Going the Distance ✔️

Chapter twenty two.

On the first Monday of November, I glanced at Liam's paper and my eyes widened. I never thought he was capable of doing it and my body tensed up as I realised I would have to spend a Friday night with him.

His eyes met mine and he smirked, it grew wider with every passing second. "Guess what you're doing this Friday night?" He asked me as Mr. Saltsman was handing out the rest of our English papers.

I gulped, afraid of the answer. "What's that?"

He leaned back in his chair, looking quite pleased with himself. "You're spending it with me and I've been planning this for a while."

I glared at him just as Mr. Saltsman put my paper face down on my desk. "Not your best work, Louisa."

My eyes widened for the second time that time and I turned my paper around to look at it. "What did you get? It can't be that bad." I was speechless and that was an underestimate. There were no words to explain how I felt in that moment. Liam snatched my paper from me and he scoffed. "A sixty five, that's not too bad. You didn't fail." I snatched my paper back and I sighed, thinking through these six months in America. I wondered why I was such a nice person to help a jerk like Liam who couldn't care less about school or his future, unlike me who had everything planned out to the minute.

"Congratulations, Liam," I said bluntly, "you got a higher score than me."

"Eighty five, baby!" He cheered happily, knowing that he bet his seventy five from the previous paper. I grunted in response and Liam chuckled. "Oh, cheer up, Lou. You'll get to spend Friday night with me and I can tell you know that it's going to be one amazing adventure."

I sighed, afraid of what was to come. I knew I had to confront Liam eventually about his school work and if he was really struggling. He clearly was at the start of the year, maybe because he didn't study and he always ditched. But now that I've arrived in his little world, he actually had a reason to study. The bet, of course. I was contemplating on whether I should continue with it or not because my school work was getting affected. I felt a nervous pit at the bottom of my stomach. I've never gotten a sixty five before, it was always at least in the high eighties. I knew I had to keep the ditching to a minimum and try to study as much as I could.

Before Mr. Saltsman continued on with the class, I leaned over to Liam who was looking through his paper. "Hey, we're not ditching school on Friday, right?"

He glanced up and smirked. "No, I have something better planned."

Part of me was wondering what Liam was planning and the other half just didn't want to know. I was really hoping it wasn't anything illegal, but after the last time, I didn't think Liam would do anything like that again. Stealing the candy bar still haunted me and it would forever haunt me so I was hoping that Liam didn't have anything planned that would likely get us arrested.

I had a gut feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong. I brushed that feeling off and turned to Liam again. "Are you going to enlighten me?"

He kept his eyes on the teacher who cleared his throat and before he started the class, Liam shook his head with a huge grin plastered all over his face. "Nope." He said, popping the 'p.'

I frowned and turned myself back to the front as Mr. Saltsman began the class. I sat there, listening and taking notes because I knew I had to redeem myself. I could tell Liam wasn't really paying attention, his eyes were dancing around the room and I tried to ignore it. He was getting good grades, better than me and he was still paying no attention. That really got under my skin, considering what I had been through just to help him.

That afternoon, after studying at the library for an hour, I walked in the front door to where Mr and Mrs Gilbert were waiting in the living room. When I closed the door behind me, they both snapped their heads towards me just as Liam came racing downstairs.