10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love

DON'T CALL ME LIZ

"Good-bye!" Elizabeth snarled, stomping out of school, not caring if she got soaked. God forbid she spend another moment with that #@^&*$@^#&*^%@$&*#!!!!

"Hey, wait up, Liz!" Vincent snickered, following her out into the rain.

Elizabeth whirled around so fast that she would have knocked him over had he not taken a quick step back; a wonderful miracle it would have been.

For the past twenty minutes, Elizabeth and her pretty boy partner had argued over what part of the festival they were to work on. Vincent had simply deliberately disagreed with every one of her proposals, until the teacher came back from lunch break and said that time was up for submitting what you wanted to do, and the duo got landed with advertising in front of the school for passerby to come and visit. Of all the stupid, mind-numbing jobs to do!

What's more? Vincent had laughed and said it was a perfect job for nerdy little Liz to advertise as the school's symbol. They were going to fail the assignment. She knew it. Advertising was the most simple and difficult job of the entire festival.

The idea of just standing at the school entrance passing out flyers was too boring, so the staff decided that you had to add zest to the presentation, or a letter grade would be lost. A LETTER GRADE. A WHOLE LETTER GRADE. Getting anything less than 100% in everything she did meant losing her scholarship. Without the high end private school, Elizabeth and her mother would be... She couldn't even think about it. Unacceptable.

As a result, Elizabeth nearly got a question wrong on the pop quiz, didn't know where the class was in Hamlet when called on to read out loud, and ran the opposite direction during the mile run (not that that stopped her from finishing first). The rest of her day had been mistake after mistake after mistake. It was by sheer luck that her grades hadn't dropped.

"DO- NOT- CALL- ME- THAT!" she growled. Vincent just laughed.

"Calm down. It's not like I won't be able to carry my own weight."

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"What? I do great in school-"

"When you're not cutting class or hanging in-"

"Out," he interrupted with a smirk.

"Out," Elizabeth fumed testily, "with some group of delinquents!"

Vincent rolled his eyes. "The guys aren't that bad."

"One of them has taken the virginity of six girls!"

"...and?"

"Ugh!" She rolled her eyes to the rapidly darkening sky and simply left, sloshing through the rain. Talking to him would be useless.

Turning the corner, Elizabeth ran down the sidewalk and to the subway, where she would use it as a shortcut to get home, avoiding bothersome streets and walk signs. The only downside was...

"Stop! Thief!" a woman yelled after a middle aged man clutching her purse and charging right through the crowd. Elizabeth sighed. She'd be late for dinner; again.

Strutting up to the thief, she planted herself impertinently in front of him, and put out her hand, a clear sign she expected him to hand the purse over.

Smirking, the robber simply veered to the left. Little did he expect the girl to apprehend him, and then simultaneously kick him a few yards back with the same stride. Elizabeth approached him, and stuck her hand out.

"The purse."

The man acted as if he was going to surrender the purse, but in reality, just pulled a knife on her. Elizabeth didn't have time to move out of the way. The edge got closer and closer to her throat. Shit.

That day, blood had stained her dull clothes a brilliant red...