Troubled | alex turner

five

autumn chloe radford

"Please sit next to your partner," Mr Homme says, and I roll my eyes for what seemed to be the millionth time. No way in hell was I going to sit next to my partner, who's too friendly for my liking, and ugh, he's such a nerd. Not that I care about my reputation, but he just seems like a guy who's devoted his entire life to school, and I didn't want to be near that. The kind of person who is pretentious and arrogant because they think they're smarter.

Not only that, but I wasn't looking for friends or a boyfriend or whatever else people thought they could offer to me. I have everything and I'm perfectly fine with it. My partner who's supposedly going to work with me is a weirdo and I don't want to hear any of that don't judge bullshit, because let's face it: everyone does and there's nothing you can do about it.

It really doesn't matter who you are, what you do, you're going to get judged. If that means getting over that and pissing people off then that's what I'm going to do.

I've already pissed him off before and I hope he never forgets that because I almost have. I've pissed everyone off to get my way and I always get my way.

"Autumn?" Mr Homme says, waking me up from my free flowing thoughts.

"Mhm," I answer, fiddling with my incredibly long nails. My nails were long because I couldn't care that much about them and they didn't look that bad long, so.

"Sit next to your partner," Mr Homme responded calmly; not for long.

"And what for?" I retort and the double r's laughs muffled in the distance.

"For this class of course," Mr Homme said in a matter of fact tone.

"What'll happen if I don't want to do that in this class?"

"Then you can leave," Mr Homme said, still sounding very calm. Bite me.

"And what if I don't want to do that either?" I ask, straightening my back.

"Then I'm afraid I don't care."

"And I'm not afraid that I don't care," I reply simply.

"Then simply leave, Miss Radford."

This is getting ridiculous. "And I'm sick of your voice already. Where the hell is this Alex guy?"

Mr Homme's eyes widened. "Language!"

I smirked. "What about it?" Is hell really a bad word?

"Mr Turner is over there," Mr Homme says, finally sounding a little frustrated.

"Who's Mr Turner?" I say and turn around, finding that Alex was now flushing as I stifled a laugh.

"He's there," He said,pointing towards Alex and turning around to not face me. Whatever suits you.

Spinning my head round, I face Alex. His hair is at its norm, thickly coated in some shitty gel scraped back slightly to display an Elvis quiff of some sort. He must be a lover of the 50's to look that ridiculous.

Despite my thoughts, I sit next to this weirdo, and I feel his harsh gaze on me. "Don't look at me unless I tell you to," I spit, looking at him directly.

A frightened look took over his embarrassed face, as he flushed further. Holding in a laugh, I run a hand through my slightly short auburn hair, knowing that I won. I didn't know whether other people would consider it winning, but knowing that people know that I shouldn't be messed with made me happy.

Pretending to face and listen to Mr Homme, I sigh, looking over the clock only waiting for this class to end. I honestly don't even know why I don't ditch class, sometimes, but it all comes back to me when I'm about to.

I need to get good grades. Not in a nerdy way, but I just need to. I can't stay with my nightmares, or parents, as they like to call themselves. I'm barely managing with the money I make. A part time job in a bakery that only took place on the weekends and dealing drugs and other shit with the razor roses could only do so much.

We need to go to a bank soon.

My parents need to go to rehab. They're both completely and utterly addicted to alcohol, and whilst they only have alcohol poisoning now, they could have a horrible seizure and die. As much as they piss me off, I'm sure that if they died, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

I've tried everything I can. I lock the doors, so that they don't buy any alcohol. I throw it away, or save some for myself when I feel like it.

The only solution is rehab, if I've tried everything else.

Wow, I'm thinking about my parents dying. I honestly can't be more of an emotional shit head, can I? Rolling my eyes at myself, I look to my side, feeling Alex's gaze again.

"Honestly," I say shaking my head. "Why'd you keep staring?"

Alex flushes, trying to cover his face by fixing his hair. "I was just, er looking."

I snorted before raising my eyebrows. "Smooth, Turner."

He rubs his neck. "We have to err, do this now," He reminds me shyly, obviously trying very hard not to be bossy.

"Do what?" I ask, and he looks very shocked, but since he was intimidated by me, he restored his face to something quite neutral.

"We have to read this," Alex explains.

"Romeo and Juliet lines? What are you, horny?" I laugh, and his face goes brighter than ever. "Honestly, we've gone over this shit over and over again. Why're we reading this?"

"I'm sorry, he told us to," He says, looking frightened.

I raise an eyebrow.

"Sorry," He apologises again. Damn, this guy was passive.

"Mr Homme, what the fuck?" I shout, and Mr Homme's eyes widen to such an extent it looked like it was going to fall out of his head.

Rapidly, he marches over to us. "Are you in a jungle, or a classroom?"

I furrow my eyebrows. "They swear in the jungle?"

He clenches his fist before exhaling and letting his fist loose. "Read this. Now, the two of you."

"I'm sorry, sir. I will-" Alex says, before he got cut off.

"I want Autumn to start off," He says, looking at me.

"I will, if you give me a proper reason as to why we're reading something that we read a million times," I retort. This asshole thought he could tell me what to do.

"To get you two comfortable with each other."

I nod. "That makes sense, to confess our undying love for each other. That should really build up my comfort with Turner over here."

"Listen here, Autumn. You don't read this and I'll fail you right here and now," Mr Homme says angrily.

That got me. Mum and Dad. When I was about to open my mouth, flushy boy Turner began to speak.

"If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

He's still a complete nerd, but when those words roll off his tongue, he could be a vocal pornstar.