I forgot that this chapter happens before the beach. Mallory will head to the beach next Friday...

Song of the Chapter - wHo by ZAYN

"Brrrrrriiiiinnnngggg!"

The bell signaling the end of first period rang, loudly. I hated that bell. It gave me a headache. My seat in first period was right under that bell. And it ringing meant I had to go through the dreaded hallway, to my locker, where Mr. Sally seemed to like hanging out now. Wasn't my day difficult enough without having to deal with him, too?

My morning had already been hectic. I slept through my alarm, again, and had to rush through my typical get-ready-for-school routine. I had seriously told my parents repeatedly to WAKE ME UP if I was not downstairs by 7:00. But they always forgot. And for some reason, my alarm just didn't do the job.

No joke, I had tried everything: putting the volume up, changing it from radio to that obnoxious beeping sound, finding a foreign language station as my alarm, putting it on the other side of the room so I couldn't hit snooze a hundred times. I'm sure that the entire house could hear it every day, but did they come and check on me or yell at me to shut it off? No. See my dilemma. See why I wanted to choke them out every once in a while?

Don't call the cops! I told you, it's just a figure of speech!

The other part of my oh-so-wonderful morning was the wrath of my now grounded bro, Seth. Yeah, he was pissed at me. He gave me his version of my mom's death glare, which I must say was much better than hers. I was actually a little scared. And he wouldn't speak to me. I mean, he didn't usually have much to say to me, but that day his silence was deafening. You know, the kind of silence that was full of hatred and threats of impending doom. Yeah, that silence. Charming.

Just my luck that the day kept getting better. Not. I walked to the hallway to find it as jam packed as it had been the day before. Only this time, Mr. Sally was no where to be found. Yup, he was M.I.A. but guess who wasn't. That's right, his ex-gf, Mia. She was the one in front of my locker. Oh, joy of joys. I was one of the privileged few who would be graced by her presence. Hopefully I would make it out alive.

"Um, excuse me?" Great. Now I sounded like one of the sad randoms trying to get to their locker.

"Well, well, well. Just the witch I wanted to see." Only she didn't say 'witch', but it did rhyme. Crap, what did she want? I figured my chances of staying alive were pretty slim.

"Uh, yeah?" I didn't really want to know what she wanted, however I didn't think I had a choice.

"I know what's been going on." She glared at me.

"Huh?" I didn't. I actually had no idea what she was talking about.

"I know about you and Dylan."

Okay, she was nuts. "I literally have no idea what you're talking about."

"He hangs out next to your locker practically everyday. I know you guys are secretly seeing each other."

Well, that made me LOL. Literally. I laughed, loudly. And tears started to run down my cheeks. I mean, that was by far the stupidest thing I had ever heard. And living with Seth, I had heard some stupid things.

"Are you serious?" I said when I could finally breathe. "He doesn't even know my name!"

"Of course he does!" She spat back at me. "Its...its...um, its..."

Stupid girl. SHE didn't even know my name.

"Wait! I know, it's Sally, right?"

"Wrong." I never thought I would be so happy to be called Sally. That made getting her off my back so much easier. "It's MAL-LOR-Y," I said loud and slow.

"Well, whatever. Stay away from him." She glared at me again and turned away to leave while flipping her long black hair in the process.

Why do those stuck up girls always flip their hair? It never made sense to me. It just made them look dumber than they were. Oh and pretty childish too, like a little kid throwing a tantrum. But that was basically what she had just done anyway. Threw a tantrum.

I couldn't believe she actually thought Dylan would be seeing me. The entire school knew he was seeing that cheerleader, Cailie, as told by the gossip train I mentioned. Why dumb Mia would confront me was a huge mystery. But one thing about it did intrigue me. Somehow she knew about me, my locker, and Dylan's need to stand in front of it. That was definitely out of the ordinary, well for me anyway.

Sadly, after my little exchange with the ex-Mrs. Sally, I had to book it to second period. I just made it once again. That made twice in one week that I was almost tardy. I wasn't happy with that new trend, in fact I was quite UNhappy with it. I might need to avoid my locker in the mornings if that continued.

Second period rolled along in a blur. We were studying again, and again Gina the goth ignored me. My bad for trying to be helpful. By the time passing period came along, I was kind of a wreck. What with Seth in the morning, Mia at my locker and Gina in class, I couldn't take much more verbal lashings or stoney silence.

However, I seemed to have stepped in a steaming pile of bad karma that day because on my way to third period, I bumped into Seth. Literally. So hard, in fact, my books and binder flew out of my hands and all of my loose papers went everywhere.

Great.

Was this the universe's way of giving me payback for getting Seth grounded? I mean, I just mentioned his friends had been at the house. I didn't invite them and break the rules, I didn't leave the kitchen a mess and force my mom to clean it up. What gives?

Seth just scowled at me, then grinned and said, "Loser." Then he laughed and walked off with his friends. At least they didn't laugh along with him. I officially hated him after that little display.

So, I was late to third period because I had to pick up and reorganize all of my belongings. I believe I already mentioned that third period was my favorite. You know, because of Luke. Being late to third period was like stripping me of my happiness. The best part of my day, aside from my walks home while daydreaming about Tyler, was my third period class.

Sitting next to Luke was kind of a dream in and of itself. I realized that he was no longer the focus of my main crushood (that should totally be a real word, by the way) but I still really enjoyed it. He talked to me in class, like we were friends. And even if he never paid attention to me outside of class, except for our project in the library, he never went out of his way to avoid me either. I don't know, I was probably fooling myself about how nice of a guy he was. But at that point, he had never done anything to make me feel otherwise so I just went with it.

As I walked into English Lit, late, I gave a sheepishly apologetic look to the teacher, Mrs. Thurber, and went to my seat. Luke looked at me like "where you been?" and I just shrugged my shoulders. It's not like I could just tell him without getting a stern look from the teacher. And if there was one thing I wasn't, it was a rule breaker. I followed those puppies like the law. Getting yelled at was at the bottom of my to-do list. Well, I guess it wasn't anywhere on my to-do list. Whatever.

I finally got a lucky break that day when Mrs. Thurber announced that the rest of the period would be for us to use as study hall. Any class we needed to prepare for the following weeks exams was fair game. Perfect! Except that by that time, I was exhausted and had no motivation to study anything.

Luke looked over to me and whispered, "Where were you?"

"I dropped all of my stuff and had to reorganize it," I whispered back. No use trying to explain the whole Seth debacle.

"Oh," was all he said in reply.

I went back to "studying." Actually I was faking it. I was really too wiped out to concentrate.

Then Luke looked over at me again. "What are you working on?" he whispered.

Sheesh, he was awfully curious. "Nothing. Too tired. I'm just pretending," I whispered back.

Then Luke took out a piece of paper and started to write something on it. After a few seconds, he handed it to me.

I looked over at him questioningly. He just nodded to the paper and raised his eyebrows up and down. Like he was trying to say "read it"

So I opened it up:

What book are you reading for the final's essay?

It was very strange to get a note from Luke. He never passed notes to me, so it was a little exciting. But I was also disappointed that it was about class. Oh well.

Jane Eyre. What about you? I wrote back. It may have been a boring topic, but it was something new for me to be passing notes, so I guess that was cool. Normally I wouldn't dare to pass a note but Mrs. Thurber had basically given us a free day and practically every student in class was talking quietly or passing notes.

Not sure yet. He wrote back.

What? The test is next week! What are you going to do?

I was hoping you would have a suggestion. Luke wanted me to give him book advice? Definitely strange.

How about Gulliver's Travels. I thought he could get into the battles and stuff. It was kind of like a video game in a way.

You mean with Jack Black? I've seen that movie, yeah, that's a good one. Thanks!          

Oh, boy. I would have to give him some better background information than the Jack Black version. The original didn't have robot costumes and jet fighter pilots.

I think you should at least read the Wikipedia on the original book. It's different than Jack Black. I hoped he would follow my advice, otherwise he would look like an idiot.

Ok, thanks. I will. What are you doing this weekend?

What. The. Heck? I freaked out, internally of course. I kept cool on the outside, but WHY was he asking about my weekend? No one like him EVER inquired about my life outside of class.

Tomorrow I'm going to the beach with some friends. What about you?

My handwriting was a little wobbly because my hands were shaking so bad. My heart was racing but I was doing a pretty good job of hiding my nerves. I seriously couldn't take much more emotional turmoil in one day.

Lillian and I are probably going to the game and maybe a party.

Lillian? The only Lillian I knew was part of the drama group. I didn't know he hung out with her. I wasn't sure I wanted to know either, but chalk it up to morbid curiosity, so I asked.

Lillian?

He didn't write back. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through it, then turned to show me. There, on his personal device, was a picture of he and Lillian from the drama group with his arm around her. She was looking up at him with a dreamy expression. And although I had "moved on" from liking him and realized I would never have a chance with him, my heart kind of broke.

I did my best to plaster on a fakeish smile (again, fakeish should absolutely be a real word). He glanced back at the picture with a smile. Sheesh, he seemed a little whipped if you asked me. I had no idea he even knew who she was.

After that, the bell rang. I think I loved that bell. It saved me from further heartbreak, which I certainly would have had if I heard any more about his love life with Lillian.

The rest of the day was uneventful. I had lunch with my girls, telling them about my horrible morning. And yes, even about Lillian. They were all shocked too, as any besties would be.

I walked home and drowned my sorrows thinking about Tyler and what it would be like to go the beach with him. I imagined sand castles, long walks holding hands, sea shells and s'mores. I felt a little better after that.

Until I got home.

Yeah I forgot about Seth. He was home already, but at least he was restricted to his room. And I would be leaving bright and early for a day at the beach. I just hoped my reality lived up to my daydream.

^^^^^

Oh man, high school crushes, right? I guess heartbreak can happen no matter what precautions one takes.

Here's Luke!

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