The next day, I woke up to a bumblebee under my head, buzzing away irritatingly and vibrating my head. Or maybe it was my phone. I raised my hand to push it away from my head, but it stopped vibrating, so I decided to spare my hand the effort and fell right back to sleep. Only, the damn phone started vibrating again, then stopped, then started, until I got annoyed with it and decided to answer it with my face still in the pillow and eyes closed shut.

"What?" I didn't even bother hiding my grogginess and annoyance at being woken up this early in the morning. The person on the other end had to have some nerve to call me so many times - people close to me knew that if I didn't pick up my phone the first time, there was a great chance that I wouldn't answer it even at the tenth or answer it in a very bad mood for being disturbed. Of course, this logic didn't apply to mom. Mom would expect me to answer a call even if I was in the middle of a hurricane, or Horry's lectures - not much difference between them, really.

A voice that sounded strangely familiar and pissed off even to my half-asleep brain spoke from the other end. "Emmaline! How fucking long does it take to answer a damn phone!?"

Now, I wasn't a saint, but the use of so much profanity in the morning kind of nearly rankled me - or maybe it was the volume of the voice and its aggression. "What?" was the only response I could think of, as I tried to place that voice somewhere in the number of people I knew in my crazy life.

"I've been waiting here for the past fucking hour! Why did you tell me to come if you were going to snore your way through school today?" This sounded so familiar, like something or someone I should know, for some or the other purpose, but couldn't remember because my sleepy brain refused to wake up and give me any hints. Before I could forget about the inconvenient disturbance and slip back into unconsciousness, the voice spoke again, "I'm giving you five minutes! You don't make it, you walk or crawl or slide your way to school! I don't give a shit!" The dial-tone signifying the end of the call rung loudly in my ear.

I nearly fell back asleep, but something about that threat kept me thinking for a few seconds, until my brain finally connected the dots. School. Ankle. Ethan. Shit.

I flung myself off the bed with the speed of Panicking-Emmaline-Wilson, or at the speed of Horry-Angry-At-Me, and landed painfully on the floor. "Ow!" Rubbing my poor butt, I hobbled across my messy room, pulling off my clothes, brushing my teeth, washing my face - all in one go.

Five minutes later, I stood outside the door, proudly holding everything I needed for school in my hand, and not a hair out of its place - or rather, in my case, all my wild, frizzy hair was out of its place because I hadn't had the time to pull it into its usual tight bun which made it behave properly for the whole day. I hadn't even noticed the clothes I'd worn, since I'd brought Jack (the jacket) along with me to cover up the pitiful state in which my clothes were. I had a bag in my hand, a bunch of books in the other, lunch money in my mouth, and both, my debit card and phone were either in the pocket of my loose pants, or had been flushed down the toilet in my carelessness.

I hopped down the street toward Ethan's car - which hadn't yet (thankfully) driven away - still in my wonderful state of disarray. It took some effort to get there, but finally when I did reach it, it was kind of worth it - not that I got a warm welcome from him (his eyes were the perfect imitation of a brewing storm, and his mouth was set in a straight line, and his all-black clothing didn't particularly help him look joyful) but I kind of smiled when I saw him.

"What the fuck is that?" he said the moment I'd reached his car, his eyes focused on my hair like it was something a radioactive alien had crapped on my head. Admittedly, the wind wasn't actually helping calm my wild hair, but there was no reason to react so much.

I was offended, and opened my mouth to defend it. "My hair, y - shit!" Unfortunately, opening my mouth released the wad of cash in my mouth, which flew out and scattered around me.

His thunder-and-lightening glare only intensified as I dropped my books in my attempts to catch hold of the money, only to realize that there was no way I'd be able to bend down while standing on one foot, so I smiled at him sheepishly, empty-handed, late for school and incapable of carrying my own stuff without making a mess of everything. He sighed at my smile. "Get in the car." He stepped out and began gathering my stuff and dumped them in the backseat. When he saw that I was still standing, he took my bag and threw it in along with my books, before helping me onto the seat.

"This is the last time I'm doing this," he told me, shutting the car door and walking around to get inside and start the car.

"I'm sorry, okay? I overslept."

I could see him roll his eyes. "That's not an excuse."

"I had a good reason for it," I protested, clipping on the seatbelt before he could run the car into another and kill me on impact.

He snorted, but didn't say anything, obviously disbelieving the first truth I'd told him. When I'd hit the accept button last night, it led me to a secured webpage that asked me all kinds of questions: name, age, debit card number, and a bunch of other things. Turning eighteen yesterday and having my own bank account was very helpful, because if I wasn't, I would have had to include my parents in the process - which I wasn't sure I was ready to do yet.

Another lie to add to my list. At least I wasn't doing something wrong, only earning money through completely legal ways. I told him everything that had happened amd gave him my reasons for forgetting school, while gathering my impossible hair strand-by-strand, holding it in one palm and searching for the elastic band to hold it. I was pretty sure I'd put it in my pocket, but I was also sure I'd lost my phone down the flush, and I actually found it in my pocket along with my debit card. Was it possible that it was the elastic band that had been flushed down the toilet? I went pale as Ethan nearly drove past a stoplight, stopping meters away from it - and my uncharacteristic paleness had nothing to do with it. I started searching frantically for it, patting my jacket's pockets, my pant's pockets, then bent down to check if the it had fallen on the car's floor somehow.

"What are you doing?" he asked, all the anger gone after the explanation I'd given him.

I shook my head, still holding onto my hair with one hand while looking through my pockets with the other. "My elastic band," I whined when I came up with nothing in pockets my for the second time.

"Elastic band?"

"You know, the thing that holds my hair together," I explained. The last time I'd lost it at home, I had to go through school with my frizzy hair left free, which was never a good idea. It was so wild that people had to make a huge place around me, just to make sure they didn't run into it headlong or get their hands tangled in it, and by the end of the day, my hair had managed to catch bits of paper, two sharpeners, a small eraser, a pen that was so leaky that half of my hair turned blue, and some chewing gum. It took me hours to get it all out, but my hair stayed blue for over a week, and the chewing gum refused to budge, and that bit of hair had to be cut.

"Okay . . . " he trailed off, still trying to figure out what was happening. "But why are you freaking out so much?"

And that's when I decided that either Ethan was the most ignorant person on earth, or he just didn't use his brain. I let my hair spring free from my hand and turned to glare at him. He looked taken aback by its width and the way it filled out the whole front part of the car. "How the hell do you expect me to go through school like this? The last time, it turned blue, and now I might have to shave my hair off because dear Hannah might just decide to stick a wad of chewing-gum into it!"

He blinked, still confused. "Okay?" It was more a question than a complete and utter acceptance of the superior knowledge of my hair over his. But it would do.

"Yes!" I snapped. "Now drive! I have high school and a terrible day for my hair to attend to!"

He drove quietly for some time, and the car was silent, until the silence was disturbed by my grunts as I tried to pull my hair into a knot of some sorts which would hold up for a couple of hours. I finally gave up, and resigned to playing a sad Taylor Swift song on my phone instead, relating to each and every word she said of her asshole boyfriend who had ditched her, but replacing the 'boyfriend' part with 'shitty hair inherited from my crazy father'. That's when he spoke, probably deeming it safe enough not to get his head bitten-off by me and my hair which had already created a natural, frizzy golden halo around my head. "Taylor Swift? Seriously? And you're actually listening to her old stuff, not even the new which is way better than this Tear Drops on My Guitar bullshit."

I bristled at his criticism of my favourite singer. Oh, he had no idea what he got himself into. "She's awesome, and I love her old stuff, okay?" was my brilliant defense.

He shook his head, turning back to the road and starting the car with a jolt as the stoplight gave a green signal. "No. Not okay. She's terrible."

"Oh yeah? If she's so terrible, why do you know the song's name?"

He didn't miss a beat to declare his innocence in the face of my accusation. "Because she keeps repeating that damn sentence! I didn't think you would be into shit like that!"

"It's not shit! She has a wonderful voice and she talks of a unrequited love! What's so shitty about that?" I couldn't help but realize how I'd let the 'unrequited love' part slip. Although I'd never experienced anything that bad, I did experience something called 'idealising a guy and getting a major crush on him, only to find out that he was a big asshole with no feelings and cares about popularity more than a human' - not much difference from unrequited love, but there was a little.

He snorted, but didn't say anything else, probably sensing that he'd touched a slightly sensitive topic. I didn't bother correcting his assumptions, unwilling to talk unnecessarily and lie even more. The last thing I wanted was for him to find out that Aiden and I had never dated, and that Aiden had managed to hurt me even without knowing me properly.

Again, when the silence grew uncomfortable, Ethan was the one who broke it. "You know what? I'm not going to say anything about your horrible taste in music, but if you ever feel like you've grown tired of listening to what preteens call 'cool', let me know."

I smiled. I didn't know he was capable of making me - or anyone, for that matter - smile. "Fine. If I did, what would you suggest?"

He shrugged, eyes on the road as he struggled not to crash straight into the garbage van in front of us. "Ever heard of Nickleback? They're awesome."

I nearly puked my guts out. "Nickleback? Seriously?"

He glanced at me. "What do you mean?I don't see what's wrong with them." He actually had the gall to sound offended.

"You don't see what's wrong with them? They're considered one of the worst bands in history! Which world are you living in?"

"They're not! Just because you don't like rock doesn't mean no one else does! You can't even appreciate them with all this shitty pop music going around!" he argued.

I shook my head and made a horrified face. "Any song of the most generic pop singer is better than Nickleback! Are you sure you know what you're talking about?"

He opened his mouth to argue, but just then we'd driven into the school, and from the looks of it, I was very late. Almost an hour and a half. "You're in trouble," he said, instead of being ridiculous and trying to fight for the dying band which had never even lived. How they were still active at present had been a mystery to me until I realized that the mystery had been solved - there were still people like Ethan who somehow liked the musical-genocide created by the crappy rock band which doesn't even know which genre it belongs to. I decided to take up this issue later. Right now, I had a late attendance to answer for, and a detention to wriggle out of.

"We'll continue this later," I said dejectedly, reaching to the backseat and stuffing everything into my bag before zipping it up. My hair nearly got stuck in the zipper. "There's no way I'm going to let you win this."

He rolled his eyes. "We'll see." He watched me as I threw the strap of my bag over my shoulder. "You know, I thought it wouldn't be possible for you to look crazier that you already are," his eyes flickered to my wild hair, "but I think I was just proved wrong. It's only crazy people who have hair like that, and don't like Nickleback."

I narrowed my eyes at him, pushing myself out of the car. "I said we'll have this conversation later! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a school to attend, and I'm late."

That made him frown, just a little. "Are you blaming me? You're the one who came late!" he said indignantly.

"Yeah yeah, whatever." I slammed the door shut. "If only you weren't such a bad driver, I would have reached way sooner."

I hobbled away slowly when I saw his eyes growing wide at what I'd said.

"You know I would've helped you with your bag if only you weren't so ungrateful?" he asked me from behind.

I smiled to myself. "School ends at four. Try to get here on time!" I yelled back.

-----------------------------------------------

School was . . . interesting, to say the least. First, I had a scared-looking junior boy chase down Sarah and drag her back to me, because there was no way I'd be able to do any dragging on my own, unless it was my own body that I was dragging. I knew Sarah always had a bunch of hair-care products in her bag, in case she wanted to turn her usually elaborate hairstyle into a different elaborate hairstyle. And she didn't disappoint me. I took two of her strongest elastic bands and tied up my hair into its usual bun. She was more than willing to let me borrow her stuff, and even offered me some hair spray and asked me if I wanted my hair in a 'fish braid'(what the hell is that?). But I declined her offer and thanked her. Then I went to class. Or at least tried to. My tardiness had been reported to the principal. Wonderful.

So, right after I'd dragged my ass (along with my useless leg) up the stairs for my Business Studies class, I was forced to drag it back downstairs to meet the principal. Now, most days, I wouldn't have been in trouble. Greenville let the teachers do the punishing most of the time, unless we had crossed the limit, then it was up to the principal to do the punishing. Apparently, I'd crossed the limit, and achieved more than enough strikes to have the principal take it into his hands.

Well, at least I wouldn't be guilty of having a smooth ride in high school. I'd heard tales of how the principal dealt with late-comers, and they were so fantastic that they either had to be completely true, or the students of Greenville had a lot more imagination than I'd given them credit for.

To be honest, I was a little curios about how exactly the principal - Mr. Chalk (yes, even I wondered if his father had a limestone-fetish ) - would punish me. Most kids were afraid of him, but in the past, I'd rubbed him the wrong way and had so many arguments with him that his enlarged eyes behind those thick round glasses of his didn't have the same effect on me as it did on others.

I didn't bother knocking before entering, and barged straight into something that looked like an important meeting. Mr. Chalk glared at me, but with his barely existent hair, thick white eyebrows, and the jeans and bright polo shirt in which he always dressed up, he didn't look very fierce; he didn't even look remotely fashionable, although he would disagree with both.

"Miss. Wilson! What are you doing here? Were you not taught to knock a door?" His disapproval of my existence was more than obvious. And he glanced at the other man in front of him nervously. Was he an important person?

I smiled as sweetly as I could. "I was sent here for coming late ten times this month."

His eyebrows bunched together as he frowned. For a moment he looked like he wanted to punch me (let's just say he really hated tardiness, and liked dealing with the offenders quickly), then he glanced at the man who was sitting at the desk with his back to me again, and nodded. "Please wait outside. I'm in an important meeting."

"How long do you think it'll take? I want to get back to class, Mr. Chalk."

The other man huffed impatiently, and Mr. Chalk glowered at me. "I'm sure getting to class is very essential to you," he spoke in a sarcastic tone. "But this meeting is important. So please wait outside how ever long you have to."

"Do you think I could go back to class until you're done, then?" If I could escape this now, I wouldn't have to face it again. Mr. Chalk had a good memory, but he also had a lot of work. "If you could just give me a temporary permission slip, I'll be out of your way until you're done with this meeting." I offered.

Mr. Chalk clutched the pen in his palm, turning red by the second. Before he could say anything, the other man spoke up, whose bright yellow hair was the only thing I could see. "Chalk. I'm a busy man. Can we finish this?" Although I couldn't see his face, the malice in his voice was so clear that I was already imagining him with a cruel face. I was taken aback by it, and took a step (or hop) backward.

Chalk glanced at me, his orders clear in his eyes, Get out before I physically kick you out. I retreated to the hallway slowly, but didn't look down.

I had a pretty long history with Chalk, starting all the way from primary school, when I had a huge fight involving crayons and paints and a stupid kid who thought she could try and bully me. When the teachers finally pulled us apart, the classroom had paint splattered on the walls all the way to the ceiling, my face was green and blue with the paint, and I had a crayon chip stuck in my mouth. The other kid wasn't any better. But it instead of green, the other kid had red all over her face, and the teachers just assumed that it was blood, and took the kid and me to Chalk. Unfortunately, the kid was Chalk's niece, and he tried to blame the whole thing on me, even though I wasn't the one who threw the first paint. My parents came to school that day to meet Chalk and heard me out before having a two-hour fight with him about bullying. They also had Chalk call up the other kid's parents and clearly told them what they thought about their daughter bullying me and the others kids just because she was related to the principal. The parents were offended, but there was nothing they could do with hard facts staring at them, and begrudgingly agreed to take more care of the girl. The next year, she didn't come back to school.

Fights weren't the only part of my history with Chalk. There had been a time when my report cards were so good that Chalk had to acknowledge me. But that didn't last very long, and Chalk always remembered me as the rebellious girl who fought him at everything.

Nearly half an hour later, the other man stepped out of the office quickly, head bowed and typing deftly on his phone. I rolled my eyes and hopped into the office. Chalk had a smile on his face, one which turned into a frown when I entered.

"So, what seems to be the problem, Ms. Wilson?" His tone was patronizing, and he adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, trying to look smart.

I dumped my bag on the floor and sat down on the chair without an invitation. There was no way I was going to stand like a petulant child with attitude problems while he sat in that dignified fashion of an adult. "I was late for the tenth time this month," I explained.

An irritated look came over his face. "You know we don't excuse tardiness, don't you?"

"Yes. I do."

"Do you happen to know the punishment for it, Ms. Wilson?"

I shook my head. "No. Not really." Senior year was the only year in which I crossed the limit.

He sighed. "Well, in that case, I will have to call your parents and explain to them why you're being suspended from school for three days."

My eyebrows shot up. "Three days of suspension? For coming late?"

"Of course. That's the rule."

My eyebrows went higher. After the crayon-incident, Chalk made it a point to mess up my life as much as possible. And I had a feeling this was one of his attempts. I decided to fight him outright instead of beating around the bush. "Okay. But don't you have to inform my parents first? Isn't that the rule?" I said.

He stared at me for one long minute, then nodded. "it is. And don't worry, Ms. Wilson, we will."

I leaned back on the chair, and frowned at him. There was no way mom or dad were going to accept this. They'd had so many clashes with the principal that they simply did not listen to him he tried to say anything against me. This would have been a problem if Greenville was a proper public school, but it was actually a private school which turned partially public after the original owner (Victor's dad) ran for Mayor, and chose to leave behind most of his businesses. He still owned a large part of the school, but Greenville was considered a public school. That's one of the reasons we had boxing and a bunch of other sports that aren't really common in other schools. Greenville had a good reputation, but terrible teachers and practically no rules. The reputation was only there because it was known that Victor's dad was a student here before he went on to become a successful businessman and now a Mayor - when his dad owned the school. And as much as I hated this school, its reputation would hopefully be enough to get me to a good college. And also, as Ethan said, there wasn't a better school around in this town.

"So, three days suspension for coming late?" I asked him, preparing myself for a fight.

Looking defensive, he said, "As I told you before, that's the rule, Ms. Wilson."

"In the beginning of the year, I was given a rulebook. You know, the rules that have to be followed in school. It doesn't say that coming late earns a three-day suspension," I said, trying to sound innocent and curious, instead of arguing with him.

He bristled at my question, irritation clearly winning over his composure. He wanted to make things bad for me, and the thought that a student would actually argue with him didn't sit well in his stomach. Chalk was known for being biased and partial to students. If it was a student he hated, that student would get a bad punishment. If it was a student he liked, that student would be let off scot-free. There was no way I was going to let him do whatever he wanted with me. "Okay. What does the rulebook say then, Ms. Wilson?" he asked me finally, still trying not to strangle me for my attitude.

"One week's worth detention," I said, shrugging. When Chalk had kicked me out of his office for his 'important' meeting, I'd picked up my copy of the school rulebook (which I hadn't even looked through before this), and found out that a one-week detention was the maximum anyone could do for tardiness. If only Chalk hadn't kicked me out, he would've had the upper-hand.

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he just sighed and nodded because he knew I was right. "One-week detention it is, then. I must have forgotten." He took a slip of paper, wrote something on it, and handed it to me. The paper had seven boxes, each which needed to have signatures from the person taking care of the students in detention.

I took the paper and threw it into my bag. "Thanks, Mr. Chalk! I'll see you next week!" Then I hobbled out of the room, grinning. There was no way the detention could be implemented. All I had to do was talk to Horry. He hated it when his students got detention, and there was no way he'd let me spend even half-an-hour in a boring classroom when I could be punching a bag.

It would be funny watching Horry and Chalk in one room arguing about a girl they hated, especially since they hated each other.

Author's note: Hey! It's been a long time! I know! But I wrote this chapter so many times, and I'm still not very proud of it, but I don't know exactly what to fix. So I thought I'd just put it out there! Please let me know what you think! :) I know I'm a terrible at having a schedule or updating properly, but it's not something I can help. As you can see, I'm still an immature amateur writer, with a not so good vocabulary, and thoughts that go everywhere! :) And also, does anyone else know about Nickleback? For some reason, people hate them (no idea why), so I thought I'll just use them here! :) By the way, I changed the cover. Let me know what you think about it!

And just because you guys are awesome, this book now got a rank! Its highest: #66 in humor! Thank you so much!

Cover credits: andywilliams_

Thanks for reading! :)

Cyan.