Like To Be You ✓

nine

"Hey, loser." Someone says when I enter detention. I look at the person, who is sitting at the seat right next to where I'm standing, and I do a double take.

"Miranda?"

"Yes?" she looks unimpressed and... naked.

At least her face does. The raccoon eyes and goth lipstick are all gone. Her skin looks pinker without all the white-ass foundation she usually cakes on.

And most importantly, she doesn't look like a garbanzo bean anymore.

"The fuck happened to your face?" I say without thinking, a usual occurrence.

She shrugs and goes back to chewing her gummy bears. I stare at her face for another moment, trying to digest what has happened, then I move ahead and slide into a chair three diagonal seats away from Tyler.

He's sleeping with his face hidden by his arms, but that unruly hair and stupid white shirt is enough indication of the stupidly handsome Caucasian male I claim to hate.

Correction: I do hate.

Coach Philips sits at the teacher's table, rifling through papers. "Nice to see you, Graham," he says, chewing on a mint leaf, "Haven't seen you on the track in so long."

I nod my head. "Hey, Coach. How was Madagascar?"

He grins, showing off pieces of chewed mint between his teeth. I try to keep the disgust off my face. "Fantastic. At least now my wife will be happy for the next four months."

I have many questions for him, the first being when did you even get a wife, but I only offer him a smile and turn back to my desk. I open the zip of my bag and pull out a few rough sheets and a worksheet Mr Blackwell had handed to Tyler and me.

"Have fun in detention," he'd said, and flashed us that shit-eating grin of his.

My eyes skim over the questions, and I blank out for a solid moment.

"What the fuck." I mumble and start by solving the fifth question, which looks to be the easiest. Fifteen minutes of gruelling head-scratching and scribbling later, I have an answer.

I'm about to start with the eighth question when a shadow looms over my desk. I stop and look up.

"Hi," Tobias something-something, the new hot-shot from some other prestigious school I don't give a shit about, smiles. "Do you mind if I sit down?"

I respond a few seconds too late. I want to shoo him away as nicely as I can, but then my inner-self somehow convinces me to be a little less shitty today.

"Sure," I force out.

He nods once, still smiling, and takes a seat. I have to admit, he's got the looks, with his coffee-coloured skin and curly hair. But then I remind myself: he's straight.

Of course he is. Every hot guy I've come across in this city is straight, except for Tyler Beckett, but that's another case. A case we don't talk about.

"Whoa, that's scary." His eyes widen at the sight of the worksheet on my desk, which is covered in pencil marks and random numbers and symbols even I cannot decipher now.

I open my mouth to reply, but a loud gasp catches my attention, as well as Tobias's. Three diagonal seats away, Tyler sits up, breathing quickly, looking dazed. He wipes off the drool from the corner of his mouth and rubs his eyes and yawns. At that moment, I don't know why, but he reminds me of a kitten. A very cute, warm, and fuzzy kitten.

I make a face, trying to rid the weird thoughts.

Tyler blinks a few times, shakes his arm out, and then puts his head back down, falling asleep.