so desperately in love with someone that he'd know what it was like to get his heart broken. For a brief second Annie thought about doing just that; going through with Naomi's suggestion to play Liam, but then a hint of guilt crept through her and she knew that she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she was capable of pulling it off. It was heartless and insensitive and she figured that Adrianna was right, Liam didn't feel. He was completely impervious to falling in love.
As the final bell rang, Annie quickly ran into her English classroom. She took a seat on the second row of desks on the left side of the classroom. Unfortunately for her, Liam was sitting right in front of her. He turned around and smirked at Annie and she rolled her eyes.
"Hey, so I was thinking that the next time we meet at the grocery store so unexpectedly we should take things a little further and maybe in a different aisle." Liam told Annie with a wink. He had been toying with her for the past week and had grown so accustomed to seeing her and bugging her that over the weekend he had actually kind of missed her; kind of.
Annie scoffed and rolled her eyes at Liam. His smirk stayed perfectly in place.
"That's it; you're just going to roll your eyes at me? No answer?"
She sighed, "No, Liam, you don't deserve an answer. Cant you just leave me alone for one day?"
"I don't think so." Liam told her as their teacher, Mr. Matthews, walked in.
Mr. Matthews looked around at his talkative class and sighed, "Alright class, please settle down." He said and the thirty-something group of kids he was teaching this period surprisingly paid attention to his request. There was just that one student in the front of the class that was still attempting to carry a conversation with his newest student. Of course, Liam Court had quite the reputation in the school and as bright a student as he actually was, Mr. Matthews was sure the conversation between the two wasn't about school.
"Liam, please turn around and stop harassing Annie." Mr. Matthews commanded and Liam unhappily obliged.
"Thank you, Mr. Court." The teacher said, "Now if you guys will all look at the board I have written down 17 names of artists." Up on the board were names such as Mozart, Pushkin, Poe, Shakespeare, Picasso, and Vivaldi. "You guys will be partnered up and obligated to do a project on one of these names. It will be due at the end of the semester and will be worth forty percent of your grade."
The class all groaned in unison at the words Matthews had just uttered. A project; great, that's just what they needed.
"Umm, do we have to present it in front of the class?" Allison Martiari, the teacher's pet, asked Mr. Matthews.
"Yes," he responded, "your project will consist of two parts. Fifty percent will be the written part which is a short essay on your person's life. At least five paragraphs long. The second part will consist of the presentation you give in class. As you can see the people on the board are all famous because of their artistic expression. I want you and your partner to be as expressive with their art as possible. If for instance you get Edgar Allan Poe I want you to present one of his poems in class as a play or something. Your presentation must be at most five minutes long and I want it to be as creative as possible!"
The class all nodded and then a roar of commotion began as they all looked at their friends and began partnering up.
"Uhh, no, no, no, I will be picking your partners, kind of." Mr. Matthews explained and all the commotion slowly died down, "I'll be passing around a small box with all your names on it. Each one of you will be picking your own partner. After you pick your partner I will be walking around with another box holding the seventeen names up on the board. You will also be picking your artist today."
"Mr. Matthews, can I help you pass around the box full of names?" Allison asked and Mr. Matthews agreed to let her help.
"Start going down the rows. I'd like for all of you guys to stay quiet so I can get the names of the people you picked."
After a couple of minutes, Allison finally reached Liam. He smirked up at her. They had hooked up sophomore year at a party. She wasn't that good in bed.
"Pick one." She commanded and he grabbed a small, folded up piece of paper.
"Now read the name out loud." Allison instructed slowly treating Liam like he was mentally ill even though this was an honors English class.
Liam opened the paper and read the name to himself. He smirked. This would be perfect.
"Annie Wilson." He casually said aloud and then turned in his seat to peer at his new project partner. Her face was priceless; mouth hanging open just a little bit and eyes as wide as bowling balls. "I guess we're partners." He told her and she snapped out of her daze. Her surprised look turned into one of outrage. Liam burst out laughing. The faces she made were priceless.
"Can we switch partners?" Annie asked as she watched Liam laughing like a hyena. She couldn't do this project with him.
"No." was Matthews reply and she dropped her head on the desk she was sitting in. Oh, the torture she would have to endure.
"Now it's your turn to pick the person you will be doing your project on." Matthews handed a small wooden box over to Annie and she lazily pulled out a small rectangular piece of paper.
"Antonio Vivaldi" Annie read from the paper wondering what a musician had to do with literature.
"Vivaldi? Isn't that some dead musician from hundreds of years ago?" Liam asked the teacher and the whole class laughed, including Annie.
Mr. Matthews rolled his eyes, "Yes, Liam, he is dead, but he is also one of the greatest baroque composers of his time which is why I want you and Ms. Wilson to work together and get to know this 'dead musician' better."
"Wait, but I have a question." Annie raised her hand.
"Yes?"
"What does Vivaldi have to do with literature?"
"Well that," Mr. Matthews answered enthusiastically while quickly pointing at Annie, "is a good question. What is literature? Does anyone know?" The class stared at their teacher with blank expressions on their faces. Whether they knew it or not, none of them wanted to answer the question.
Mr. Matthews sighed, "Literature is the art of written words. It's another form of expression like painting or composing. In this project you will be working with artists not just authors. You will be learning about people from different eras that were talented for different reasons. That is why you are looking up people who made music or painted or actually wrote. It is all a form of art and expression. That's the point."
"Alright, thank you Mr. Matthews." Annie responded. The enthusiasm that Mr. Matthews conveyed had gotten her a little excited to start working on the project. As the rest of the class picked their partners and artists, Annie began to jot down ideas for her project; there was a lot you could do with music. When the final bell rang, Annie had already been able to come up with five creative ideas for the project. She couldn't wait to tell her partner—oh great! She had completely forgotten who had picked her as a partner and now as she walked out of the classroom with her notebook in had all the ideas and enthusiasm of doing that project had deteriorated. It was even worse now that Liam had fallen into step with her and was smirking his 'Liam' smirk. It bothered her to no end.
"What do you want, Liam?" she asked irritated.
"Just wanted to let you know that I'm looking forward to working on this project with you," he said seriously and seductively at the same time. He walked away and once again left Annie staring after him. She promised herself that one day soon she'd have Liam staring after her, not the other way around.
A/N: Okay, so I'm the type of person who likes to upload constantly. I don't like to wait a couple weeks and have you guys wait either, but unfortunately i really haven't had the time to upload this story lately. First of all, i was sick. i felt like crap for a while and my brain wasnt functioning well when i wrote this. Also, since my brain wasnt functioning then the writing was horrendous. I absolutely hated this chapter, but fortunately i was able to kind of fix it a little and make it sound better, kind of. I hope you guys will forgive me for any grammar mistakes and i hope you put up with the chapter. Hopefully you guys leave comments, i love to read them. (P.S. no mean comments please)