Rest In Peace (Doublesided sequel)

Chapter Thirteen- Acid Nomenclature

For the past two weeks, I'd given up all of the drama, the emotions and the father issues, I needed to study for my finals. Although my life was crumbling down everywhere around me, I wanted to make sure my future wouldn't stay the same. I absolutely couldn't stand school, and felt that all education after middle school was unnecessary and excessive, but I still had to do it.

With the help from Mr. Tucker, the tutoring from Liam, and the love of Zayn, it hasn't been as bad as I expected it to be. All of the texts and calls from my father have been ignored, if he really wanted me, he knew where I was. Finals were in two days, I felt like I was as ready as I was going to be, so I decided to rest until then.

Zayn drove to school with me, he intending to simply go to his classes so he wouldn't automatically fail, and I trying not to overwork my brain. "I'll see you in a couple hours, Nialler," he muttered bringing our lips together, "I love you." I opened the car door, keeping my forehead pressed against his, "I love you too, Zayn," I replied stepping out of the car with my lips caught between my teeth. "I'm proud of you, cutie," he yelled across the parking lot, making me blush.

~

The day dragged by as usual, finally bringing it to lunch time to catch up with my friends that I'd neglected for the past two weeks by going to the library. "Niall, I though I'd never see you again, thought you'd got sucked into a book," Louis chuckled, "no, just a lot happening at one time, Lou." I clapped his hand onto my shoulder, "I understand mate, it's fine," Liam, Josh, Eleanor, and Harry all sat with smiles on their faces, happy to see me after so long. "Why don't you have anything to eat, Niall," Eleanor asked, "I can buy you something." I smiled at the gesture and declined it, "no thanks, El," she placed her hand on mine, "are you sure Ni-." Louis sighed loudly and rolled his eyes, "he said no Eleanor, leave him alone." Everyone's eyes shot to Lou, wondering why he was so hostile over Eleanor buying food.

"Well I don't mean to be rude, guys, but I'm going to go to class early, I need some last minute studying for chemistry," I stood. "Well good luck on the finals, and when they're over, come visit us. We don't want you to graduate without saying bye, "Harry stated. I walked to Mr. Tucker's room and opened the door to see him tutoring Peyton. After two weeks, Peyton went from casts all over his body and in a wheelchair, to one last cast on his arm and crutches. "Niall, come sit; are you here for extra help too," I nodded and took a seat next to Peyton, trying to be an adult and put off our feud for a little while.

Mr. Tucker started teaching and we both mostly understood everything, giving me some comfort, but somehow we both didn't understand the same thing; acid nomenclature. "Now, it's really simple, if the suffix of the polyatomic ion is -ate, you change it to -ic, and if the suffix is -ite, you change it to -ous." I chuckled out of frustration, "yeah that sounds simple but, I don't get it," I muttered out with Peyton nodding in agreeance. "I think you guys need to spend some time together, "Mr. Tucker said, closing his book, "what does that have to do with what we're learning," Peyton hissed. "Well, I've noticed for a while that you two don't particularly like each other, I don't know what happened, but when I started teaching acid nomenclature you guys were too busy bickering to listen to the lesson."

I foolishly bit my lip and blushed, I thought I would hold myself to a higher standard than that, apparently not. "You two need to cross this bridge, and fast, finals are in two days. One of you need to go home with the other, and whenever you two settle whatever your problem is, come back to me and I'll teach you."

~

"I don't care what Mr. Tucker said, I'm not fucking helping you with your crutches," I spat waiting for him to get out of my car, we were at the art studio because I didn't want to just sit at my house and study anymore. We entered the building and I greeted Eleanor, then saw Zayn at the front desk and grinned, "I sit right there, I guess you can sit next to me." Peyton shuffled over to the table and sat as I walked up to Zayn, "How are you, Ni," I hugged him, "I've been better, Peyton is here."

Zayn tensed and his jaw clenched hard, "why," he spoke simply, "Mr. Tucker wants us to get along before finals." He pecked my forehead, "well I'm going to start the class babe," I walked to my seat, my foul attitude returning as soon as Peyton entered my peripheral vision. "Okay, today I will give you all dictionaries, you all will have every word at your will, every word in this dictionary is fair play," he started passing out the dictionaries.

"Anything you do to the dictionary, or anyway you interpret it is all fine," Peyton raised his hand, "what are you saying, like what are we supposed to do with it." Zayn snarled subtly, "whatever, it's your imagination, make it what you see it for."

I started slowly, not even knowing what I was doing, I grabbed an exactoknife and started cutting the center of the book out. I started to cut individual pages until I reached a word that I liked. When I finished I looked down to see nothing left of the dictionary except the outer ring and a string of words down the middle, 'look a little bit deeper.'