𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖆𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖘 𝖒𝖚𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖋𝖆

I knocked on Mrs Gordon's door, sending her a cheeky grin when she ignored me. "Mrs G."

"I'm failing you Miss Mostfah, I promise I am," she told me whilst aggressively marking the sheets on her desk. I put my stapled work on her desk and slid it to her slowly, as if giving meat to a wild animal. "And what is this?" She raised an eyebrow at me.

"Today's assigned work," I stroked the paper, "Freshly printed in Times New Roman just the way you like it."

"You mean the work I assigned in the class you were not in?" She snatched the paper and ran her sceptical eyes over it.

"I know I'm a prophet," I began, leaving her class before she could ask any more questions, "Who knows? Maybe that's my gift," I winked at her, "Knowing exactly how to pass your class."

A grin was left on my lips as I practically skipped down the halls, looking down into my laptop bag to look for my phone, but the smile immediately vanished from my face when I looked up and saw that the Principal was heading in my direction. Immediately turning on my heel I began to walk in the opposite direction hoping to the Gods that he hadn't seen me, but just my luck.

"Miss Mostafah!" He said in the most cheerful voice, which only made me internally groan as I forced a smile on my face and turned around.

"Principal Damon," I tried to look as in a rush as possible so that he could quickly let me go, but once again, no such luck.

"I was actually just looking for you," He said grimly, "Your pupils said they hadn't seen you all morning so I thought you had, had an accident and were at the infirmary so I rushed there to check if they'd admitted you but you weren't there either."

We could both see where he was going with this, "Forgive them, they probably missed me in class." Now we were staring at each other, his disbelief over my last statement and my disinterest over whatever next he had to say.

"Well now, that I have managed to catch you, I wanted to speak to you about something important," He pulled out a piece of paper and when he saw that I made no move to take it from him he began to read it instead. "It's a form that was filled out by one of the students in your form, seeking a tutor."

I feigned interest, "Really? Hope they find one."

"That's where you come in actually, I was hoping you'd be interested in tutoring them, just so they can pass finals and graduate like the rest of you."

I slipped my phone into my pocket and took the form from him and nearly laughed at the name I read at the top. "You want me to tutor Angelo Bianchi?" I snorted, moving to hand the paper back to him, "Let's just say the short answer is a no."

"But I need a yes, Miss Mostafah, the same one I said when the DSOS sent me an email asking for a letter of recommendation for you," I felt a small smile crack my lips at his change of tactics. Blackmail. "And of course, I can send them a stellar report dressing you down as the star student of this school with a brilliant mind, but I need you to work with me here."

I read through the paper more thoroughly, sighing at the four subjects he needed help with. "And you said till finals?" I confirmed, eyeing him warily.

"Not a second more."

"When can we put together a schedule?" I finally accepted, folding his form and sliding it underneath my armpit.

"I can meet with the both of you tomorrow bright and early before class starts, don't be late," He told me, but it sounded more like pleading to me. With nothing left to say to him, I moved past him to continue going where I was headed originally. "Oh, and Miss Mostfah? You know I would appreciate it if you did something with your hair that was within the hair regulations."

"I'm sure you would."

It was too early to be awake o'clock and me and the worst thing to crawl out of the Mediterranean were sitting in Principal Damon's office.

"Mr Bianchi, you will meet Miss Mostafah in the library after classes, twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays-

"But I signed up for three sessions a week," He argued, the sweat from this morning's volleyball practice gathering up on his frowning eyebrows. He was cute, in a mermaid sort of way.

Like if a dolphin made a wish to become human.

Most people didn't know this, but Angelo got sexy very recently. He came back from home one summer and suddenly he was tanned, toned and tall enough to nearly jump over the volleyball net.

The Angelo I used to know was awkward, famous for his temper and his refusal to take no for an answer. It made doing anything with him almost unbearable, he wouldn't share, refused to apologize and got aggressive whenever someone did something he didn't like.

But he traded in his anger issues for washboard abs and had a grin that distracted you for long enough to realise he never did actually learn how to be a human being.

"And I would sooner bash my own head into this very table than ever agree to anything more than two," I retorted, leaning back into the pale grey seats in the principal's office.

"Miss Mostafah!" Principal Damon gasped.

Angelo's dark eyes shot to glare at me, it was an attempt at looking menacing but he was a pretty boy with a soft face and eyes like a baby deer. If anything, he looked adorable. "If she can't give me what I want, then why is she here?"

Damon opened his mouth, but I cut in before he could reply, "Because you're failing four out of the seven subjects you take," I tilted my head, "You wouldn't know this, but that's almost sixty percent."

"Principal Damon," Angelo bit out through gritted teeth, "Give me someone else."

He sighed, leaning back into his fair, "Unfortunately Mr Bianchi, I cannot do that, we have thoroughly exhausted all of your options and I feel as if being under Miss Mostafah's eye will help you best."

"Is there anyone? Literally anyone else?" He begged.

"Anyone at all," I reiterated.

"Hmm let's see," He brought out a stack of papers and began to flip through them, "Miss Jolie, you slept with her, Mr. Jackson, you slept with him, Miss Rogan slept with," He went through every paper, "Slept with her, slept with her, slept with him, beat him up and then slept with him-oh wait!" This caught Angelo's attention, "Nope, you were caught sleeping with her too," He looked up from the papers, "Are you seeing where I'm going with this Mr Bianchi?"

I shook my head, kind of impressed, "Way to keep it in your pants, Bianchi."

Angelo looked far from ashamed, "So what? You think I can't get her too?"

"Miss Mostafah is many things but fortunately for me, she is famously unimpressed with people like you which means that you might actually learn something from her," he expressed grimly, "I wouldn't have brought you in either Miss Mostafah if I didn't believe you were completely up for the task."

I nodded, "You almost made that sound like I offered to do this."

The principal turned to me, "We as the staff also believe this," He waved his hands in the air, "Bit of socializing might be beneficial to you too. We are all worried that you have grown up to be quite the," He narrowed his eyes as he searched for the word.

"Loner," Angelo coughed obnoxiously.

Damon ignored this, "We do not know how else to help you and perhaps this would help you out a bit more when you get a job and integrate yourself into the workplace."

"That's funny," I noted.

"It's funny that we care about you?" He questioned, looking rather upset that I'd shit on his little 'power of friendship' speech.

"No, it's funny that you think I would ever need a job."

His eye twitched and I could even hear a silent snicker from Angelo beside me, "Trust me when I say we all are aware of how wealthy you all are in this school," He shot a mocking look to Angelo, "But his mommy and daddy have threatened to sue the school if he fails another time and yours," he looked me up and down, "Aren't here to defend you so do you know what that means?" He asked us sweetly like we were dogs, "Get out of my office."

We were both only three steps out of the office before I once again heard the agitating sound that was his voice, "Hey Versailles, you dropped this!"

I had barely turned around before I had a hand pressing a thin piece of paper to my chest and a smiling Italian holding it there. When I turned the paper to read it however, I quickly realized that it absolutely did not belong to me. "Oh, I wish I could," I patted his cheek with the piece of paper, "But I'm studying tonight."

"C'mon Castle it's the first week of the last term we're at this shithole," He grinned, "Haven't seen you at one of Curtis's parties before so I thought I'd invite you personally."

The writing on the paper had gotten slightly smudged from the sweat I'd wiped off his tan skin, but the address was still written clear as day, along with a time that was written in an incorrect tense.

"I was shitting on you the entire time we were in there," I reminded him just in case he forgot, I know how hard it was for boys to think with hair gel on, "And now you want me to come to your little party?"

"You were serious about that? Thought we were just having fun," He began to walk backwards away from me, "And besides, you're hot."

He winked at me as he finally ran off to the sound of the bell and I would've kept looking at him with disbelief if I hadn't locked eyes with Cher, who was standing by her locker openly staring at me.

All her books were already in her white leather backpack, but she didn't look bothered until the sound of the next bell when she finally shot me one last heated look and turned on her heel to stalk off to class, her hair swaying behind her.

Weird.

Folding the details between my fingers, I went the opposite way to get to my class too, I hadn't ever thought of attending one of Curtis's parties since the last one I went to was rather...yeah. If I wanted alcohol, I would just raid Ace's stash and if I wanted bad company, I would go to my gym class, it was really that simple.

Cher was usually on my wavelength about that. Even now, I looked back to see if I could catch a second glimpse of her before she disappeared down the hall completely, but she was already gone.

I wonder if she went to parties now, I mean I wouldn't be surprised if she did, it was kind of her friend group's whole thing and if she was the queen of this school Curtis was definitely the king so it wasn't like she was starved of invites.

This made me realize that I hadn't seen Cher out of uniform in a long time, I had no idea what type of clothes she even wore now. When we stopped being friends, she went to my dorm to take her toiletries and important stuff out, but she'd left a bunch of her clothes which when I returned I started wearing as if they were my own.

I even used one of her old t-shirts as a pillowcase from time to time because it was super soft.

Even as I sat in my classes for the day, I thought about just going, I mean, it wouldn't hurt, right? And I would just not drink anything that wasn't in a bottle or a can to avoid whatever happened last time.

Principal Damon might be a pathological ass-kisser and a greedy sellout, but maybe he was right about the lack of socializing thing. Maybe I had become a loner, so used to everyone I showed interest in being more interested in Cher, so I ended up just leaving it completely.

I'd even gone complete weekends without talking to another soul and I never thought twice about it.

But maybe things could change.