Single Beauty

Chapter 7

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Ivy's point of view

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I wake up and the first thing I see is Leo's face. What a terrible start to a day.

I've decided that nobody is forcing me to look at him unless it's absolutely necessary and hence have been ignoring him for a couple days now, rather focusing on something more important.

Fitting in.

I've made a good impression on my homeroom teacher and managed to convince the boys with reasons not to talk shit about me and mind themselves. Most of them are just scared so I didn't have to do much. 

Lucas is annoying as hell, but at least he doesn't yell when he's picking on me anymore.

I've formed a small group of friends, comprising Taylor, Hayden, Kiri, Levi, Daniel, Noah, Alex, and the unwanted Leo of course. He's honestly just there because of Kiri.

I shower and am pulling on a black sweater when the bathroom door pushes open. 

I yell. "Who the-"

"SORRY, SORRY!" Leo yells and pulls the door shut again. "I didn't know you were in there."

"Whatever." I put on my jeans and grab my towel as I walk out the door. I don't realize that Leo's standing right outside my door and stumble into him.

"Aren't you standing a bit too close to the door?" I ask. He shrugs and walks past me.

Whatever.

WHATEVER. 

As I'm leaving, I hear someone singing. I frown and walk outside the room, trying to find the source of the sound. It's coming from the other room. The voice is so good, that I'm dying to listen to more. I look through the crack in the door and see Harry, strumming a guitar and playing along.

"I wanna let her take control, 'cause every time that she gets close yeah,-" Harry sees me and stops singing. I push open the door in a hurry and shake my head.

"Keep singing, keep singing, you're so good, oh my gosh I didn't mean to-"

I trip on the carpet and assume that I'm going to fall face first and brace myself. 

The fall never happens.

"You can open your eyes now, dumbass." 

I pull open one eye and see Carl holding a fistful of my sweater holding me mid-air. I laugh, embarrassed, and stand up straight. "Thanks." He puts a hand in his pocket and leaves. 

I look at Harry awkwardly. "I wasn't peeking... you sing really well so I was drawn here." 

He laughs shyly and rubs the back of his neck. "Thank you," he whispers.

I smile and leave before I can embarrass myself anymore. I walk into class and plop down on the seat beside Chris. "Wassup, Ivy?"

I smile and shake my head. "Nothing much really. I'm tired as hell though." Chris wasn't being as noisy as Lucas about me, so I talked to him a bit and realized he was a nice guy. We're now benchmates for literature classes.

"Ah. Did you finish the assignment?" I jerk towards him. "What assignment? Which assignment? Where, what, how?" Chris frowns at me. "The one Ms Holly gave last week. She said she'd make us do extra assignments if we didn't finish." 

I wince and bang my head on my desk. 

Once. Twice. 

"What will I do now?" 

Chris shrugs. "Wait, I guess." 

I scowl at him. "You're of no help." He gives me a look full of pity. "At least tell me you read the unabridged Romeo and Juliet booklet that we were told to for English class." I point up in the air, my head still down. "That," I whisper. "I did." I hear Chris laughing at my misery and give him a look.

The sound of people starts lowering and I look up to see Ms Holly walk inside. She's holding a bundle of sheets in her hand. 

The class settles down eventually and she thumps down the huge stack of paper on her desk. "So." She says. "Hand in your assignments first. We can continue afterward." I groan internally as people head one at a time to hand in her assignments. When all the completed assignments are handed to her, she claps her hands. 

"Now, to the ones who didn't do it. Please stand up, my lovely students."

I wince a little at the comments as I creak my chair and stand up along with a few other students. The teacher shakes her head. "All the good students. What a shame indeed. Well, as promised, I'll be giving you guys an extra assignment that you'll need to finish by Friday."

I almost cry out loud. Friday was way too soon. 

"And it's a partner assignment."

How jazzing.

She calls out partner names. All the people standing get called out one at a time, some groaning at their partner's choices while others grin. My name's called out last.

"Ivy.. and Leo."

My face contorts into a frown and I whip around to see him casually standing. "Wow. Great."

Just when I'd thought this couldn't get worse.

Ms Holly delves into the lecture, telling us about the story of Romeo and Juliet. I zone out in the middle of class, thinking about how I could survive doing a partner assignment with Leo. He just kept... popping out of nowhere in my life.

"Can you answer that, Ivy?" 

I snap out of my thoughts and creak my chair back, standing. "Huh?"

(I think she caught me zoning out.)

Ms Holly shakes her head softly. "What do you think about the way things ended? Who was at fault, and do you think it could've been prevented?"

I think for a second. I might've been zoning out, but literature was one of my strongest assets. "I've honestly thought for a long time about this, and I think Juliet was being incredibly half-witted when she decided to get involved with Romeo. The whole fiasco could've been avoided if she'd just stuck to her pride and fame and not gotten involved with him. She may not have lived the best life, but it would give her a confident, healthy life instead of-"

"I think Juliet was the one who seduced Romeo. She should've backed off if she really cared about her family." Someone cuts me off, and I twist to look at Leo smirking in the back. 

"Juliet seduced Romeo? She wasn't the one sneaking off into his house all the time and trying to get her attention." I retort back.

Leo scoffs. "Even if I were to believe that, it's not Romeo's problem that Juliet was so naive-"

This was definitely getting personal.

Ms Holly interrupts our public banter. "Hey um, I think we should take both sides of the view. No particular side is right." 

I tear my gaze away from Leo and sit down, noticing the class is paying rapt attention to our argument. The class eventually ends, and I try not to think about how much Leo pisses me off as I stand up from my seat.

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out. Notification on the school forum. It was picture of Leo and I standing in class with the caption, "watch them argue on 4k."

I gasp and then groan before shoving my phone back in my bag. I remember something.

I still have to do the partner assignment with him.

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Sorry, this chapter's so small! I've been trying to upload but stuff's been keeping me busy. I'll try to be more regular from now on :) 
xoxo

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