School has been going along quite nicely. We're about to get started on prepping for our final exams. I'm just so glad that I get to opt out of two of them (since I've kept up an 'A' average in the classes), and that means that summer break starts earlier for me. So that basically just leaves my Business Tech HsCAT exam, and my Spanish II exam. Other than that, I'm home free.

It's just too bad that Izzy ended up having those classes as well. Which means that I have to see her for way too many more days. She's not that bad of a person, but if you ended up spending two plus hours of unstructured time, then you'll understand my point. She goes hay-wire crazy. I mean, even worse than normal. She has been known to climb out of windows, blowing bubbles, and preforming acrobatics throughout the room. I can not spend that much time with the girl. I will go bat crazy myself.

Let me not even mention about when we're on the bus. She's bad enough by herself, but she has a friend to accompany her. That's twice as bad, twice as annoying, twice as much of a headache, twice as much aspirin for me to take when I get home. And we're not even on the bus for long.

Examples of good listening skills are:

A. Sitting back and relaxing

B. Not listening to the speaker

C. Getting up while the speaker is talking

D. Overcoming barriers and have understanding

Easy. I chose 'D'.

In case you're wondering, I'm taking my HsCAT exam for Business. The class might sound hard, but it's really not. You read the book, and get on the computer to play around with the practice test questions. Easy as pie. Speaking of which, the test is on the computer and this is the only class that I've ever had to take an exam on a computer.

I quickly click towards the beginning to make sure that I answered all of the questions, and hit FINISH. I have to wait about five seconds until it gives me back my test results. 98%, it tells me. I get up from the computer and wonder which question I got wrong, since I normally get 100% on the MiTiRayLa practice...

"What'cha get, Noah?" Izzy turns around and asks me.

"Ninety-eight." I respond, sitting down at my desk.

She thumbs up me, and whispers "Good job.". The teacher tells us no talking in the testing area, and Izzy turns back to her test. A few other people ask me what I got, either congratulating me or saying that they should have sat next to me. Cheating is so prevalent in this class. Especially for the people who show up about twice a week; they never know what's going on in class. Thus they sit next to the smarter people in class to give them the answers to the test. Never mind that when it gets down to the HsCAT, they're going to most likely fail, but it buys me temporary peace with those kids.

"Whoot! A ninety-six!" Izzy shouts. I turn towards her, and she's fist pumping the air while dancing around.

"I still got two points higher than you." I gloat. She crosses her arms and sticks her tongue out at me.

"So what Noah? That's you. I'm just happy that I didn't get an eighty-seven this time."

"Yeah. I can't count how many times I've seen that number on your screen alone."

"Shut up." she tells me and punches me in my arm. It doesn't really hurt, and I know she's playing with me, anyways.

Ms. Morris-Tiny says 'good job' to the last few people who get off the computers. I think Eva got a ninety and Mike got a ninety-two. Still, nobody has gotten a score higher than mine, and I feel rather accomplished by that feat.

I watch a few other people send in their test. A sizable portion fail, and other just barely skim by. Some laugh at their failing grades, and some look pissed off at the teacher. Personally I think that it was their own fault that they failed. I don't really think the teacher has much to do with it. But if I tried to tell them that, they would say that it does matter since I'm so smart, and then I would loose all of my hard effort of trying to stay on their good side. Trust and believe, these people in here are extremely annoying in a way that Izzy isn't, and you just don't want to be a nuisance to them. That's generally always bad news for you.

Since I have about twenty more minutes of free time (everybody takes forever to test and Ms. MT never has anything for us to do on test days) I decided to catch up on my reading. But since we all know that Izzy is rather punctual when it comes down to disturbing me and my peace, the mere thought of me thinking that I could read was a lie.

"Noah!" she screams. I slowly count to ten before looking up out of my book. She's grinning and hovering above me. "We're playing a game."

A game? Since when? We don't do that kind of stuff in this class. That's... impossible.

"What kind of game?" I ask her once I sit my book back down on my desk.

"Review baseball for our next test."

Speaking of which, I don't understand how this class works. We study two different topics at one time, and then take a quiz and a test in the same week. Every week. Without fail. And then after the test, we do some sort of review stuff for our next test.

"That again?" I sneer at the thought. I hate that activity. It's completely pointless and worthless. Nobody seems to know anything, and there's always chaos when you let twenty teenagers run amok for fifteen minutes. I look around the classroom. People are already assembling for the game. Half the people are up and walking towards the back of the classroom, and the rest are still sitting down, waiting for their team's turn.

"You're on our team." Izzy announces to me.

"Great." I tell her, rolling my eyes in the process. I put my book into my backpack, and put away most of my supplies for this class. I look for where my team assembled, over by the windows facing the buses, and decided to go over there for the sake of my participation grade. After about five minutes everybody in the room is finally settled enough for us to start the game. We're supposedly intelligent enough to remember the rules of the game from us playing last semester, which is a lie, so the teacher decides to omit that part.

My team is first, and we're supposed to send somebody up to answer questions. I look around and realize that most of the people that I'm teamed with failed their test today. Great. Now they're going to expect me to pick up their slack and hopefully win the game.

Without fail, they send me up.

"What are rules of conduct established by the government to maintain stability and justice?"

I think it over for a bit. The answer's in my mind, I know it is, but it's been a while...

"Law..." I state the word in an unsure way, drawing out the 'aw' part. There's a brief pause where everybody checks ancient notes to see if I'm right. My team claps and the other side groans. I smile.

" What legal concepts did the United States adopt when it gained independence?"

Wasn't that English common law? I mean, wasn't that something that you learned in Civics and Economics?

"English common law." I'm definite with this question and sure enough, I'm correct. I realize that two of my group mates got up and were standing at spots around the room. That would explain the baseball portion of the game.

"Christian has just received his first checking account bank statement. He pulls out his checkbook and looks to find his outstanding checks and deposits and check his balance. What is Christian doing?"

I don't even have a clue.

"The question?" I ask. The teacher gives a hint, "It has to do with his statement."

Since when would that help? I shrug my shoulders, and my classmate Eva lists the answer choices for me. Izzy taps on the desk loudly, and I know that she's trying to get my attention. I look over, and she's mouthing the word choice, 'C' to me. I shake my head, which probably would give it away if people in this class actually payed attention. She nods 'yes' rapidly, and mouths "Reconciling the statement." like a mantra. I think about it. The game isn't that important that I need to cheat, but then again, my team thinks that I'm the only one who's capable enough to win. I glance to my right, and the other team looks over to the left. They finally figure it out and tries to call us out for cheating. I turn back to Eva and answer the question.

"C. The one about reconciling the statement."

I get the point for my team. We eventually hit a home run, and it's the other team's turn. Soon enough, yes, my team does win, and everybody thinks that I'm so great for winning for us. I think so, too, since I was stuck with people who could care less about their grade.

"Student Government?" Cody asks me after-school as I walk up to him.

"Yep." I answer, sitting my book bag on the ground beside me. Currently we're both waiting at the double doors at the front of the school, watching for our rides home. We could always sit outside on one of the benches, it's more comfortable and easier to watch for cars that way, but out backpacks are already bulging and weigh a ton. Lugging that around anymore is not an option.

"Tutoring?" I ask Cody.

"Yep."

"What subject this time?"

"Biology." he opens the door to let somebody in as he answers my question.

"I thought you were doing good in there." I tell him. I turn the screen on my phone on to check the time. It's 5:18 pm. Not as late as normal; teachers still exist at this time, so it's actually quite early.

Cody laughs. "I though so too until I saw my last test."

"You bombed it?"

"With flying colors."

"Only you would say that." I assure him.

"Or Izzy." he says.

"Why do you feel the need to constantly bring her up?"

"Because you love her, and you just don't realize it yet." Cody smiles at me like he's trying to convince me of this unknown fact.

"Since when?"

"Since you laid eyes on her."

"Not true."

"But you admit that you love her."

I sigh.

"How do I always fall victim to your traps?" I smile at him as I ask this.

"Because it's the truth and you can't deny the truth."

I shake my head at his logic. I don't claim Izzy. She's... nice, I suppose, but I don't see how it could possibly work. She's too insane.

Cody opens one of the doors again, but this time he walks outside. I don't see his ride anywhere, so I grab my own stuff and head out with him. He finds a bench that's absent of people, and we both sit down.

"Why does everybody say that I like her?" I ask Cody. He makes a thinking face, something that doesn't exactly show up often, and answers.

"It's the way you two act with each other." he tells me.

"Like how so?" I check the time again. It says 5:22 pm, and I'm afraid that my mother got caught up in traffic again.

"It's like a hate-love thing. Like, remember when Courtney and Duncan were going out?"

"Oh, God!" I shout. "Don't ever say something like that again."

Cody starts cackling at my response, and a few of the people out here turn to observe us.

"Dude, what's wrong?" he asks between laughs.

"That... whatever they had... that wasn't love or like or anything that's humane."

"It's called love-hate, dude. Opposites attract." Cody tells me as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "See, you're such a genius," he says genius as if it's bad, "that you can't even recognize the different types of relationships."

"Right. As if it's anything that really mattered to me. I mean, I have my family relationships and my friends. I don't think anything more is really necessary."

Cody slams his hand on the metal bench, probably in an attempt to make a startling noise. Instead, he quick draws his hand back and shakes it out. He chants "ow" a few times as I laugh at his stupidity.

"As I was saying," he tells me, "That sir!" he shouts that part, "Is where you're wrong!"

I roll my eyes and shake my head at the same time. I already know that people are watching us again, because of Cody's general stupidity. I swear, he's been spending too much time around Sierra and Izzy.

"See, you two are complete opposites."

"I feel as if we've had this discussion before."

"We probably have. But, listen. You two are perfect. It's a love-hate thing, but it works for you two. I'm positive. I'm sure. I know this."

"Since when were you the great match-maker of our grade?"

"Since ever, dude. Just watch, just wait. Just you watch and wait. She gets out of basket-ball practice in a few minutes."

"And I care why?"

"Because I swear to God, she's gonna see you out here, and she's gonna run over and talk to you because she can't resist you!"

I make a big exaggerated sigh and sink down lower in the bench.

"And now I remember why I had wanted to stay inside to wait. I still remember what she was doing last week."

"Oh, was I there?" Cody asks very excitedly.

"I don't even remember. All I know is that she was hyped off the Gatorade that she was drinking."

"Go on."

"I don't even want to remember..."

"Oh, hey!" Cody points towards the direction of the gym, "Speak of Izzy and she shall appear!" I look where he's pointing, sure as day, and there's a figure decked out in lime green with red hair.

"It's time for me to go." I tell Cody, already beginning to grab my stuff. However, Cody latches onto my arm before I even have a chance to raise it and makes me sit back down.

"Your mom isn't here yet. I'm going to fast forward your relationship with the girl of your dreams."

"Why? Why, Cody? What sin did I commit to receive this chastisement?"

"The sin of lust." Cody draws out the word.

"What lust? When? I never lusted after her!"

"Lusted after who?"

I looked up at none other than Izzy. Kill me. Kill me now.

"No one." I tell her before sighing and face palming. Cody laughs, and so does Izzy's friend... Naiomi, I think. Izzy drops her duffel bag onto the ground near my own backpack and sits down on the ground. I don't even bat an eyelash at her unusual seating; she's been known to sit in weirder settings. There was space on the other side of Cody, but she chose the ground.

"Are you sure it was no one?" she asks. I nod 'yes'. "You sure you sure?" I nod 'yes' again. She thinks for a while, finger tapping her bottom lip, before she says anything else. "So, if you weren't lusting after anybody... then you were lusting after yourself, right?"

Oh, God. She's trying to explain something again. Somebody, somebody quick! Shut her up! Now! Please!

"Then you were like that Greek dude!" she shouts.

"That Greek dude?" I repeat back to her.

"Yeah! The one who fell in love with his image in a pond, and then died."

"Narcissus?"

"Yeah! Him! You're like Narcissus."

"Izzy?" she looks at me, wondering what I'm about to say next.

"Yeah?"

"Just shut up."

She starts to laugh at me when I say this. Cody nudges me with his elbow, clearly trying to use this as some sort of weird proof that Izzy and I are destined for each other. I turn to him and glare, but he only continues to smile.

I look back to Izzy, but she's already up with her stuff, and walking away. I move my eyes to the street, and I see that her ride is here. I'm pretty sure that she already told me good-bye, but I didn't hear her over my glaring at Cody.

She turns back as she walks and gives another wave and "Bye!" to our group. I give a half-concerned half-wave and manage to say an inaudible "Bye." to her, but she catches it, and starts waving harder. At first I think it's actually supposed to be directed towards her friend Naiomi, but I realize that it's not, and then I realize something myself.

She really does like me.

It's a fact that I didn't exactly realize myself, something that I needed guidance for, but it's a fact all the same. It was something that wasn't exactly noticeable, but it's there and present and once I knew, it was all up in my face.

I smiled despite myself. She liked me. And as more than a friend, I know. It has to be. That would be the only explanation for how she acts towards me. How we act towards each other.

I start to smile harder as I think about it. She likes me. So the other question is do I like her, too?

And I think I do.

This was 3,061 words. I mean, actual story words. Not including the author's note. Be happy. You finally got that 3,000+ word update that I promised a forever ago.

Forgive me for not updating like I should. I'm a horrible person. But I made another story, To Be Sick, to make up for it. It's Nizzy. Not a lot of anything, really, but I think it's okay. Hopefully. Maybe. I donno.

Would you like to review for me? Pretty please? I took a long time of hard work and effort for me to write this for you all! This was seven pages in OpenOffice Writer!

~Voices