Dyslexia: A general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, numbers, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence.

"Huh?" I partially smile. No way, he can't be.

"He is dyslexic, diagnosed when he was five, that's why he started school late," she explains. "We couldn't decide on a special school or regular,"

This actually makes a little sense; all this time in Mr. Brooke's class, I thought he was just being stubborn, not wanting to read out loud. But it was because he couldn't read; well, he can; it will just take a little longer for him to get the words. Also in kindergarten, he did have a stutter, it was pretty bad too, I forgot all about that.

"How come he isn't in special classes?" Our school offers special education classes for people with disabilities; he should be in those.

"Josiah," she says, disappointed, "He didn't want him to be in special classes; he didn't want him to get bullied," More like he didn't want Ryder's disability to be known to the town, so he kept it a secret, which has ultimately lead to his horrible grades throughout the years. "Now that you know, you can help him,"

"I don't understand; how can I help him?" If I could, I would. I would do anything for him, but there's no cure for dyslexia; nothing I do can help him see numbers and letters the right way.

"Patience, I guess, I know you are already patient with him, but maybe since now you know, you can take things a little slower, and maybe he won't be so afraid to show you his work," she says.

I guess I could do that. This also explains why he never showed me his work once he was finished. I always explained it to him. He did his own thing; I just assumed he knew what he was doing. He just gave up completely; his teachers returned to me a folder of his work, nothing was done. All this time, he has just pretended to do it.

Why would he not tell me?

The doorbell rings. Evelyn gives me a warm smile before walking away; Jacob snickers like something is funny; I shoot him a glare, "What's so funny?"

He shrugs his shoulders and says, "No matter how slow you teach him, he'll never get it; he's stupid,"

"He isnt stupid!" I say, defending Ryder; him calling him stupid makes my blood boil, like a kettle of water on a stove. "He's nowhere near stupid, you on the other hand,"

He hunches on the counter, bringing his face closer to mine, "Well, unlike him, I actually passed my classes, with A's, and I got into an ivy league school because of my grades, not because of sports," he says this as if this makes him a good person. "Not to mention I own very successful business around the world,"

"That doesn't mean anything, good grades, Ivy League school, thriving business! You're a horrible person; if people knew the truth about you, I'm sure you wouldn't be where you are at," I surely wouldn't go into business with a liar, a murderer, a narcissist.

"Maybe, maybe not," A smile creeps at the corner of his mouth; he's enjoying this so much. "So, I heard you and my brother took a trip to Georgia—an interesting place to visit. Why did you guys go there?"

"I think you know," even if he doesn't, it's not like I'm going to tell him.

He walks from around the counter closer to me, "What is it you want to happen? Your acting as if I killed the guy, what happened was years ago, there's nothing you can do, nothing will happen to me even if you go public with this, it over,"

"Wanna bet," I challenge.

Before he can say another word, the back door opens, Ryder walks into the kitchen, "What are you doing here?" He asks Jacob and walks to my side, in front of me, putting distance between his brother and me.

"Visiting," he answers.

"Why are you talking to her?" Is Ryder's second question.

Jacob laughs and trails his tongue along his bottom lip, "Calm down, we were just making conversation,"

"Well, don't," Ryder snaps.

"Whatever," Jacob walks around him and says to me, "Let's do this again sometime; I enjoy our scuffles."

I roll my eyes and look away from him. He makes me sick. Ryder grabs my hand. "Come on," we walk out of the house and back into the pool house.

"What did he say to you?" he asks while we both sit on the edge of the bed.

"Nothing!" nothing worth repeating.

"Jayda?"

"I'm serious; he didn't say anything,"

He relaxes a little believing me; I stand up in front of him, "But your mom did?" His eyes narrow, "She told me,"

"Told you what?"

I take a deep breath; I hope he doesn't get mad; we are in such a good place right now, and I would really like to not ruin it. We are moving forward; I can't have us move backward. "That day in your bathroom, I saw the Adderall pills; I know you have ADHD, and your mom just confirmed it's true, and she also told me that you're dyslexic," I say everything fast, trying to speak before he does. I move in between his legs; I probably shouldn't, but I'm hoping me like this, close to him, will keep him calm. "You should have told me," I add.

"I was going to tell you," he says in a calm voice. "I just didn't know how or when. I was looking for the right time,"

"The right time?"

"There's always something going on with you, which is fine. But I didn't want to tell you about my problems when you were going through shit,"

Yet again, he has done something for me, looking out for me. "You could've told me my problems aren't more severe or worse than yours,"

"It's dumb, I'm dumb," he says, getting up, I can sense the slight irritation building.

"You're not dumb,"

"I have all F's," he states. "I pass to the next grade with D's, d's I only got with one extra point,"

"It's just a letter; grades don't mean anything," Of course, that's just my opinion, my parents...any other parents for sure think differently.

"Says the girl with straight A's," he snaps. Ryder opens up one of his draws and then pulls out a book. Pride and Prejudice, the one I picked out for him in New York. "I couldn't even read this dumb book; one chapter took the whole day,"

"Well, granted, it is sort of hard to read; it's an old book, a lot of people can't read it," I had to read it twice before understanding it. "Look," I take the book out of his hand and sit it back into the draw, "Your one of the smartest people I know, and I am not just saying that to make you feel better," I take his hand and hold it in mines, "You'll be fine, I'm going to help you with your work and whatever else you need, and I promise you will pass this term and the next with A's," He laughs, and I do also knowing exactly what's funny, "Okay, let's not aim that high, Nothing lower than a B,"

"Okay,"

"We are going to do this together, we are going to get through this, and every other crazy thing in our life," I say confidently. "As friends, of course,"

He adds, "With pauses in our pending relationship,"

"Pauses?" Here we go, some other crazy thing he has come up with for our arrangement. Ryder steps closer, leans down, and kisses me lightly on the lips; once he pulls away, I say, "That's breaking the rules, rule number 2" No kissing.

He says, "There no rules if it's paused,"

I smile while taking a deep breath and say, "You just have an answer for everything,"

"Of course I do," he smiles arrogantly while pulling me back to the bed and onto his lap, my legs straddle him. When we are like this, I like it, me on his lap with my hands wrapped around his neck. He says, "I'm smart," mocking me.

He tries to kiss me, but I move back, "Five minutes, okay?" That's all the time we have to pause this pending thing between us, after, we will go back to being friends and doing friend things.

Ryder flips me onto my back; he's now on top of me. My brown eyes melt just looking into his. He whispers in my ear, "That's all I need," and my body shivers as he trails his mouth across my neck.

"What are you," I suck in a breath as he nips the skin of my neck, "Going to do," I ask faintly.

"Something you'll enjoy," Is all he says while lifting up my shirt and kissing down my stomach to the button of my pants.

I know what he is going to do! I just wanted to know exactly what he was going to do. I hate how, when in books, the girl always just seems like she is oblivious to sexual things like she didn't attend high school and overhear conversations about it, or didn't like, watch 50 Shades. They always act like they have been locked away from the world and just have no idea about anything sexual.

I've only done two things, but I know of all the other things you could possibly do because I'm not dumb and an airhead virgin that doesn't know anything sexual. People think that just because we haven't had sex or haven't done anything else. We don't know anything about anything sexual when the majority of us do.

At this moment, there's only one thing to do, well two, but we did the other thing. So there's one left, then again, if you count sex, I guess you could say that there's two left to do; I'm sure we aren't having sex, so we are left with one. One that I am excited to try.

He unbuttons my pants and pulls them off of me; he says, "Why am I not surprised?" looking at my black Ethika boy shorts.

"They're comfortable," I say while laughing. I have more of these than I do of regular girl underwear. The underwear I had on at the hotel I was only wearing because I didn't wash my usual ones; those were my last option; I literally wear them for emergencies only, boy shorts are what I am comfortable in.

He kneels to the floor, I lay my head back and stare at the ceiling, I need to look here, I can't look, I can't. He pulls them down and then off of me. My heart immediately starts beating faster at the anticipation for A quick second; I glance down and catch him smiling at me; he looks even more excited than I do; I put my head back and continue just looking up.

First, his finger enters me, it moves in and out, my back lifts off the bed. The normalcy of this feeling is inviting; I moan low. As I feel slight pain and then it fades. By the second, I can feel myself getting wetter at the feeling, and because I know he is watching my body react to him. He is not kissing me, and his mouth isn't on me; he's watching me, which makes me even aroused. I pull my bottom lip between my teeth, trying to suppress another moan that wants to escape when he puts two fingers inside and moves faster.

My stomach tightens, and I swear it's about to happen, but he stops a second before I do. "Ryder," I sigh. He stands up, propping my legs up on the bed. He smiles, looking down at me; I use my hand to cover my face; this is such an embarrassing yet pleasurable moment; I'm nervous as fuck.

I wouldn't do this with anyone else; I don't want to be experiencing it with anyone but him. Through a crack in my hand, I see him bend down, his tongue connects with my sensitive spot, and my back immediately arches off the bed at the feeling. He moves his tongue in circles, and my breathing becomes rapid. This is better than the thing before, less painful, more pleasurable.

His tongue slides up and down me slow; my hand goes to his head and threads through his soft black hair. He takes a finger and puts it inside me while keeping his mouth on me, causing me to come even more. I look down and watch as his muscles contract; he looks sexy as hell between my legs. His fingers move faster and faster as his tongue circles around me. I clench my eyes tightly as my stomach twists and the sudden relief and pressure exit my body. I sink into the bed, trying to catch my breath.

I open my eyes one by one; he's standing over top of me, clearly proud and enjoying seeing my body go crazy for him; he smirks and says, "See, under 5 minutes,"

...

"Thomas, I've been sick," I scrabble around my room, trying to pick up my notebook and things for school.

"That's not what I heard?"

" I don't care what you heard, I'm coming to school; I have the codes; I'll give them to you at lunch," I remove the phone from my ear and hang up. I was supposed to get the codes to him last Friday, but well, I wasn't here.

God, he's such an ass. I used to think he was nice, but now I don't know. Is he really still mad because of the whole kiss thing? Or is it something else? I don't care. I need to stay focused today. Get in and get out; hell, I might even just get my work and leave. I don't really need to be taught everything they teach me I know already. I don't know how but I just do.

And if I don't know something, I'll just look it up; all the answers are online. I swear the teachers just copy that shit off of Quizlet or something. Or they get worksheets from some other teacher online, who also posted the answer key.

Before leaving out the room, I take one look at myself in the room; I look decent. This will have to do. When I open the front door downstairs, I run into Ryder.

I gasp, startled, he smiles, taking me; I wish he wouldn't; I look horrible. "Uhm, this isn't school?"

"I know, I came to pick you up," he says.

"Uhh, you don't need to do that. I have legs," Before I got a car, I walked to school.

He frowns and says, "I know that, but I'm doing something nice, picking you up; please don't make me regret it,"

I walk past him, closing the door, "Well, you are going to regret it because I am walking; I'm not letting you drive me to school," I march down the driveway he follows behind me.

"Could you stop being stubborn and just get in the fucking car?"

"No," I smile while my back is towards him. "You cannot drive me to school. Do you know what people would think seeing us together getting out of the car," It would be the scandal of the year, the biggest story for sure?

"I don't give a fuck what they think, and neither should you,"

I turn around and laugh, "Funny, not too long ago, you didn't even want to drive me up the street because you didn't want anyone to see us together," It feels like so long ago when I was crying in his car and calling him a coward.

"Things are different, we're--"

"Friends!"

"Okay, friends, get rides to school,"

"Not I," I can't get in that car with him, for my sake and his. I want him to have a good day today; his friends or former friends will say shit to him about it. I don't want that for him. I turn, walking further away.

"Fine, fuck you, be stubborn,"

I walk backward, and say "Fuck you too, and don't talk to me or look for me at school," He's going to pay for saying that.

"Okay, I don't care," He clearly cares; I saw the hurt on his face when I said don't talk to me at school.

"Mhm sure,"

"Contrary to what you believe, I can go the day without talking to you, looking for you, or being around you,"

I continue walking down the street, "We'll see!" I yell.

***

(The next chapter will be sad and devastating... and just prepare yourselves.)