Violetta (Violet) Jackson has big dreams. None of which happen to include sitting in detention for a week straight for a lab disaster that wasn't even her fault. That's all thanks to Will Hawthorne, his friends (one of whom she unfortunately used to...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I knew from the moment I stepped into the chemistry lab that my day was about to go south.
For one thing, I spotted Ethan McAllister almost immediately, sitting at the desk in the center of the room, his eyes narrowed on me, a sinister smile resting on his lips.
And if that wasn't enough, the only two vacant seats were the ones directly in front of him.
What I didn't know, though, as I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and settled into one of the hard plastic chairs, which somehow now felt even more uncomfortable than usual, was that I was about to blow up the classroom.
Well. Not blow up entirely. And definitely not due to any fault of mine.
A hard knot began to settle itself in the pit of my stomach as I heard Ethan whisper to one of the guys sitting next to him. I couldn't hear what he was saying, and truthfully, I didn't really want to, but I still found it next to impossible to concentrate exactly on what Mr. Stevenson — our chemistry teacher — was instructing us to do for our labs today. I only caught his last few words before he began to pass out samples to us — "-break into pairs, we're going to do this lab with partners today."
My skin prickled as I heard Ethan snicker under his breath, but I ignored it. I took the jar of samples and the handout Mr. Stevenson gives me, looking over the jar, mostly to try to absorb my attention on something, anything else. All that met my eyes were formless lumps of grey, huddled up at the bottom of the scratched, semitransparent glass. I glanced up at the board, where 'ALKALI METALS' was written across in Mr. Stevenson's scrawling print.
I barely even had time to wish that Danny was here with me so we could partner up before Ethan's voice piped up behind me. "Will, you go partner with Violetta."
My stomach lurched uncontrollably as he said my name, my full name, just in the way he knew I hated. I put down the jar on the desk with a loud thud.
Another voice chimed in, barely able to control his laughter. "Yeah, Will, go on."
I scanned the room, pretending not to hear them, desperately looking for someone to partner with — namely, anyone who wasn't friends with Ethan. Once again, I feel a pang of longing for Danny. He's always been my oldest friend, and we stuck to each other like glue throughout middle school, but unfortunately for us, his mother decided that Oak Point High was simply not good enough or sophisticated enough for him, so she sent him off to the only other public school in town - Deschutes High. Danny told me sometimes that, while Deschutes' academic and SAT scores may rank higher than Oak Point's, there were, in fact, a lot more bozos to deal with.
I had to disagree with him on that. Because Oak Point had Ethan McAllister.
I dated Ethan in the summer before junior year, that magical season where everything just feels right — being out of school, the perfect balance of sunny weather and cooler winds, being able to go out where you wanted to go; that strange time of year where dating feels easy and right no matter with whom.
