𝐆𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 || #𝟏

Chapter 9

"Are we friends?"

"If you want to be," I smile. Jolene smiles back.

We're both stuck staring at each other until a familiar laugh echoes down the hall.

And my mood is ruined, because I'm charging right at the girl who nearly cost me a failed grade.

Alexis.

-- ------ --

"Alexis," I seethed. Looking over at Luke next to her, "i think I'd like to know why your project seemed really similar to Luke's and I's."

Alexis fakes a smile before it drops down to a frown. "Luke was just asking me about that. Yeah, we stole your project and hacked into your laptop. But is it our fault that you always leave your laptop open for anyone to steal?"

"I don't even go on my laptop at lunch," I defend.

"She's not worth it," Luke reasons. "She's never going to change, she's going to stay like this. What can we do about this?"

"We can make her realise what she did was wrong," I angrily say back. I thought Luke would reason with me, but then I realise he doesn't like conflict. Fair enough.

"I know what I did wrong," Alexis smiles. "And I don't care. It's Lilac's fault anyways for being such a bad study partner."

"Don't blame this on innocent people Alexis," Luke suddenly says - turning to her.

"Yeah I don't really care. Ttyl."

She sashays away with victory to the exit of the school. Turning around when she reaches the door, and blows us a kiss with her hands before whipping her hair, just as if she was slapping me with the snakes that are tangled in that head of secrets.

I feel so angry I want to snap her bones in half and throw them away so they can't regrow. Actually, maybe they can. I'm not sure, I'm not a doctor.

I swear, I could sue Alexis if I wanted to. But this would probably just be a trivial matter, and my mum wouldn't care as long as I was getting a good grade.

Nevertheless, if I'm becoming a lawyer, it's to sue the pants over girls like her. But my mum wants me to be a corporate lawyer, the type that makes business deals or some shit. She thinks one day I can have all the big clients like Apple or Google and make a lot of money.

But me? I don't know what I want to do. As a child, I've always wanted to be a doctor. I've also wanted to be a fashion designer, but as soon as I realised that sewing was kind of boring - I gave up and decided to just focus on my music.

Being an asian child, I have to do an instrument. Fun, I know.

Last year, I just passed my final grade exams so now my mums making me work on a diploma in Piano. I'm also doing violin, year six now after starting three years ago. Playing the piano makes every other instrument easy as heck, I had no problems with sight reading or recognising the finger placements and the positions.

I know I'm getting a bit technical, but the point is, I'm very musical oriented. I've been doing piano since I was three, and I've been crying and longing about the day I could quit since I was three. But now that I've gotten this far, it seems like a big waste of all that blood, sweat and all of those tears.

Luke brings me back into reality when he starts muttering about how annoying Alexis is. One thing is reassured in my mind as he rants. Luke will never like a girl like Alexis.

As pretty as Alexis may be, as rich as her family may be. No boy who is kind, honest and ethical like Luke will ever like her that way.

"She's so.. Infuriating," Luke exclaims as we walk. "How can you deal with her?"

"I've been best friends with her since I was three," I shrug. "Then she transferred schools, and I haven't talked to her since then."

"What?"

He pauses me next to the notice board which is where my gaze adverts to. Thousands of pins are stacked into one corner, and sign up sheets for clubs and bands are all cramped into the little space that they had. They only sign up sheets that look like everyone is signing up for is the musical.

"Are you thinking about joining?" Luke asks, shaking me from my thoughts.

"I am," I confidently say. I am even more confident when I see Alexis' cursive handwriting topped off with a heart swirled around on the bottom of the third page. "Which musical are we doing this year?"

"I think we're doing beauty and the beast," Luke says. "I just heard that from my friend on the stage crew."

I cheekily look at Luke's brown eyes as I point my hand to the pen hanging from the board. "Do you wanna audition with me?"

"Hell no," he dismisses. "I am not singing or acting. It's not my thing."

"Please?" I whine, "I don't want to do this alone. The only friend I have that's signed up here is Jolene. Please?"

He sighs and reluctantly picks up the pen that is hanging off. "Alright, but you owe me."

"Also, can I touch your hair?"

"What the fuck?"

"What? Do you condition it or something? I've never seen a guy with perfect hair like yours."

"You should see Shawn's. His hair is way better and much softer than mine." He annoyingly replies as we both walk out, heading for the school's exit.

"I still wanna touch your hair." I say as we exit the musty building and I'm greeted by the lukewarm summer breeze of the outside world. Cars go by and honk at some of the students that were just stepping out of the school, and birds angrily squawk in my direction.

"No."

"Please?"

"I've told you twice, and I'll tell you again. No."

When he's not looking, I slam my hands down on his perfect hair. It doesn't even feel hard, his hair is fluffy, soft. It feels like I'm touching a unicorn's mane. I want to mess with him a bit, so I purposely rub my hands quickly over the strands as he tries to snatch my arms away.

I accidentally push him a bit too roughly, and he goes plummeting onto the concrete. He dusts off the bits of dirt on his jacket and turns around to glare at me. His gaze is broken as soon as his eyes meet mine - laughing as he jokingly shakes his head.

"I already told you."