Toil and Trouble

Chapter Two - Niall

"Hello class! I am your teacher Mrs Pollyberry. I will be teaching Grade 12 English. Our reading assignments for this year are Macbeth, One the Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and an independent novel study where you will choose your own book. Now when I saw book I do not mean a graphic novel or whatever. I mean a book. 200 pages at least." The middle aged women glanced at me and I felt my breath catch in my throat, before I held up my yellow slip of paper, moving to hand it to her.

"Class welcome our new student Niall Horan. Welcome to our school Niall. You can take a seat..." She searched the class before her eyes landed on the strange girl that Luna had introduced me to. I watched as she slowly sunk lower and lower in seat, dread obvious in her features, until the teacher moved her eyes and glanced at the 1 other empty seat. She studied the boy in the desk beside it, pretending not to be fazed when he flipped her off, before she turned and looked at the girl again. She sighed sympathetically before she opened her mouth. "Take the seat beside Miss Teresa."

I slowly move towards my seat, watching as Teresa slowly began to raise in her seat, fiddling with her hair. I sat in the blue plastic chair, a small breathy noise leaving her as I did, her cheeks a bright shade of red. I fiddled with the leather bands on my wrist, half listening to the teacher as I did. I glanced at Teresa, noticing her drawing in that book from earlier, I attempted to catch a glimpse of what she was driving. I caught a look at a small sliver of an eye. Or what I assumed was an eye.

"You know... I can feel you watching me." She murmurs, her eyes focused solely on the page in front of her, before she took in a deep breath. I studied her properly for the first time since when we had met. She was different than the girls from the last city we had lived in... She wore skinny jeans but they didn't fit her as snug as they normally would. She wasn't wearing crop tops that showed a belly button piercing or a tattoo. She wore a plain grey tank top and an orangey-red plaid shirt that made her hair seem a bit more... goldish rather than a flat shade of blonde.

"I'm sorry?" I feel my lips quirk up in amusement as she sneered at the book, closing it quickly, before she turned and looked at me. I felt my eyes widen when I saw her eyes, studying them, trying to figure out whether the colour was black or if it were blue. Either way, they were terrifying, and intriguing. I nervously traced the edges of the tattoo on my wrist, trying to move my eyes to anything else in the room besides her eyes, before I realized that I couldn't. I was locked into a stare down with by far one of the most gorgeously terrifying girls in my life... and I was scared shitless.

"You should be. Didn't anyone ever teach you it's impolite to watch girls like that?" She snaps, her tone cold and hollow, as if she couldn't bring herself to actually be angry about it. Maybe she was simply irritated about it? Who the hell knows.

I finally managed to tear my gaze away from hers and glanced at the class syllabus in front of me, taking in slow deep breaths. I glanced at her, noticing her glaring at the guy from earlier, watching him making a motion that described an extremely sexual act involving her mouth. I clenched my jaw and flipped him off, knowing she wouldn't see it, her back was completely facing me. I didn't care that he was probably more buff than I could even dream of being- No one should have to deal with anyone humiliating them like that. Even if they were most likely able to rip them to shreds with their bare hands. I started collecting my stuff once the bell rang, watching as everyone walked out, and the teacher leading the crowd. I took my time before I felt myself hit the wall, pain shooting up the left side of my body.

"Watch yourself fag... otherwise you may end up a bloody mess behind the bleachers. Understood?" I try to make myself appear much larger than I am, my jaw tight, my pulse racing. I was taller than he was by maybe an inch or two but he had me beat in the brawn department. "I said... Understood? Or are you too busy being a little bitch to listen to me?"