Yes, I'm back! So far, school's been good. No seniors have eaten me yet. Also, I've joined the school newspaper (yay!) so hopefully, that'll improve m writing. Also, our volleyball team has yet to lose a match! (And I just used "also" to start a sentence twice in a row. My English teacher would be pretty mad right now...) Great way to start off my high school experience, right?

Also, we're officially over 50 reviews, guys! Maybe I'll reward you somehow. I'll think of something.

And yes, the Stan confrontation is in this chapter, for those of you who've been wanting a Stan smackdown.

The next session passed by in a blur. My sets were already improving, slowly. I was also getting stronger and faster. As much as I would never want to admit it, Dimitri's hard-ass practices were doing a lot for me. I'd probably improved more in the three weeks I'd been training with him than I had in the years prior to it. If he could coach me like that, he could easily lead us at least to state. Beating St. Basil's was another matter, but still...if we won, I owed nothing in student loans.

The only real conversation we'd had was at the end of training. I was, as usual, dripping with sweat. I was also, as usual, trying not to swoon whenever Dimitri so much as breathed.

"Did you study the chart?" he asked, in a tone that told me that he wouldn't be too surprised if I replied in the negative.

"Actually...I did," I replied. He gave no sign of his surprise other than a raised eyebrow.

He nodded at the whiteboard that was mounted on the wall. "Draw it for me."

I managed to draw it with little hesitation. When I finished, I looked up to see him smiling proudly at me.

It was the first true smile I'd really seen on him. Sure, I'd seen his smirks and his little grins occasionally, but a smile? I could probably take that and sell it for a million dollars. Not to mention, he looked really, really good.

"Perfect," he proclaimed quietly, his accent highlighting the word, making my heart swell even more.

I smiled back, happy that I'd finally done something he could truly be proud of.

His smile shifted to a smirk then. "Now when Sta—Mr. Alto tries to pick on your 'lack of knowledge and skill', draw this chart."

I snorted. "Did you almost call the Stan-hole Stan?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, Roza, I didn't."

"Of course you—what's a Roza?"

He turned slightly pink. "It's your name in Russian."

"Oh," I said, thoughtful. I kind of liked the idea of him having a nickname for me.

"I like it, Comrade."

He rolled his eyes. "Go get ready for class, Rose."

The moment I walked into the room, the Stan-hole's eyes sought me out the way a searchlight try to find a target. Once they latched onto me, he grinned. I sat down and quickly glanced towards the back. Yep, Dimitri was there. He gave me a look that said, in equal parts, Remember what I said earlier and This is probably going to be the most amusement I get out of this morning.

Once class started, Stan immediately began talking. "Good morning, class. I hope you all learned something yesterday. Or at least, I hope you remember the basics of the game."

He turned to me. "Miss Hathaway, while I know you have no knowledge on even where to tip, but I do hope you'll figure out at least something by the time the season's over."

I glared at him. "I know exactly where to tip." Alright, so maybe I was a bit out of character. After humiliation like yesterdays, I would have flown a little more under the radar, but I trusted Dimitri.

He grinned like the Chesire Cat. "Oh, really? Then you can show us exactly where to tip on that whiteboard over there."

I shrugged nonchalantly and made my way over. As I did so, I glanced behind me. Mia was giving me a What the hell are you doing, Rose? look, but Lissa wasn't. Lissa could tell I was up to something, and that she'd find out soon. I turned back to the front and met Dimitri's eyes. He had his game face on, but I could detect a hint of amusement behind his unwavering gaze. For all his discipline was worth, he was still human, and therefore could find humor in the huge embarrassment Stan was about to go through. He probably also had figured out the meaning of "karma", once upon a time.

I confidently drew the court and the X's. When I finished, Stan was beet red and gaping like a fish. Pretending not to notice, I began talking, giving the exact lecture Dimitri had given me the night before on the locations. When I finished, I glanced at Stan's purple face. He looked like he was about to have an aneurysm or something.

In all honestly, I had probably drawn more areas than he had known himself.

"Miss Hathaway," he said through clenched teeth, "I don't appreciate it when you guess."

I snorted. "Guess? I didn't guess! I learned it."

"From who? Yourself?"

Asshole. "No. From Mr. Belikov. Ask him yourself."

A hush fell over the class as I made possibly the most miraculous comeback ever from yesterday's smackdown. Stan looked like a very purple, very ugly fish as he gaped at me, opening and shutting his mouth in an attempt to find something else to say. I took his silence as my chance to deliver the final blow via Dimitri.

"He's right there. Go ask him." Stan slowly walked over to Dimitri.

"Is she lying?" he asked him, though everyone knew I wasn't.

"No. I taught her."

Stan slowly walked back, anger clearly written on his face.

"Go sit down, Miss Hathaway. I don't appreciate the fact that you didn't bother asking me and forced your mentor to teach you when he could have been improving other skills."

Jesus Christ, he never knew when to stop.

"I might have asked you," I said slowly, "if I'd thought you would actually teach me, instead of bullying me. And as for forcing Mr. Belikov to take time out of my lessons to teach me, I neither forced him nor did we lose time. He decided to teach me during dinner, when I wasn't playing anyway."

I caught Mia's eye as Stan turned away, unable to respond to that, and she mouthed Burn. As the class awkwardly restarted, I risked a glance at Dimitri to see if I'd gone too far. After all, no matter how much Stan mistreated me, he was still a teacher, and I wasn't sure if I'd crossed a line. Dimitri had his game face on, stoic and unyielding, but I was sure I had detected the faintest trace of a smile on his face.

The news of The Stan Incident had spread like wildfire, and by the end of the day, I had emerged with both school-wide fame and a new nickname. The nickname? Rosie the Riveter, courtesy of the people in my AP US History class who noticed that we were covering propaganda during World War II today.

The news of my new nickname has spread, too. By lunch, Mason had managed to snag a Rosie the Riveter poster for me to tote around. People were shouting "We can do it!" and flexing their biceps during passing periods. Some people had even put bandanas on.

It was really quite ridiculous.

The only person who seemed unhappy with the new turn of events was Camille Conta. Camille was, as I said before, Queen B for Bitch, and didn't seem to like the loss of followers who had migrated to me instead of her. I didn't really like the followers, either, but there was nothing I could do about it. I wanted to tell her that she could have the sycophants back in a heartbeat, but I doubted it would have made a difference.

Also, I didn't like her enough to bring myself to worry about her.

Most of the teachers had even figured out where the nickname had come from, and evidently, Stan wasn't too popular among the other teachers, either, because most of the non-oblivious teachers had given me nods of approval when somebody dropped the "Rosie the Riveter" bomb.

Even Dimitri had figured it out. When I had reported for lessons, he'd raised an eyebrow and said, "Rosie the Riveter?" I'd groaned and said a muffled, "Don't call me that, Comrade!" in response.

By the end of the week, the initial hubbub had died down a bit, but things had changed. Now that the whole school knew my name, I possessed a strange sort of popularity. I stuck with my friends and acted normal, but Camille had grown slightly chillier, and people still flocked around me sometimes. I didn't like it, but I dealt with it as best I could, by simply acting like I couldn't care less.

One positive thing had come out of It, though: Stan stopped bothering me. Sure, he was even more hostile and couldn't keep from glaring at me whenever he got the chance, but he didn't try anything again.

Meanwhile, I had been getting closer to Dimitri. The extra time—not to mention the dinners—with him had forced us to get to really know each other, and even I was surprised at how well we already got each other. Of course, the time he had told me that story about the car crash and Ivan had been such a moment, but as we talked more and more, I had realized that that conversation hadn't been an outlier. We really did get each other, probably more than what was appropriate for a mentor and student. Secretly, the fact that he was opening up to me made me giddy. The fact that he bothered even making small talk made me happy. It should have made me wary, but I couldn't help it. The more we talked, the more I liked him. It wasn't a silly crush anymore. The emotional aspect compounded with the physical aspect made it exponentially more. Of course, this was all one-sided, as far as I knew.

But then there was that one practice.

It was an afternoon practice session, a few days aftwas er Rosie the Riveter was born, when it happened. I had been target setting, and Dimitri had noticed something wrong about the way I was squaring up, and how it was making my hands rush and form weirdly. He'd first fixed my hand shape, and then turned my shoulders towards the target, and then my hips.

I want to point out two things: one, that the moment he touched me, I felt the same familiar spark, and two, when he put his hands on my hips, I felt like I was on fire.

It was nothing compared to what happened next.

I turned my head to look at him and ask if it was right, when I noticed that his head—and, namely, his face—was now very, very close to mine once I'd turned. I could feel his breath on my lips, and if one of us just moved a little...

He inclined his head, leaning in slightly. I did, too. It was electrifying, being so close, and I could see the desire in his dark eyes. They flicked down to my lips once, and we were moving even closer—

At almost the same time, we snapped out of it and leapt apart. Blushing furiously, I took a moment to compose myself. When I looked up again, he had his game face on, conveying no emotion. I was almost disappointed.

But the look in his eyes...there was no mistaking it. Whether it was because he had gotten caught up in the moment, or if it was something else was beyond me, but he had definitely wanted to kiss me. And I...

I had wanted to kiss him, too, like a foolish schoolgirl.

We pretended that nothing had happened, but it wasn't the same. Once more, he had become slightly guarded, and dinner was awkward as hell, even though we'd managed to make small talk.

That night, Lissa was over the moon. Christian had asked her to go to the school dance with him, and of course, she'd accepted. I wasn't quite sure if that meant that they were going out, or if they were still "just friends" even though they obviously weren't, but what did it matter? She was happy.

As I lay in bed, I couldn't get the almost-kiss out of my head, nor could I stop wondering what would have happened had we closed that small little gap.

Yes, I gave Rose multiple nicknames in the same chapter (gasp!), and drama, and a romantic moment! A little action before it all really starts to escalate, no?

I know, I know, Rose was a little meaner than she was to Stan in the book, but then again, I made Stan a lot meaner. I want a black-and-white character, and since I am planning of The Tasha Situation to be incorporated into the story, I wanted her to be a gray area. So Stan is probably going to have to be your main punching bag for now, and we'll see if we can rip on Tasha or not, depending on what I decide to do with her.

Also, I know it's been slow going (ish), but I still need to get a few things in order, and plus, Rose needs a somewhat normal high school experience. Don't worry, the action will begin soon with volleyball, social life, and Dimitri!

So how was it? Good? Bad? There's a little button on the bottom that's calling your name...