Not Looking Back

Chapter 2

"Let me see that!" Victoria yells. She trys to snatch it away from Charlie's hand, but I am too fast for her. I take it from his hand and look at it. Sure enough he wasn't lying; written in red pen was a beautifully marked "A." Now, we aren't talking about The Scarlet Letter status, but man was that "A" close to being up there.

"Charlie how did you...?" I start to ask, too amazed to even finish.

"Here! Give it here Lily!" Victoria demands. I shoot her a menacing look, but I give it to her anyways. After a few years of knowing Victoria, I have come to learn that she always gets her way, always. I turn to see what Anthony thinks of all of this, and man is he shocked! His face is that of utter disbelief.

"I mean...I don't know. I didn't study at all and I certainly don't pay attention. You all know, we always fool around in this class," Charlie trys explaining.

"But you got an 'A' for a reason bro. Do you understand what you did?" Anthony asks, finally speaking.

"Yeah I get it. I know what I did, but I thought I did it wrong," Charlie replies, "I guess I just used the steps Mr. Cahill taught us."

With the fail I got, which by the way was a 54%, I have a D in the class. That I'm sure of. All my other classes have A's and B's, but this one is going to ruin my GPA. I was going to need Charlie to tutor me. We're pretty good friends, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind.

"Charlie, do you mind if you tutor me? I really need to pass this class and with the grade I just got, it's not going to happen," I ask.

"Sure. When?" he asks.

"Whenever you're not busy," I respond.

"I don't have practice today," he says. That's great because neither do I. I'm a hurdler in Track, and our season hasn't started yet.

"Great. Neither do I," I respond.

"So meet me by the cafeteria after school then?" Charlie offers.

"Yeah. Thanks Charlie. I really appreciate it," I thank him. The bell finally rings and it is off to track and field. I jump out of my chair and immediately leave the room. Track and field is where I can release all my anger, not that I'm angry. I'm not; I'm happy that Charlie is going to tutor me in Physics. I will finally understand and finally pass my tests.

I wait outside the door for my friend Michael, or as I call him Mikey.

Michael "Mikey" Luce is my best guy friend. We joined cross country together and then track. He's also a hurdler so you can imagine that we fool around a lot during practice. Mikey and I have been friends since sophomore year, and I couldn't ask for a better guy friend. He's really tall, like 6'1, and he has these hazel eyes to die for. And he always laughs, I mean like crazy, at everything I say like if I'm some kind of comedian.

He finally comes down the steps. Man does that kid lag.

"C'mon Mikey, let's go!" I yell. I'm known for being such a loudmouth.

We hurry amongst the people in school. I see a few cute guys along the way (I like to check a good-looking face every now and then) and point them out to Mikey. He only nods his head in disapproval. Suddenly I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn and see that it's Charlie.

"Ohh hey Charlie," I greet him even though last time I saw him was three minutes ago.

"Yo Charlo," Mikey greets.

"Hey Lily. What up Mikey? Lily, why'd you leave so fast from class?" he immediately asks.

"Ohh..umm..." I start to say.

"You didn't even wait for me," he pouts as if I had just broken his heart, totally ignoring my stammering.

I gave him a "what the fuck" face. We have never walked together once, even though we head the same way.

"Yeah Lily! Why didn't we wait for him?" Mikey asks mockingly.

"Well maybe because we have never once walked together to our designated sports," I state all sassily, but with some hint of joke behind it.

Thing is I wouldn't mind walking with Charlie and Mikey to class, it's just that since when does Charlie want to walk with us? With me? I feel like our friendship is just limited to Physics class.

"Well Charles, I say you can walk with us everyday now. Just try to hurry because Coach will get mad at us if we go late to class," Mikey offers.

"Well why thank you Michael. That's so sweet of you. Thank you for offering," he says and then looks at me and winks.