Chapter 3

-Juniper's POV-

I was late for school, or I would've been if Kavi hadn't dragged me out the door with a piece of toast in my mouth. I had been up late reading and talking to Kavi about what happened earlier in the day. It got to the point he was begging me to be quiet so that he could go to bed. Unlike my family, Kavi's was incredibly strict when it came to rules.

"You are not making me ruin my perfect attendance record," he told me as we ran to school. "I've worked far too hard to die because of a simple letter 't'."

I struggled to speak as I took the toast from my mouth. "Don't be so dramatic." I took another bite of toast. "You could always go without me; I'm not stopping you."

"Ever since we started here, it was as though I was your parent. The teachers paired us together. Heck, do you know the amount of times this year I've been called 'Mister Berry'? Or 'Kavi Berry'?"

I choked on the bite of food in my mouth. "Seriously?"

"Twice, which is a surprising amount considering we look nothing alike, are different species, and haven't had a class together in the past two years." I was going to point out that he was using a meme, or at least attempting to, but he continued. "Point is, it is my responsibility."

"Not even my parents are this eager to make sure I have good attendance," I said with a sigh.

"That's a discussion for another day. Eat your toast." He slowed to a fast walk.

"Yes dad," I teased.

He gave an unimpressed huff, but a smile crawled onto his lips. He was always the more responsible one, it was just who he was. At least there was someone who cared about my attendance.

"Just let me go to my locker," I told him as we reached the gates.

He groaned but gestured in its direction. "I won't stop you; we have two minutes before we gotta be in tutor though."

I rolled my eyes and headed to my locker. "I can literally see the door from here." I opened my locker and took out three books, a bottle, and my pencil case. I looked over my shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of light brown hair, but Canta was nowhere in sight.

"You'll see her first period I'm sure," Kavi said. "Can we please go in?" He kept looking from me to the open door across the corridor. "Even Paula's in there."

"Seriously?" I asked, stopping what I was doing. "That's a first." Paula was known for being the only student you could guarantee being late. "Maybe it's opposite day?"

"I don't care if it's some sort of made-up social convention or not." Kavi grabbed my arm and finally began to drag me towards the door. "We're here. Thank God we're not late."

"You thank him a lot," I pointed out as we moved to our seats. We always sat in the middle row. I would've preferred to be in the back, whilst Kavi would've preferred to be in the front row. We compromised with the middle.

Our attention was grabbed by our tutor, who went over the very boring school news for the day. It was nothing more than discussing what we all had to work on this week as a school.

After the two minutes of being talked to, we were allowed to discuss whatever we liked. The bell rang what seemed to be two minutes later. Then we had to face the music.

"Call and response, good," my music teacher said and clapped her hands. We were doing a small test, which I couldn't be bothered paying attention to. Music was something which interested me, but we learned about these things two years ago.

I took a drink, making a face at the taste once again. I'd been drinking it all morning, reeling back in disgust every time. It was the only drink I had on me, but it tasted like perfume.

My bottle made a remarkably loud noise on the table, causing several people to turn and look at me. One of those people was Canta. She didn't look as calm and collected as she usually did, which I attributed to the stress of the upcoming exams. Her hands were balled into small fists and there was a fire in her eyes which wasn't usually there.

Not much stood out to me, until I exited the room behind her, and she was leaning against the wall, her gaze piercing me. After what happened yesterday, I wasn't sure if I wanted to be the subject of her gaze. I'd been wanting it for years, but now I was hesitant.

"Hey Juniper," she said casually. "I was thinking maybe we could do some English this afternoon. Maybe we could meet in the library at lunchtime?"

I bit my lip, frozen in between a mix of shock and indecision. "The library at lunch?" I repeated. "I think I could do that." I tugged on my bag strap, making it a bit more comfortable to hold.

"Perfect," she said and turned around. She looked over her shoulder at me, her hair falling down her back. "You're looking cute today." Then she walked away, Loche Fisher meeting her at the end of the hallway.

Kavi was at my side in a flash. "Well done," he said with a grin. "Now, if you call me at nine o'clock tonight fangirling about the meeting, I'll hang up on you."

I huffed and took another sip of the dreadful drink. "I won't, you'll walk me home from school."

Kavi took the bottle from my hands and sniffed it. "That smells like alcohol," he declared and eyed me suspiciously.

I took it off him and gave it a smell for myself, even though I'd been drinking it most of the day. "It smells like roses," I corrected.

"You can get rose flavoured alcohol." Kavi shrugged. "It's definitely not 'original." He pointed to the bottle's label. "You don't want to get caught with that."

"So, it's rose water or something." I furrowed my eyebrows. It had only just occurred to me that I wouldn't have anything like this in my locker, because I wouldn't drink anything like this in general. It tasted like roses and thus, I immediately associated it with eating grass.

"Why don't you just chuck it and fill it up?" Kavi asked, stopping outside of our next class, which I hadn't noticed we had arrived at. "Wouldn't hurt anyone."

I gestured over the railing at the water cooler which was downstairs. "It's so far," I complained.

Kavi just shook his head at me with disappointment.

I couldn't eat much that lunchtime, as I didn't have much of an appetite. It was odd for that to happen to wolves, so Kavi was naturally worried. We usually ate about twice the amount of a normal human, which meant that school lunches weren't at all a pleasant experience thanks to the stares I got.

I made it to the library after nibbling on a brownie, and went to sit in my regular spot, but Canta was already sitting in my seat.

"Hey," she said as she looked up from her English book. "Had a good day so far?" she smiled sweetly, too sweetly.

"T'was alright," I answered. I sat opposite her this time. There still wasn't a lot of room between us, but more than if I was sitting next to her. "How was yours?"

"Terrible," she answered bluntly. "Something didn't work out, and it's frustrating me. Though, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that it didn't work."

Her vagueness made me nervous. It was as though she was expecting me to understand why her day was going terribly.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said because I couldn't think of any other way to respond.

"Should we get started?" she asked after a moment of silence. "We didn't really discuss anything about the star-crossed lovers yesterday."

"No, because you were trying to kiss me." I got my own book out of my bag. "It's a bit distracting."

"Oh? And have any of your feelings changed?" She looked at me expectantly. It was unnerving. If yesterday didn't happen, then I would've been a pool on the floor, a blabbering and stuttering mess. But the warnings about love witches filled my mind. I couldn't let myself be entranced by her beauty; I'll just get hurt.

"No," I denied and shook my head. "Are we going to discuss these?" I got out the actual anthology which we had to read from. "I'm just here to help you with English."

"Damit," she hissed under her breath. "Why didn't it work?"

Her words make me freeze, my gaze stuck on her. What had she tried to do? And why hadn't it worked? Had she tried to bewitch me? Or was she flirting, and I didn't realise it?

"Why didn't what work?" I asked.

Her eyes met mine with alarm and curiosity. "What? I didn't say anything." She shook her head, not a single hair moved as she did so.

"You asked 'why didn't it work', I heard you." My voice became harder. I didn't appreciate being lied to. I would've accepted if she simply said she didn't want to tell me. But she became defensive and lied straight to my face.

"How did you hear me?" Suspicion crept into her voice. "I whispered it, I know that my whisper is quiet."

"We're in a library, we're meant to whisper. It's quiet enough for me to hear you." I would've been able to hear her in a crowded cafeteria, but nothing I said was a lie.

Canta sighed and shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Can we just focus on this please? I really don't know anything about this book, and we've got exams coming up."

"Only if you could get over your hatred for star-crossed lovers, you'll be reading a lot about them." I moved forward in my seat, placing the book, which I had forgotten I was holding, on her lap.

"I'll keep my complaining to a minimum for the sake of getting a 'c'." She sighed and picked up the anthology, flipping through the pages. "Your handwriting is so neat."

I huffed a laugh. "It's anything but," I denied and opened my exercise book. "Did you do the homework already?"

"The homework we got yesterday?" she asked, sounding as though she was asking if I was thinking straight. Which I couldn't do when around her.

"Yeah?" I raised an eyebrow. "I like to get work done as soon as I get it." Because I've got nothing else better to do.

"No, like, I like doing that as well, but there was a lot of work." She tapped her pen against her leg, her eyes wandering. "Are we doing that now?"

"I think it's a good idea. It'll help me figure out what parts you need help on, since it's a practice exam question."

There was an awkward silence as she got her exercise book out and began to write the question. I noticed that instead of dots, she marked her i's with circles. My lip twitched, \that was cute. Why did I have to think stuff like that now?

"Okay, so, the introduction just goes over what I'm going to write about. Then PEEL from there." She kept muttering things like this as she wrote, squirming sometimes. She glanced up once or twice. Those times I pretended to be invested in my own exercise book, but maths in my case.

"Done," she declared and handed me her book. Her handwriting was curvy and neat, far better than my own jagged cursive.

I bit my lip as I read, my cheeks burned with the increased heat of the room and my embarrassment. "You really, really don't like romance." That was the one thing that I could gather. "The question was about why they were doomed to fail, discussions about social class and differences. It wasn't really indicating Romeo was...all this."

"But he was all that," Canta argued. "Those are plenty of reasons why Juliet shouldn't have been with him and why it would fail."

I opened my mouth to speak, only to be cut off by the bell. "If you can argue that, then go for it. I'm not sure that it's in the curriculum though." I began to pack my things. "Do you need to keep my anthology?" I held a hand out for it either way.

"You don't mind?" she asked, bringing the book to her chest. "I think I lost mine."

I was going to argue about the fact that she would need to find another one, or that she could just as well lose mine. But something inside me told me to just nod and head to class, which is what I did.

That afternoon I had football, which meant that Kavi stayed back an extra hour just to walk me home and hear everything I had to say about Canta Lai. I told him everything that happened at lunch, and everything that happened in the classes afterwards.

"She didn't spare me another glance," I said through a mouthful of cheesy bread I bought from the bakery.

"But she's talking to you at least," Kavi said before taking a bite of his donut. "That's one step forward."

I shrugged. "I think that drink was from her, you know?" I told him in a whisper. "She was acting strange and she said 'why didn't it work'?"

"Why didn't what work?" he asked, repeating what I said earlier.

"That's what I said." I pointed at him. "She didn't really say anything, and you should've seen what she wrote about Romeo." I covered my mouth to stop myself from laughing. "For a love witch, she's quite sensible."

"You literally just said she tried to give you a love potion." It was his turn to point at me. "She can't be that sensible if she would try something like that."

"It didn't work though, maybe she didn't want it to work? That's how some magic works." I wondered what the passers-by thought we were talking about, as we kept getting odd glances. It might also be because I was eating something which certainly should be several servings.

"Some magic, but what if she actually did want it to work? She can't just experiment on whoever she wants."

He had a point. "But why would she want me to fall in love with her? She seemed quite frustrated. She seemed frustrated both times I'd spoken to her."

Conflict raged in Kavi's eyes. He was torn between being angry at her for potentially using a potion on me, but he didn't like seeing people upset. He used to get so upset when others were upset that he used to be taken out of class whenever there was shouting or even a single sniffle.

"It doesn't matter, if she tries and do it again, you'll have to tell her that you know."

I sighed and rolled my eyes. I knew that was the only option, I just had to hope she didn't try anything again.

"Maybe it didn't work because you're already head-over-heels for her?" he teased with a grin.

I laughed and nudged him playfully. "Fat chance."