Banned To Touch | jenlisa

Chapter 23

LISA

I shake the thoughts away and focus on the fact that I only have two more hours of school plus three more hours to wait before my friends come over so we can get ready for tonight. Or rather Rosé and I can do it, because the other two are a bit busy and will come by themselves. It's going to seem pretty ridiculous that four seniors go to a college party to make sure a certain student isn't on drugs. But I'm determined that whatever the trigger last week, I'll do whatever it takes to help him not relapse. We saw each other almost every day this week. Next weekend he will also accompany me to the AHC. Four months after I showed up there, Leo stopped his regular visits to the self-help group because after a good six months he felt a lot better. However, I still come to one of the meetings once a month so that I never forget what happened and never do it again.

I look at the clock. Forty-seven seconds until the doorbell rings and like every Friday, I spend the last lessons with Ms. Kim.

On Monday she came to literature full of vigour, although it was noticed how her mood had visibly deteriorated over the course of the double lesson, perhaps because I didn't pay any attention to her. Oh nonsense! As if some underage girl could bring down the hottie's mood.

On Tuesday in Art we had continued to work on the clay figures. She glanced between Nayeon and me disapprovingly a few times, which made me feel uncomfortable, but that expression vanished as quickly as it came and she went back to being the monotonous old Ms. Kim. Once she came up to us, snapped slightly at Nayeon for using an engraving needle instead of the clay cutting wire to cut her clay block in half and then walked on to me. Her intense and stern looks had made me completely exhausted, even if I wasn't looking at her, I could feel her eyes like caresses on my skin.

I know exactly how a flash went through me when she grabbed the modeling noose from my trembling hand to show me how I could better straighten the fans and stop my hand from shaking. I just nodded silently, pulled my hand from hers as fast as lightning, as if I had burned myself and was upset that this woman always has to touch me. She knows exactly what triggers the smallest touch on her part in me.

Luckily I didn't have her on Wednesday, but yesterday, after we were doing theory instead of practice in art, she called me when the doorbell rang at the end. I pretended not to hear her and kept walking, not even looking back. Every time I saw her in the hallway that week, I would turn right around and walk out before she could see me.

And now I'm sitting here and I hope that she interpreted my ignoring correctly and that I don't have to tell her myself that I can't continue this affair.

Ms. Kim comes in and, as always, gets straight to the point. Even if I don't take part, I can at least write everything down diligently.

"If you've done your homework, you've finished reading the drama in the last two weeks. You all have, right?" She points out the book 'The Taming of the Shrew' by Shakespeare.

Everyone nodded eagerly, although I know for a fact that about ninety percent of the class hasn't even read Act 1.

"Then surely any of you can tell me who said 'Will you, nill you, I will marry you'. One of the most important passages of the piece. Volunteers?"

I can almost feel her wicked smile as everyone suddenly looks down at her pad. Eunhee, who is constantly and shamelessly flirting with Ms. Kim, what makes me hate her amazingly points up. It's no secret that she's the worst in the entire class.

"Yes, Miss Shin?"

She smiles and licks her lips and leans forward so her mocha-colored, ample breasts are pressed together in the low-cut top. I could puke. How can someone be so cheap?

"Cameron said that to Bianca because he's been in love with her for ages." She replies squeaky, sure of herself. I can't help but laugh at her answer. She really can't go wrong any more.

"What's the laughter here, you stupid whore?" She snaps, making me laugh even harder. This is just ridiculous.

"If I'm stupid, then what are you?" I give her a sweet smile, making everyone in the room go oohhh or hahaha.

"Ms. Kim! Did you hear that? Lis was really mean to me and insulted me." She pouts, at which I just roll my eyes.

Is that jealousy right now what I'm feeling? No. Never.

"Well first of all you started, Miss Shin. And Miss Manoban had reason to laugh at your answer, this is the advanced course in literature. If you think it would be enough to watch the film that goes with the book instead of reading the book, you can switch courses. Do you actually mean that teen movie, 10 Things; What I Hate About You, which was filmed in 1999, is exactly like a 16th-century play? By the way, the character 'Cameron' doesn't exist in the book. If so, then you mean Lucentio. So please."

Everyone in the class is suddenly quiet and Eunhee looks like she's about to cry. That's exactly what I don't understand about her: She has a cheeky mouth, but as soon as you tell her that she's completely ridiculous, she starts crying.

"But." Ms. Kim begins devilishly. "If Miss Manoban is so amused, she can give us the right answer. She can also tell us the meaning behind it."

Of course it had to happen now. Eunhee giggles and I think, not for the first time, that I would like to tape her mouth shut. I close my eyes and take a deep, short breath in and out. When I open them and look up, my breath catches. This is the first time I've looked her straight in the eye since Sunday. In those beautiful bright green eyes with the amber ring around the pupil. I feel as if she is looking into my soul and I forget where I actually am through her hypnotizing eyes, as always.

In passing, I hear Eunhee make a snippy remark about the fact that I don't know myself and that I shouldn't laugh at her and what not.

"So, Lisa. Will you, nill you, I will marry you." She says, looking at me so intensely and with a small sparkle of anger in her eyes, as if she meant the words to me as well. I also noticed that she called me by my first name again.

"Petruchio said this to Katharina - Bianca's older sister - who nobody particularly likes. Nobody actually wants to marry the dragon and Katharina pushes everyone away. Petruchio meant, whether she likes it or not, he will marry her."

The Dragon. That's exactly what I was a year and a half ago and I pushed away anyone who could help me.

"Exactly. She will." Ms. Kim smirks and I feel like she just caressed me with those words because I'm suddenly all hot again.

"Oh and before I forget: Miss Manoban, you will come to me after class. I want to talk to you about your shaky participation." And with that, she turns to the blackboard and continues the lesson.

She wants to talk to me privately. God, help me that I will stand firm.