Cherry

Chapter 9: The project I

"Oh my god Cher, are you okay?" Lion gets up to help me right away.

"Yeah" I say getting up.

"You got a nose bleed" he says giving me a hand.

"Oh shit" I exclaim putting my hand at my nose and running to the girl's toilet. After a couple of minutes I hear someone come in.

"Hey, you okay?" he asks.

"Yeah I'm fine. What are you doing in the girl's bathroom?" I ask right when a guy steps out of one of the stalls.

"Wait ...why is he in the girl's bathroom?" I ask dumbfounded.

"You're in the boy's bathroom... " he chuckles.

"WHAT?" I shout.

"Why didn't you say earlier" I ask turning around and going out of the bathroom so I don't embarrass myself further.

The guy who was in the toilet starts washing his hands and looks at me weirdly. I just smile innocently.

"It was fun watching you react to It." he says grinning.

"Shut up." I slap him on the hand and we stop in front of the bathroom. A tension fills our surrounding as we stare into each other's eyes.

"I'm glad you didn't hurt yourself badly" he says braking our staring contest and heads to the classroom.

What was all that about?

As we get back to our seats I do a proper introduction without embarrassing myself further.

"Okay now that we're done with that I have to give you something to work on. You can't slack off in my class. I'm going to give you a project to work on in a group of two. You'll be paired as you sit. And please don't beg me to change your partner. Are we clear?" Miss Davis said calmly.

Everybody started grumbling.

As I hear that I turn to Lion and he looks at me smiling. My heart starts beating fast. I don't like this.

"Are we clear?" she roared.

"Yes mam!" the whole class suddenly shouts and I abruptly turn to her.

I guess everybody's afraid of her. I am too now. It's like we're in the military.

"The project will be about what chemicals are involved when we are in love. You have one week to finish it. Understand?"

"Yes mam" we shout again.

"If you have any questions about it feel free to ask me. If you don't have it finished by the deadline, you'll have to take a test on what we've learned the year before" she says sitting in her seat and browsing some chemistry book.

Well at least if I don't finish it I won't have an F. I hate when teachers give us assignment on the first day of school.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Mom, I'm home!" I shout from the door as I see Iris running towards me.

I crouch and start to pet her.

"Hey Iris. How was your day without me? Were you sad?" she rolls on her back and I start rubbing her belly "Aww don't be, I'm right here." I say rubbing her more roughly.

"Hey honey, how was the first day in your new school?" she asks coming from the kitchen with an apron around her neck.

"It was okay. The chemistry teacher gave us a project right away" I say plopping down on the couch.

"Did you make any new friends?" she asks sitting opposite of me.

"Well Mason and Lion were there but I don't think they count as new friends. Most of my classes are with Lion and the other ones are with Mel, so I'll be okay"

"I'm glad honey" mom says going for a hug.

"Hey want to do a movie night tonight?" she asks.

"Sure, why not? I need to relax a little. Just let me get off these uncomfortable clothes first" I go to wash up as Iris follows me into the bathroom.

"You're not allowed here miss" I say shooing her out of the bathroom. She looks at me like I'm her whole world, which I probably am. 

"I'm sorry, I love you" I whisper and pat her on the head before closing the door.

"What kind of movie do you want to watch?" mom asks as she picks up the laptop from the coffee table.

"Action, romance or sci-fi" I answer plopping on the sofa. Those are my favorite genres.

"How about 'The space between us'? That's all of the above" she asks.

"Okay yeah, I've never watched it" I start petting Iris as she jumps to sit next to me.

We have movie nights occasionally so we can both relax from reality and dive in the world of fantasy because every now and then we all need that.

As the movie ends I go in my room to do homework and mom goes into the kitchen to make dinner.

Doing homework isn't as bad as doing projects. I don't like team work so doing homework, alone, is easier. When you're in teams some of them might not finish their work and you'll be the one suffering because of that. But I can't do anything about the chemistry project to change it.

As I start doing my homework my phone starts ringing.

"Hey Cherry, how was school? Today we didn't have any classes together. It's only today tho." Mel states.

"It was okay. The chemistry teacher gave us a project on the first day. And what's worse I tripped while presenting myself to the class. Aaaaand I accidentally went into the boys bathroom soooo..." I complain.

Mel starts howling with laughter.

"Stop laughing! It wasn't funny. It was embarrassing!" I exclaim.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop." she says chuckling "So did anything spicy happen with Lion?" she adds.

"No. What could've happened? I'm actually doing the chemistry project with him" I say adjusting myself to sit comfortably on the bed.

"Uuuu now that's some spicy information. I bet it's going to be like in one of those romantic movies..."

Here we go again. Melanie really likes to fantasizes about other people's romance life. That's her hobby. 

"You'll work on your project, side by side. While you work on it he'll stare at you intensely and you'll turn around to see what's up. Right at that moment he'll reach his hand behind his head and..."

"Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there. It's enough. That's never going to happen."

"But what if it does?" Mel asks.

"It won't. Now I have to go. I need to finish my homework." I say annoyingly.

"Okay, if you say so. See you tomorrow" she says as she hangs up.

Honestly I'm not sure what will happen.