Dedicated to blezin-blezed for reading and voting on all my stories. It feels good to have people like her on wattpad.

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"I can't believe I have that chubby thing as my pair partner!" Adam whined for the second time in less than a minute, with a disgusted look on his face. I looked at him quizzically and I couldn't help but wonder why exactly he didn't like the fact that the chubby girl was his partner. It was break time and most of the students, including Peter and the chubby girl, had gone out of the class. Wait, why did my life suddenly revolved around Peter?

"Oh Daniella, please fan me before I burn with rage." He said, fanning himself fast with both of his hands. I looked at him with so much amusement. He was being so dramatic right now and he really needed to calm down. For all I know, he wasn't the only one with a disgusting pair partner here. Disgusting would be an understatement to describe how my partner was. For crying out loud, I was paired with Peter. Peter guys, Peter — the notorious school bully. Wasn't that torture enough for me? But I wasn't acting like a whiny little brat like Adam was, so really he needed to cool off because his case wasn't as bad as mine.

"Why are you so worked up about her being your pair partner anyway?" I finally decided to ask Adam since apparently, pairing him with the chubby girl was that much of a big deal to him.

He flinched, looking at me as though I had just asked the dumbest question in our century. "Duh! Who wants to be paired with Prudence?" He asked in a low voice, as though he didn't want to be heard by the other few students in the class. "Well except for her minions." He rolled his eyes.

"What do you mean by minions?"

"A follower." He replied, but I gave him a clueless look. "Okay see, Prudence is like the baddest girls we have in Pacific college. She's very bitchy and spoilt and she has some group of girls, more like morons, that follow her around. Those girls are called minions. Do you get?"

I nodded my head in affirmation. "I never knew she was bitchy. She actually looks calm and responsible to me."

"Don't let her looks deceive you. Behind that is a very irresponsible, spoilt, sassy, wild... Look, she's bad, that's the point. I really can't imagine myself working with her." He shook his head.

"Yours is better. What about mine? My partner practically hates me for no reason. He takes every opportunity he gets to torture the daylight out of me."

"Who's your partner again? Wait, Peter?"

"Uh-huh. So I think I should be the one complaining here."

Adam snickered, "My dear, you're in trouble."

"I know, right! Is there a way we could change partners 'cause I don't see both Peter and I working together."

"I don't think we can. Mr Korede would never agree for us to, so we're literally stuck with our annoying partners. And just so you know, you're not the only one with a partner that hates you. Prudence, for some reason or reasons, hates my guts and..."

"Why?" I asked, before he completed his statement.

"...I don't know why. But that's her business. I sure as hell know that we're going to be having a lot of quarrels and arguments in this whole partnership thing."

I chuckled dryly, "Anyways, are you going out for break?" I asked, standing up from the chair. I wanted to go to Charles class to apologize to him for my behavior this morning.

"The fact that I went out with you for break the other time doesn't mean I actually go out for break. I don't like it."

"Why? You're shy?" A smile tugs at my lips as I asked.

"Partially the reason." He smirked, "So are you going out to grab lunch?"

"No, I just want to see somebody in the next class."

"Okay. But wait, you're new in this school, so who do you want to see?"

"Just someone I bumped into this morning."

"Your new friend?" Adam asked, smiling toothily. Nosy much? I was already running out of time from answering to Adam's question and I wanted to see Charles before the break was over.

"Adam o! You're asking too many questions." I sighed exasperatedly, turning to leave. "I need to go before the break is over."

"Wait, wait," Adam called, making me stop dead in my track and I turned around to look at him dryly. "Is this person a girl or a boy?" He asked, wiggling his eyebrows and grinning from ear to ear.

"A woman." I chuckled as I walked away from the class through the class back door. Adam had changed a lot from the first time I met him. He was no longer the serious and gentle boy I first knew. With me, he was quite funny, childish, talkative and all in all, interesting. Needless to say, I liked his person.

As I made my way to ss2a, which was directly beside my class, I saw some boys hanging around in front of the class, but a bit far from where I was standing, which was in front of the class front door. They were chatting and cackling animatedly with themselves, so they didn't look my way. I checked to see if I would spot Charles, but I didn't. Instead, I saw the jerk face, Peter.

I rolled my eyes and entered into the class through the front door. Just like my class, there were also very few number of students in the class, perhaps about four or five. I didn't care to count. The few students in the class looked at me weirdly as I got in, but surprisingly, I wasn't shy— probably because they weren't many in the class or because I was now in the school uniform.

My eyes roamed the class for Charles but I didn't see him.

"Who are you looking for?" A dark skinned girl with two tribal marks each on her cheeks asked and I didn't know if it was just me or she actually sounded a bit rude.

"No, don't worry." I said, shaking my head and waving my hand at the same time as I made my way out of the class.

"Nawa o! This one just come person class con dey—" Whatever followed her statement, I didn't hear because I was already out of the class.

Just as I came out of the class, I saw Charles walking towards me, no actually, walking towards either his class or the boys hanging outside his class. He had one hand dug into his trousers pocket and a face towel placed on one side of his shoulders. His eyes met mine and his full eyebrows quirked.

"Hey, were you looking for me?" Charles asked, snatching me out of my inner thought.

"Oh yes." I said immediately, nodding my head like an agama lizard and his brows knitted in a frown, which made him cute. Daniella just shut your eyes from his cuteness and go straight to why you want to see him. "Wait, how did you know I was looking for you?"

"Oh well, I just guessed." He shrugged his shoulders and his two hands were now in his pockets.

"Okay, uh, I just wanted to apologize for being rude to you this morning. I wasn't in a good mood."

He smiled at me amusedly. "I was never angry with you."

"Oh you weren't?" I scratched my temple sheepishly.

"I wasn't." The way he said it made my knee go weak. He was so charming. Wait, no, no, I shouldn't be saying that. First I was admiring Adam and now Charles. It wasn't just right.

"So you were going to tell me something."

"Uh yeah... I, uh..." He all of a sudden became nervous and I noticed him standing on tiptoe and returning his heels back on the ground. If that's what he did whenever he was nervous, then it was so cute.

"Hey guy!" Peter appeared, "Step aside; I want to talk to her." He said to Charles, pointing at me.

Immediately, I scrunched my face in irritation. "Duh! He's talking to me." I snarled. This Peter guy just always seemed to annoy me.

"Guy, get out." Peter ignored me and said to Charles in a quite menacing manner.

"Dude, chillax. I was talking to the babe first." Charles spoke up and Peter lunged at him, causing him to flinch backwards and raising his hands in surrender. Was that how much students feared Peter in this school? I hated it. I hated it so much. How dare he! Who the hell did he think he was?

"Whoa calm down bro. Why your blood dey boil like this? I'd leave, okay?" That said, he spun around and left. I glared at the idiot standing in front of me and I just felt the urge to slap him so hard. Averting his eyes from Charles, he looked at me and I couldn't help but notice how cute and fresh Peter was right now in his new Afro haircut. His light skinned complexion accentuated his jet-black hair. His dark full eyebrows looked like it was just recently carved. It was so neat and somewhat silky. His iris was hazel grey which made it look like he could see right through your soul when he was staring at you. And his lips... Oh gosh! It was pink, full and soft. He had a moustache perched above his upper lip. Suffice it to say that he was so cute. If only he was humane enough...

"What? Why are you looking at me that way?" He ripped me out of my reverie. If only he knew I was actually ogling him, if only.

"What was the meaning of that nonsense?" I asked angrily.

"I want to talk to you." He said, matter-of-factly.

"I don't want to talk to you!" I folded my arms around my chest. "Deal with it!"

"You're now my partner, so you don't have a choice."

"And who mentioned anything about talking to you whenever you want me to, just because you happen to be my partner?"

"Blah blah blah..." He rolled his eyes. "You're talking too much."

"You're such a disgusting bully!" I spat out.

"And you're such a stubborn blabberer."

"I blame myself for even standing here and exchanging words with you." I said and spun around to leave, but he was quick to hold my arm. I turned to look at his hand gripping my arm and I glared at him.

"Leave my arm!" I snarled.

"Can you just stop acting like a spoilt brat and let's talk about our project?"

"We would talk about it when I want to talk about it. Now can you leave me alone?"

"No!"

"Leave me alone you fool!" I shouted and swatted his hand away from my arm. As I walked back angrily to my class, I noticed that we had gathered a few attentions from students and for some reason, I started to feel terrible for calling Peter a fool. That wasn't just me. I wasn't one to hurl abusive words on people and calling Peter a fool made me feel so guilty deep down.

"What happened? You look so mad." Adam asked the instant he lifted his head from the book he was reading and looked at me as I had my seat. I took a deep breath and explained everything to him.

While explaining, the bell rang which means break was over. Students started to troop in— some with their lunch, while others empty-handed. Peter and his cliques were always the last to flounce into the class.

I didn't finish explaining things to Adam when a teacher walked in and another session of boring lessons kicked off. When it was closing hour, the bell went off and most of the students jubilated. They all seemed very excited to go home, including me.

"Lest I forget, you've not returned my civic note Daniella." Adam said, "Are you done copying it till date?"

"Yes, I'm done." I retrieved the note from my bag and handed it to him. "Here."

He collected it from me and I mouthed a thank you.

"Anytime." He replied, "I brought my math note though, just in case you might also want to copy the note from the beginning of the session."

"Of course, I want to. Please lend me."

He took out his math note from his bag and gave it to me. "Please take care of the note. Don't let palm oil or any stain on it, okay?"

I hit him slightly on his shoulder. "Nawa for you o! Don't worry, I'd handle it with care. Haven't you seen your civic note? Is it not like you gave me?"

"Okay, I trust you. Remember, you've not finished gisting me about your ugly experience with Peter during break."

"Oh that's true! Where did I stop?"

****

After I had done all the house chores, I ate the remaining Semo in the pot, with the Okro soup aunty Caro prepared on Saturday. I ate it without any fish or meat because I didn't want any problem from aunty Caro and uncle Henry. I had been playing safe in the house ever since I was accused of theft by uncle Henry.

Once done eating, I went to my room to copy my math note. I snagged my bag from where I had tossed it when I got back from school and I laid on my bed as I took out my math note and Adam's own from the bag. I admired how neat Adam math note was. It was wrapped with a brown paper. I decided to leaf through each page and I saw a neatly folded paper in the middle of the book.

My eyes squinted as I looked at the paper with curiosity. A part of me was itchy to check the content of the paper, while another part of me told me to just mind my business and copy the math note. I decided to go with the latter. As I was about to start copying the note, I turned to the middle of the book again where I saw the paper and I picked it. I couldn't help it. My curiosity was having the best of me, so I unfolded the paper and there was a note written on it. The writing on the paper looked like Adam's. Quickly, I sat up on the bed and read the contents slowly.

Dear diary,

I met a guy today in school and I couldn't take my eyes off him. He is so beautiful to a fault. Diary, I think I have a big crush on him, but sadly, I don't think I can get him to notice me, because I'm a dude. A fucking dude! And from my keen observation, he looks straight. So yet again, I'm still a hopeless romantic. *sobs* Anyways, I forgot to mention that the guy's name is Peter.

What? My eyes widened and my mouth hung open.

I was flabbergasted.

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There you have it guys! Chapter eleven! How was it? In the question and answer session, most of us suggested that I gave Adam more depth and so I decided to reveal a crucial part of him in this chapter. So it turns out that Adam isn't who we all thought he was. Sorry to those already shipping Adam and Daniella.

Quick question: What do you think about the new character that I introduced to the story? That is, Charles.

Please go gaga on this chapter by voting, commenting and recommending. Love y'all.

Bye. 👋