How Does a Daffodil Survive in Winter?

vi | Oh, It's Happening

If you go to a school where your workout routine doesn't include yanking your locker open then lucky you, because I certainly didn't have the pleasure of a well-made locker that actually opened properly. Once I finally got my locker to open, I placed the folder Samuel had left me inside. It had all the information I needed to blackmail Theo.

I closed the locker and smiled. It was a genuine smile, something that I hadn't done in forever. I was finally getting redemption and revenge on Lacie, closing that horrible chapter of my life and leading me into a life without her or my mother's action dragging me down.

But will it really? I questioned myself. What if all of this would only make Lacie hit back again and what if this would only remind me more of my failure of a mother.

Not that it mattered anymore. As Samuel said, there was no going back now, I was in it 'till the end.

Remember the amazing algebra class? I was in there again, learning about algebra stuff. As soon as I sat down, any noise went through one ear and out the other. It's not that I loathe maths with a burning passion like most students. In fact, I'm actually pretty okay at it. It's just the teacher and her robot voice that my brain filters out involuntarily. The reason I was still passing the class was that I figured out that I could just read the textbook to know everything that was being taught. The teacher was basically one of those text-to-speech things. Ms. Reads-straight-out-of-the-textbook.

"Have I mentioned how cute Zayn is?" Julie whispered.

"Oh no, why are you only saying this now?" I remarked sarcastically.

"Ha. Ha. Very funny."

"My pleasure."

"Shut up, I'm trying to look at him."

"Good luck."

"Ugh, I wish I had a reason to blackmail him into dating me," Julie sulked a moment later. She always had trouble ending conversations.
"Yeah um, I don't think he'll like you very much if you threaten him," I said, raising my eyebrows at her.

"Don't be a hypocrite Mars."

"It's different," I explained. "I'm not blackmailing Theo because I like him. I didn't actually want to involve him but too bad it's the only way to get to Lacie." I subconsciously narrowed my eyes at Lacie at the mention of her.

"Yeah, that's true," Julie hummed. She went back to looking at her textbook before she snapped her head up. "Oh my gosh, what if you fall in love with him or vice versa!"

I gave her a hard shake of my head. "No, I'm not going to get sidetracked like that. I need to stick to the plan."

"Hm, you wanna bet?" Julie smirked at me.

I leaned back on my chair and returned the smirk. "Oh, you're so gonna lose."

"Sure, sure. I bet you all my juice boxes at lunch that you," she announced and jabbed her finger at my chest. "Are gonna fall head over heels for him."

"Deal. You're so gonna lose."

"Am not. I'll be enjoying the extra juice box everyday."

"No you're not."

"Yes."

"No."

We continued bickering like children until we were silenced by the teacher. I chuckled to myself, there was no way things were going to be as cliche as Julie had hoped.

I was dreaming away when something occurred to me. How was I going to get Theo alone so I can um... bust out his family secret to blackmail him? This whole thing has really gotten quite dramatic so I needed to set an equally dramatic scene.