Under the Bridge

chapter three- "no boy can take my favorite holiday away from me"

IT'S HALLOWEEK. For those of you muggles who don't understand, Halloween is the best holiday to ever grace God's precious Earth. My mom would probably get mad at me for saying that. Sorry Jesus, Christmas is my #2.  

There's a lot of reasons why this holiday is far superior to any other day and deserves a whole week of spookiness. 

The first is the most obvious. C-A-N-D-Y! Finally, there's a day where it's socially acceptable to eat fifteen snickers bars. Calories don't count when you're using them to be festive. (At least, that's what I tell myself.) 

The second is the Halloween kids movies. Now I know what you're thinking. 'Horror movies are the heart and soul of the holiday.' Well, that's WRONG. 1990's and early 2000's Disney channel has graced us with some of the best movies in cinematic history, all based around this holiday. The first and most obvious is the Halloweentown series, which is my holy grail. There's also Hocus Pocus and Twitches to name a few other masterpieces. Horror movies, on the other hand, are stupid because screaming and crying at a screen is possibly the lamest thing to ever exist. 

The third is the costumes. I, of course, am going as Hermoine Granger for the seventh year in a row. This also means I get to watch and read my favorite series (Harry Potter, if you haven't noticed.) all day freaking long, while in costume. 

Even though it's Monday and Halloween is on Friday, I'm still hyped up. It might be a sugar high, but I'm not quite sure yet since I've only had one, small, pack of Twizzlers and a Starbucks Frappuccino. 

The bell rings and I'm out of calculus. "Olivia!" My teacher, Mrs. Rivera calls. "May I speak with you after class?" 

I feel my heart sink into my chest and my palms start to sweat. I nod, and once everyone is gone, she makes eye contact with me. She has long black hair that stops right at her shoulders, and she's wearing a sweater with a pumpkin on it. Mrs. Rivera is pretty, a young teacher who all the boys have a crush on. She's one of the nicest people working here, but it still doesn't keep me from being scared when she wants to talk to me. 

She smiles, which eases my nerves a little. "As we're both aware, you're one of the best students I have." 

My eyes widen. "I am?" I ask, a little shocked. James is in this class, why isn't she talking to him? He's smarter than me. 

She nods. "I have someone in my College Algebra class who isn't doing too well, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to tutor them for some extra credit." College Algebra at Winter High is kind of a joke. It's the class you take if you want to go easy, since you're required one math course a year. 

I would normally say no to a situation like this, as it meant actually interacting with people. But the look in her eyes, the impending doom of college, and the recent confidence booth inside me made me, for some stupid reason, say yes. 

She hands me a sheet with contact information, a name, and parent signatures on it. 

I read through it, only to gasp when I saw the scribbled on letters near the bottom. 

Liam Walker

I decide to play it off with a cough. 

"Are you okay, dear?" Mrs. Rivera asks. 

I nod. I am 100%, certainly, not okay. 

* * *

"You get to spend time with a Greek God of a man. Seriously, you're lucky." Hope is trying to convince me that this is a good thing. Newsflash. It isn't. Three times a week, I have to interact with a scruffy, leather jacket-wearing, arrogant, jerkface. There is nothing good about that. 

I have to go to the library to see him in approximately three hours. 

I had to raincheck with James, you don't raincheck your crush, that's not how it works. I am not okay, and nothing can make me okay. I want to throw myself off of a ten story building. 

You might be saying, "Wow Olivia, you're a freaking drama queen." Well you're right. I'm a drama queen, and I'm proud of it. If I didn't stutter and get nervous, I'd call everyone out all the time, and potentially have some form of a witty comeback to everything. 

In fact, I'm not a drama queen, I'm a drama superior overlord. I'm the boss when it comes to complaining.

* * *

He is late. I mean, what did I expect? Bad boys aren't expected to be punctual. I did see him in the hallway twenty minutes ago, so I know he's here. If he doesn't show up in the next ten minutes, I'm leaving and whining to Mrs. Rivera. 

It takes him five minutes to enter through the doors of the library. His dark hair is messy, his white tee shirt is tight and untucked, and his black leather jacket hangs loosely on his figure. He's looking around for me, his eyes keep flickering through the room, until he sees me, the only person sitting alone, and takes a seat. 

"You're Olivia?" He says. His voice is low and full of discontent. I feel the same way. I can smell his cologne from here. It's like lemon and musk, and there's too much of it. 

I nod. I didn't expect him to know me, but the patronizing tone is annoying. I notice his eyes scanning my body, but there isn't really much to look at. I'm skinny, with no curves and no anything. It's all covered up with a hoodie, anyways, so he can't tell. He raises his eyebrows up and crosses his arms. 

"L-let's just get started." I say, quietly, nervously twirling my pen with my fingers. 

He looks like he could kill me. I'm kind of wishing he would, because then I don't have to tutor him anymore. "What the fuck do you want me to do?" He says after a couple seconds of silence. 

I internally wince at the swear word. "Get out your book, if that's okay." I mutter, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. 

He pulls out his textbook and notes. "I don't want to be here. When can I leave?" 

I let out a small sigh and click my pen, looking at the paper that Mrs. Rivera gave me. It said that he had to do all the problems on pages 112-114 and I had to check them, then we could go. I quickly push the sheet over to him, not wanting to say anything that could prompt another response. 

He nods and gets to work, while I pull out my book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, for a little bit of reading to keep me in the Halloweek spirit. No boy can take my favorite holiday away from me. 

After he finishes the problems, I mark about half of them wrong and excuse him, we'll fix them later, right now, I just want to go home and bury myself in Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia. This is going to be a long semester.