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Chapter 4 - Last Night || Cassidy's POV

"Tell me," Clarissa insists.

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's your fault that you left me alone at school."

"Well, it's not my fault that my mom suddenly asked me to babysit Lucas."

"I know," I say finally, leaving out a sigh.

"Tell me, please," she pleads.

"Not in a good mood right now," I say. I look at my ceiling as I talk to my best friend at the phone.

"Fine, just because I feel bad for letting you down but tomorrow you're going to tell me."

"Bye," I say, leaving her to say good night then I hung up on her.

I look at my ceiling again and trying to figure out what happened earlier with Xavier. He was being creepy by whispering behind me. There was a bit of sting on my body but it was disgusting.

Plus, I couldn't believe I even joined the mess the guys did, I mean, seriously, a paint fight? Not cool. I couldn't let this thing ruin my hard work for making a good reputation to enter a very good college. What about the thing with Connor that I felt when I punched his arm? Why did I feel my cheeks heated up? I'm just being a normal teenage girl. I don't like this. I mean --

Suddenly my cell phone vibrated. I realized then that I was thinking about the guys, I can't believe that I was even thinking about them. What am I thinking? Thank goodness I was interrupted by a text.

19.05. Unknown : Sorry.

I sit up straight and think back who this person might be and why is that person apologizing? Before I can think of anything else, I reply back.

19.06. Me : Do I know you?

I pressed send. There. Then my cell phone buzzed again. See, problem solved, I smile at myself as I open the message.

19.06. Unknown : Sorry, didn't introduce myself. - Connor.

My eyes got wide then I thought of something reasonable on how he could have my number. I mean, the only people who know my number are my friends. No one that Connor's a friend of. Especially since he's an enemy. I narrow my eyes, making sure that someone is not planning something against me.

19.08. Me : How do I make sure that you are really Connor and you're talking to the right person?

19.09. Unknown : I drove you home.

19.09. Me : Not enough proof, although I am not saying that you're correct.

19.10. Unknown : You were bad at giving directions.

19.10. Me : No, I'm not! You're just a bad driver.

19.11. Unknown : Now you know it's me and I know it's you.

As soon as I received his text, I realized what I had just done. I just made a conversation with Connor, and we're quite-arguing. 

I sigh in relief that everything was back in normal and removing the thoughts I just made earlier about blushing and stuffs. But I'm texting a guy who is not even one of my best friends!

I quickly added the number to my contacts and replaced the name Awful Driver. There. I feel better that he doesn't deserve a good name in my contacts.

19.13. Me : Okay, I believe you.

19.14. Awful Driver : Good. So, do you accept my apology?

19.14. Me : For what?

19.20. Awful Driver : For what I did.

19.23. Me : You did a lot of things against me.

19.23. Awful Driver : I only want to apologize for talking back at you at the playground.

19.25. Me : The one where you invited me to join bullying the kid?

19.26. Awful Driver : Yes.

19.26. Me : Your apology is not accepted.

19.27. Awful Driver : I just told you I am apologizing and you're not even going to consider on accepting it?

19.29. Me : Unless you apologized to the kid first.

19.30. Awful Driver : Never mind, I don't see the whole point of this conversation.

19.30. Me : Then don't have too much expectation.

That was how our conversation ended. Maybe he's still the jerk I thought of him but less evil than the others. 

I slouch back at my bed, noticing that it was already dawn. I went to change my clothes and when I return, I can see few lights coming from my window. 

I go towards my window and see the sun rising. I sit at the floor, just staring at the sun as it give colors to the blue sky. Gone is the lifeless clouds, it is now filled with yellow and orange. 

I admire the view until I yawned for the nth time. As I enter my bed, I was quickly driven from the reality. But before I did, I reminded myself to change the answer I said to Mrs. Ross.

I like sunrise more than sunsets.

"Ausdh adns sdin-"

"Finish what you're eating first before talking," my mom scolds. To me, specifically, while she cleans the dishes. Sometimes mom helps Sasha cleaning the house, but only when she has time, like right now.

"Sorry. I'm probably going to get home late again tonight. Got some stuffs to do," I say, not wanting Mom to ask my whereabouts again later.

"Okay," my mom says understandingly.

The only times I get to see my parents are late at night or very early in the morning.

"I got to go, bye Mom!" I wave her goodbye and walk towards Clarissa's car which she kept on beeping for the seventh time and counting.

"Chill out, the entire neighborhood would wake up if you keep on doing it," I say as I sit on the front seat. I look at Clarissa and notice how she has a better mood today than yesterday, well that makes one of us.

"Faster, faster. Now tell me your story last night," she says excitedly. 

Oh, now I understand.

I push my hair back and take a deep breath. I hope my mom wouldn't ask me again about why I'm going home late. I mean, it's a normal thing to do of a teenager no matter how hypocrite I am now, right? 

"I never agreed on telling you about it," I reply back with a smug.

"Tell who what?" Reese asks, looking all so innocent, diverting his attention from his phone.

"Oh, on how Cassidy spent the night going home alone," Clarissa informs him. I can now see Clarissa's worried voice as she covered it with her usual happy voice.

"Night? Alone? I didn't know it would took you very long until it was dark to finish up cleaning," Reese asks, I can see that his eyes are filled with concern, then I started feeling guilty. His eyes are on me while his hand froze on his phone.

"I was home safe, last night. That's the important thing," I say, trying not to fill much of information.

They both look unconvinced and I know that anything is better but tell them what happened last night. "Just say it," Clarissa says eagerly. Reese was now looking at me curiously as he waited for me to say something more.

"No. Now, go back to driving. I want your full attention to the road, I don't want to die young," I say with finality. Clarissa didn't fight back, knowing what I said is true. She muttered something but I didn't catch it.

I raise my eyebrow, not understanding what she said.

"She said fine," Reese says nonchalantly, understanding my curiosity.

Oh. "Thank you," I sing.

"The pleasure is mine," Reese says while bowing his head towards me and acting all royalty. Soon, all of us laughed at him and the non-existent-tension-of-pressuring-me-to-tell-my-story was gone.

The ride to school was the same as usual, a bit of angry comebacks and some sharing of love here and there.

"Book report. Romeo and Juliet. Recitation test tomorrow," Mr. Cabrera, our English Literature teacher says. Or order, more likely.

I roll my eyes. "No kidding."

I heard some sighed and muttured some things but weren't loud since Mr. Cabrera isn't the most pleasant teacher.

"As expected. This was the same book reported since the 90s," Clarissa mentions in agreement.

"Stop with the sarcastic mode and the facts," Reese says, not amused with me and Clarissa talking in classes because we always almost ending up getting suspended every time we talk at the same time with the teacher. Almost.

"Ssssshh," Sheila, who is sitting behind us, hushes. Knowing that nobody would want to make Mr. Cabrera angry because rumor has it that a kid disrespected him and he even got that little kid expelled. No one dared to do anything against him since then. Just a bad ass like me with her best friend, quietly sneaking out to talk to each other while the others are half asleep and half staring at the front.

"Did I just hear whispering?" Mr. Cabrera looks suspiciously at the class.

We all shake our heads, not wanting any suspension, let alone expulsion.

The time went on and on. Too slow, I must say. It is the most boring time I have in my first few days at school.

Tik tok. Tik tok.

Finally, the bell rings and we all go out with euphoria. "Finally," I say out loud as I roll my eyes.

When I went out of class, I saw Asher pulled the other guys out from our classroom after the bell rang and said something to them. His face was quite serious, probably not about parties and girls.

They all released a sigh and just nodded then Asher started to motion his head towards my direction. It's an understatement if I say I was shocked when all six of them, a.k.a. my partners in slavery, looked at me. 

I look back at them, giving them one of my unmerciful look before they do something terrible. 

They all start to fight about something and I was both confused and amused at why they were looking at me and then arguing about something. They are a few feet away from me so I'm still in the safe station.

I was finally back to reality when I feel the presence of my friends. "Dude, don't stare at them. If looks can kill, probably they would have been buried ten feet below," Reese says as he pushes our way out.

We all walk towards our tree and before I reach Clarissa and Reese, which are ahead of me now, to the tree, someone called my name.

And I wasn't happy to talk to chat with that person.

I turn around and see Xavier calling me out, but not loud enough for the whole school to hear.

"What?" I hiss, not wanting Clarissa and Reese to see me talking to him. 

Xavier has this calm and expressionless face as he says, "The Principal wants to see us after lunch." 

I just massaged my temples before nodding in agreement.

"Do I have a choice?" I say and turn around, making my way to the tree, not wanting to think about doing anything until after lunch. I don't know if he walked away - which he probably would - but I don't really care about anything now. All I care about is nothing should be in between food and me.

"Hey," I greet them as I sit down on the middle. Both of them give me questioning looks. 

"What's up with you talking to him?" Clarissa asks. She raises her eyebrow as she takes a bite of her salad.

I let out a big sigh. This is much more than I expected my junior year will be. 

"You know, meeting with Mr. Ricarpo after lunch," I say. Just as the thought of not wanting to remember it, I then have to say it to them. I take out my sandwich from my bag that I bought in the morning and start eating it.

"Well, don't be so gloomy. You'll be out of his hands in no time," Reese assures me then bites on his burger.

Yeah, right. We all know that that was not the case. But it was nice that he makes an effort to make me feel a tiny bit better, holding on the rope of hope that I will get out of the dungeon of slavery soon.

"Thanks anyway. Do you happen to know why William Shakespeare can't use normal words instead?" I ask them while holding out Romeo and Juliet.

"Take a seat," Mr. Ricarpo says as we all enter the office. 

Quickly, I sit on the couch before they have the chance to take the whole space. I give them a smug look and they give me unamused looks. After a short fight and making dibs on who is going to seat at the couch, it was Nick who sat at the chair. Poor Nick, sitting near to Mr. Ricarpo. I just smirk at him, letting him feel the pity.

"Okay, after class, you guys will be in need to clean the art class again. Today is the last day of art class for this week so might as well not mess up because that's how it will look like until next Monday," Mr. Ricarpo says while looking at us in the eyes.

We all nodd in agreement. We really don't have much of choice. 

Really.

It was a forced one for me to even agree on this but I remember that this can be handy when turning against the guys. 

"You guys could always say no and I could just go back to calling your parents --" But Mr. Ricarpo was cut off by a lot of guys saying 'okay' and 'fine.'

"We could?" I question. I knew about this but I was just testing them. I smirk at the guys as I look with interest at Mr. Ricarpo. A bit of tease is fun. The guys suddenly give me cold looks and someone whispered at me.

"Don't try us, Cass," Xavier says lowly, murderly. Only my friends call me Cass and Xavier is not one of them. Not even close to as friends. Total opposite of it. 

"Name is Cassidy. Not Cass," I growl at him.

I can feel all of their eyes and pressure on me. Mr. Ricarpo looks at me with a questioning look and I just look away from his gaze and look at the picture frame behind us.

Oh, it's a horse. I never noticed it. It's weird that the horse only has three legs and those --

"Okay, you may go now," the Principal dismisses us.

"Looks like you will need to use back-up later," Jack says behind me.

"Huh? Why?" I question, not understanding.

They just all smirk at me and I was left there, all alone, still thinking the worst that could happen.

"Clarissa! Reese! Help!" I say, panting my breath before they could leave me. Again. But this time, I'm aware of it.

"What's up?" Reese waves at me.

"I need you guys," I say. I put my hands on my back and pant.

"We'll give you time to continue. Breathe," Clarissa says as she pats my back.

"I think I'm going solo for cleaning the art club," I admit.

I take a look on my friends who I know will be my superheroes later on. "Cass, pfft, I don't think those guys would really leave you poor girl alone," Clarissa says, I can see that she's trying to be confident but I know that she's not even quite sure at what she was saying.

I glare at them, they know what the guys are capable of. "Well, they do that to other girls and treat them worse," I add. We all know that, that's why I'm here when nobody is brave enough to face them.

"It depends if she's a girl to a guy's point of view," Reese mutters but enough for me to hear.

I pinch his ear and ask him, "What did you say? I didn't hear you."

"Nothing!" he says in pain while trying to shove away my hand. I ignore him and remove my hand from his ear.

"So, can I count on you guys?" I ask them, more like plead them. I don't want to clean the whole mess alone.

"Fine," Clarissa says. "but in one condition." She smiles evilly at me.

"Anything," I say in exasperation. I probably look like a desperate fish for water.

"You get to tell the me what really happened last night," she challenges me.

I bit my lip, wondering if it was even a good offer. Maybe I can back out on this and just tell the Principal that the boys are ditching. It's not like I'm not okay with the Principal telling my parents like they do.

"Do I also get to know the story?" Reese asks us. I'm still having a debate on whether to tell the Principal or ask my friends for help so I just ignored Reese.

"If you come." Clarissa puts out her tongue to him.

"Fine," I say finally. I think I'm just going to use this as my blackmail to the guys some other time. Besides, it's rare to have things against them, especially when I saw their horrified faces when Mr. Ricarpo mentioned 'parents'. They are probably the kind of people who actually cared of what their parents might do to them - probably no party and curfew at nine. I'd like to see that.

"Good! Let's go!" Clarissa says as the three of us make our way to the art class. 

Looks like someone's enthusiastic. We were all laughing and throwing insults to each other until I showed them the art classroom and opened the door for them to see.

Then I heard a loud screech scream.

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a u t h o r ' s   n o t e : 

Things are about to get heated up!! ;)

Picture above is the street that Cassidy's afraid to go out alone -->

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P.S. S-M-I-L-E! :) 

"A smile is happiness you'll find right under your nose." - Tom Wilson