Ryder POV

"Ashely, I'm not going to have sex with you, so you can leave?" If that's what she drove all this way for then, it was a waste of time.

She paces back and forth, "I'm not here for that," she says, disgusted like she hasn't slept with me hundreds of times. "I have a question,"

"Okay?"

"How did you do it?" she asks.

What is she talking about? "Do what?"

She stops pacing and then turns my way. "You and Jayda, how did you just want to tell people? Weren't you scared? Nervous,"

"First of all, I didn't tell anyone anything she didn't either; she and I are friends, nothing more, so there's nothing to tell," Even if we were together right now, I...we would most likely not tell anyone, it's none of their business, plus, I know Jayda isn't the type of girl to parade around a relationship.

Without asking, she takes a seat on my bed, "Okay, but people know something is up between you too. You're always around her; you two sit at the same fucking lunch table. You had to know people were going to talk, yet you left "us" and became friends with her, did you not care what people were going to think,"

"I did. But not enough to want not to be friends with her," At some point, I realized that all this high school clique shit is childish as fuck, and they're more important things in life than statuses. "I love Jayda," I admit to someone other than Jayda herself for the first time.

She rolls her eyes, "Yeah, that's not really a surprise; you've been in love with her since like, forever," she says.

"Whatever, the point is I love her, and that was enough for me,"

Once I got over the prideful, controlling thing. I realized not only did I want to change for her, but I wanted to change for myself. I was tired of being someone who, deep down, I knew I was not; it's exhausting trying to fit in.

"I love Jess," she says. I think that is her first time admitting her love for Jessica out loud. They are different from Jayda and I. Jessica, and Ashely have been in love with each other since elementary, and they both knew it.

The difference is Ashely was always in denial of her love for Jess. Jess was avid about her love for Ashely, but for so long, Ashely fought her feelings. Wait, maybe there is no difference between Jayda and I and them. I'm very passionate about love for her; I tell her I love her any chance I get, but she has yet to say it back. The night I told her that I loved her, I also said I didn't want her to say it back or to say anything, I wanted her to have time to process it; I wanted her to fall in love with me. My love for her happened quickly. How long does it take someone to fall in love with you?

"Ashely, if you love Jessica, just come out,"

"It isn't that easy,"

I have no choice but to believe her. I have no idea how it would feel to tell your parents something like that. Maybe if parents just accepted that you are who you are, and you love who you love. The whole, coming out the closet thing wouldn't seem like a nuclear explosion. They're your parents. They should love you through whatever.

My phone rings, it's Jayda. I meant to call her because she didn't show for school; if I didn't have a test in every freaking class, I would've skipped and gone to her house. But I know she would've wanted me to stay and take my tests, so I did, and then when I was about to call her after arriving back home, Ash busted through the doors all hysterical.

She looks at me and says, "I don't know what to do,"

I tell her, "Don't think, just do," When we think, the doubts float through our brain; if we just do, the floating doubts don't have time to form.

She stands up and sighs, "You're right, just do,"

"Mhm," A smile plays at her mouth, "What?!"

"I like this, Ryder,"

Is that a compliment? "Thank you, I guess," She walks away to my door, "Ashely,"

"Yes," she turns around.

"Good luck,"

"You too,"

Jayda POV

For the fifth time, I call Jessica. "Jess, I'm at the school; where are you?" I record my fifth voicemail and then blow her phone up with texts.

Ms.Moore walks back into the office, "Did you get a hold of her yet?"

"Uhhh, no, I'm texting --"

The door opens, and in she comes, wearing a baggy long sleeve shirt with some jeans; her loose curly brown hair is wrapped into a messy bun. "I'm here," she says; she stumbles into the room with the box of evidence we have, along with our board.

"You can put it on there," Ms.Moore points to the stand.

I get up and help Jessica set up the stuff; as I stand closer to her, I smell the alcohol radiating off her. She starts pinning some of the paper onto the board. Her gray sweatshirt has a small stain of blood...on the wrist area.

"Jess," I whisper. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she sniffles.

"No, you're not,"

"Just let it go," she snaps.

"Are you girls okay?" Ms.Moore asks.

Jess turns back around, "We're ready!"

"Well, let's see what you all have,"

Jessica starts to explain the AJ Project we have been working on for like two months; we switch back and forth presenting our findings. Ms. Moore's expression stays neutral the whole time; I play the recording of Jacob and then Rosita, then of AJ's mother. I top it off with teenagers' suicide rate and explain how plenty of schools have a no bully policy; they claim to enforce it but don't do anything when a situation is brought to them. I bring our well-practiced speech to a close, feeling amazing talking about this out loud.

She says, "I can tell you girls worked very hard on this,"

"We did," Jess responds though there was no question.

Ms.Moore gives us a sympathetic smile. My gut clenches because I already know what is about to happen; she says, "You girls did an excellent job... but," here it comes. "I can't approve this as your senior project,"

Jess and I stay quiet for a few seconds; I ask, "Why not?" even though I have a pretty good guess.

"It's controversial,"

"But we have evidence,"

"Yes, you do. But I can't approve of this; I am the principal of this school. Do you know what a story like this would do to our school, our community, our town?"

"Change shit, hold the people responsible for this, accountable for their actions," Jess says aggressively.

Ms.Moore continues shaking her head, "I'm sorry, but I can't allow you too to move forward with this; the story is terrible yes, I was not in charge when what happened happened. If I was, I would have gone about it in a different approach," For some reason, I highly doubt that. "Your projects have to be approved not only through me but the board of the school; there is no way they will approve this,"

"There has to be something we can do," I say. "I promised his mom,"

"There's nothing I can do,"

I'm so sick of hearing that there's nothing to be done about these fucked up situations. "You keep saying that!"

She takes in a breath and says, "You girls are really behind, but I will extend the date, just turn in an essay about something and get it to me Monday,"

Jess snatches the papers off the board and throws them into the box; she opens the door so hard it slams into the wall behind. I follow her out to her car, calling her name, but she doesn't stop.

"Jess!" She pops the trunk of her car and throws everything in. "Jess, talk to me; what's wrong? We could always just-

"No!" She puts her hands in the air, "There's nothing we can do; it's over everything is over, there's nothing left for me,"

"What are you talking about?"

Her phone rings in her hand, "It's my mom; I have to go," she closes the trunk and then hops into the passenger seat, speeding off down the road.

...

"Ry-" When I walk into the room, my eyes go to the large figure on the bed. It's like 3pm; how is he still sleeping? I walk over to the bed and just stare at him. He's cute when he is sleeping. He looks like he's in such a deep sleep, so peaceful. Too bad I'm going to ruin that peace.

I scream his name as loud as I can. He stumbles in the bed, rolling a few times, I die of laughter. "What the hell are you doing?" he growls. I continue to laugh because his groggy voice makes the situation ten times funnier.

"Get up," I demand.

"No," he places the pillow over top of his head.

"Come on, I'm bored, stressed, and it's a Saturday,"

"Okay?" He doesn't get it.

"I need to do something to take my mind off my crumbling life!" I say.

He huffs and takes the pillow off of his head, then grabbing me fast, he pulls me onto the bed and hovers over me, "I guess where pausing then, five minutes," his hand slides to my stomach.

My body shivers, and I giggle, but I quickly grab his hand. "No, we are not pausing, you perv," I push him off of me and roll over from under him. He chuckles, finding enjoyment in this. I sit up with my knees planted in the bed's mattress.

"What do you want to do?" he asks.

I shrug, "I don't know, what is there to do?" I only know two things people regularly do in this town. Go to the movies, go to the drive-in movies, or the mall. Wait, that's three. The point is there's nothing to do here.

"I don't know; I keep myself occupied with sex," he says like it's no big deal. He smirks when I frown at his comment. He then says, "I'm just kidding; I wasn't planning on doing anything today, just finishing up my homework and some other stuff I had to do,"

"Well," I grab the covers and then sit against his bed, away from him, "Guess I'll just be hanging out here then,"

"Whatever," he grabs some of the covers and pulls it over him, "I'm going back to sleep," he adds, "And don't ever shout my fucking name like that again, or im kicking you out,"

Who the hell is he talking to? "Mhm, sure, whatever,"

...

Ryder sits at his desk working on some school work. He woke up about an hour ago; it's 7pm now. I thought he was going to stay asleep the whole time I was here; here I thought when he woke up, my day was going to get less boring, but no, now instead of being silent and sleeping, he's silent and working. The lack of attention I am receiving right now is irritating me. I don't think I have ever seen him this focused on schoolwork before.

I look away from him and then at my phone for the hundredth time. I texted Jessica, but no response; I'm getting worried. If she doesn't, respond in the next hour or two, I'm going by her house.

I look back at the TV. I put Gilmore girls on, the other. The GG. The wholesome one. I love this show so much; it's so freaking cute and just relaxing to watch; I wish my town was like theirs. Elegant and nice. I would kill to have a mom like Lorelai. Who wouldn't?

If you ask any fan of Gilmore Girls who Rory looked better with hands down majority would say, Logan. But in my opinion, it's Dean. I was always a fan of him; I don't know why; he has just always had a special place in my heart, that is until he married that other girl and then slept with Rory. I stopped liking him after that, but in my opinion, out of "Bad Boy Jess" and "Playboy Logan," Dean was the better boyfriend.

The slamming of a book turns my attention from the TV and over to Ryder. He gets up frustrated and tosses what he was working on into the trash, "What's wrong?" I ask. I told him if he needed help, ask me. He doesn't respond to me; I stand up and walk over to the trash, trying to see why he tossed it. He snatches the paper out of my hand. "Ryder,"

"It's wrong,"

"You don't know that,"

"I don't want you looking at it,"

"I don't care," Why would I care if a few numbers and letters are backward? It's not like I'm going to look at him any differently. I slowly take the paperback from him, he lets me pull it from his hands. "You were doing math?" I uncrumble the paper.

"Yes," he sits back at the desk.

They're not even that many numbers that backward. Actually, there is; it takes my brain a minute to switch them around and see what he actually meant to put, "From what I can see, they're right; it's just backward," I sit in the other seat and grab a pen. I rewrite all of his answers the right way.

"You don't have to do that,"

"I do, and I'm going to," He only answered three, so I decided to go over the rest with him and just write down his answer. It probably will take him a while to figure the problems out. I find the problem he stopped at and read it "The next question says Two inlet pipes lead into a large water tank. One pipe can fill the tank in 45 minutes; the other can fill it in 40 minutes. To the nearest tenth of a minute, how long would it take the two pipes together to fill the tank if both were opened at the same time?"

I'm about to explain the question to him, that is until he answers "21.2 minutes," Before I even comprehend the problem, I just read.

"Is that your final answer?" He answered it super fast.

"Yes,"

"Okay," I take my time figuring out the problem. It takes me three minutes to figure it out, I come up with something completely different than him, "You're wrong," I say.

He lightly laughs and shakes his head, "No, I'm not,"

"Uhhh, yes you are, I just did it, and I got something different,"

"Okay, that means you're wrong, not me,"

"Ryder,"

"What?!" he snaps. "You're wrong, not me," he repeats, extremely cocky and confident.

You know what, fine, since he thinks I'm wrong, I'm just going to look it up. I type in the question, like I expected the worksheets answer key pops up; I swear teachers be plagiarising each other's work then have the audacity to tell us not to plagiarize. I scroll to question four and find myself shocked at the answer 21.2 minutes. He was right.

"Okay, Albert Einstein," I joke... partially, obviously he has math skills. He rolls his eyes at my comment. I write down his answer. Then I ask him the next question, question after question, he gets them all right without even taking five seconds to digest the freaking problems.

After we finish the math homework he had, we fuss for about five minutes, but then he gives in to my request allowing me to ask him other math questions. I search up hard ones on the internet; I start with calculus and then some trig, then linear equations, statics, and probability. He gets all of them right.

"Oh, my God! You're really a genius," I know I've said it, but I didn't mean genius genius, I just meant smart, like normal smart. "Who would've known?" See, this is why you don't judge a book by its cover.

"Okay, can you please talk about something else?" I don't know why he is getting annoyed; I'm complimenting him. I leave it alone... for now, and then place his work into his folder. His hands wrap around my waist while I straighten his desk.

"What are you doing?" I saw low.

He turns me around to face him, "I want to show you something," he says, staring at me.

I gulp, "Show me what?"

***

(Jaydas thoughts are mines... Dean most definitely was The better boyfriend!!! I said what I said. I need to rewatch GG😫

Also if your confused about how Ryder it's good at math but has dyslexia you can be extremely good at math even though you have dyslexia! On some occasions dyslexics understand math better than someone with out dyslexia, I read something about how they can remember steps and the visualization representation so it helps

Anyways I'm sorry for the next chapter , grab your tissues)