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Unlike Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, the odds were not in my favor. There was no way I was coming out of the gauntlet with a date now, which was disappointing. In only four months, I’d graduate, which meant preparing to leave for college. I had wanted one final year of making as many memories as I could with my friends—with Ethan.
By the time I entered my fifth-period Chemistry class, I had thought I was in the clear. Other than Macky in the hall this morning, no one said much about my feud with Carson. Unfortunately, he was in my chemistry class, so there was no avoiding him.
When I entered the room, I took my seat at the large lab table next to my partner, Sarah, while avoiding eye-contact with the table next to ours where I knew Carson would be seated. A ripple of excitement swept through the room as a substitute entered. Once we were given our lab assignment, each table got to work collecting beakers, PH test strips, scales, and everything else we required for the experiment. After making sure I had everything, I returned to my lab table with the last of our things, and Sarah yawned, then said, “Oh my gosh. I got no sleep last night. I’m just spent.”
I said nothing, knowing where this was going because if there was one way in which I could rely on Sarah as a partner, it was for her to be epically lazy. More often than not, she copied my notes and homework. Rarely did she actually help me with any of the labs or experiments, and the fact that we had a sub made it exponentially easier for her to slack off.
“Do you think you could handle this one? Maybe I could just watch and take notes,” she said, though we both knew her idea of taking notes was napping behind her bookbag.
I sighed. For once, I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell her I was sick of pulling her weight.
Movement from a table over caught my eye, and when I looked, I saw Carson arch a brow, nodding toward Sarah. Then he pulled a face and made a slashing movement across his throat as if to tell me not to do it.
Turning back to her, I opened my mouth to tell her no, but what came out was, “Whatever.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Carson shook his head, disappointed, which annoyed me. It’s not like it was him doing the extra work. What did he care?
Before I could even shoot him a dirty look, he was raising his hand and asking, “Uh, my partner’s out sick today. Do you care if I pair up with another group?” The substitute waved him off and nodded, more interested in his magazine than anything happening in the classroom, and before I could protest, Carson was brushing Sarah aside and bumping into me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, feigning annoyance. Even if the world were ending, I would never admit that deep down, I was actually kind of glad to have a real partner. Even if it was Carson.
“You’re welcome.” He grinned.
I placed one hand on my hip. “Like I need your help.”
“At least you won’t have to do all the work alone,” Carson said. “And if there’s one thing I’m good at, Shorty, it’s chemistry.” He wiggled his brows, earning him an eye roll.
Behind us, we heard a
couple of kids snicker, followed by a wad of paper whacking me in the back. Turning, I glanced around the room, but everyone was laser-focused on their experiment, all eyes on their table, except for Tasha who met my gaze quickly before glancing away again.
Frowning, I unraveled the ball of paper. Inside was a rather crude rendition of a girl strangling someone. I had no doubts about who the two people were supposed to be.
From over my shoulder, Carson snatched the paper away. I expected him to laugh, but instead, he whipped around to the sound of Tasha and her partner’s laughter and barked out, “Knock it off, guys.” Then he strode over to the trash can and threw it inside.
When he returned, I avoided his eye. “Um, thanks.”
“People haven’t been bugging you about that, have they?”
“No,” I lied, mostly because other than Tasha’s rather defunct art skills, Macky was the only one to pick on me and being mean was just a part of who he was.
“Good,” he said. “Because if they were, they’d have to answer to me.”
Then he pointed to our lab sheets and started on our experiment.
???
School on Friday was uneventful, thank goodness. No one said anything else about the gym incident, and only a few people commented on my eye. The rest probably had already chalked it up to just another fight between us. After all, it was no secret we were enemies.
I spent most of the weekend hanging out with Ethan. Sunday was no exception, and we spent the majority of it lazing about in his room since the weather was cold and rainy. At the moment, I was currently lounging on his bedroom floor, staring up at the ceiling, thinking of how much cooler Carson’s room was compared to his—not that I would ever tell Ethan that.
I groaned and shook more chips from the bag into my bowl. “I don’t want tomorrow to be Monday.”
“Why? You have a killer test or something?” Ethan asked, taking a handful of chips.
“No. I promised Mrs. Parks I’d come to school early so I could show a newb around the school.” And if tomorrow’s Monday, that meant today was Sunday, and the time I’d have to spend with Carson was fast approaching.
“Oh.” Ethan wiggled his brows. “New guy?”
