mine [t.z]

Chapter 9

I might be an idiot.

By some act of God, I fell in love with the one girl I couldn't: my teammates sister that he put under twin brother protection the second I met him. By some other act of God, she likes me too. In a third act of God, she agreed to be my girlfriend. And now... we can't tell her brother because he would rip my head off of my body and send her away to a convent. 

So, I'm starting to think I'm an idiot.

But every shred of doubt I might feel about the impending secrecy disappears into thin air when she walks into Bio Lab.

"How we doin' how we livin'?" She beamed, making me smile and shift around in lab seat. 

"Not great. We have an exam today on God knows what and I'm going to fail and then my mom is going to kick me out of the house and I'll have to sleep in Old Man Mcguckin's chicken coop." Jack lamented, causing all of us to just stare at him in disbelief.

"Do you want to... unpack that?" Turcs broke the silence, patting Jack awkwardly on the shoulder.

"No." Jack moaned as he buried his face in his hands, as Elena tried to lift his spirits. 

"You can cheat off me, I know everything there is to know about cellular respiration." She offered, which seemed to do the trick.

Caroline sat down next to me at the table, making my heart rate rise to a level that should probably have me hospitalized. "Hi." She whispered, nudging my leg with her foot.

"Hey." I said softly back, winking at her as she pulled out a pencil. 

These last few weeks with her have been some of the best of my entire life, even though nobody but Elena knows about any of it. We might have some tight curfews either after practice or using the excuse of working on Bio homework, but that doesn't matter. Every second I spend with her is enough for me. She makes my life complete, she was the puzzle piece I'd been missing.

She had grabbed a piece of paper from her notebook and was scribbling, sliding the notebook towards me so I could see what she had written. 

so... plans after practice?

absolutely you're coming to my house

what am i gonna tell my brother this time?

we'll come up with something

"Okay ladies and gentlemen, clear your tables except for a pencil for the exam." Mrs. Finch cut our written conversation short.

"This is the end." Jack said from his lab table, making me snicker.

"I've got you Captain, relax." Elena murmured back softly, causing Caroline to lean into my ear.

"Do you think they're almost there yet?" She mumbled quietly.

"I think so. Is the football player a thing?" I responded, knowing the mere existence of Finn Reilly was enough to drive Jack crazy.

"Not as far as I know, Elena is just nice."

"That's a shock." I joked as she elbowed me in the ribs fighting laughter. That damn smile might kill me. 

"Miss Beecher and Mr. Zegras, I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of an exam, but usually it consists of a student displaying their knowledge independently and silently." Mrs. Finch said in a deadpan voice from her desk, looking at us from over top of her reading glasses with a disappointed glare. I had to drop my head to conceal the blush that spread across my cheeks and returned to my test.

"Sorry Mrs. Finch." Caroline croaked out before copying me and going back to the assignment at hand. I let out a gentle chuckle at the situation, causing Care to blush even more. She mouthed "Quit it," which only made me laugh a little more. She subtly stuck up her middle finger at me as she gripped her pencil, shaking her head as she fought back a smile by chewing on the inside of her cheek. I stuck my tongue out in response, when I noticed Johnny in my peripheral vision studying the entire interaction with furrowed brows. Both of us tensed up and that was the end of that, we both dipped our heads down and I tried to decode what I could about the process of cellular respiration. As the bell rang, Care immediately went to Elena to avoid any kind of suspicion and I fell into step with Jack, Danny and Case.