Alex’s POV

Ash had been assigned to sit next to me in every class. Yay…. ugh. No. I wanted to be able to sit with my friends, but no. Every teacher thought it would be a good idea to have us sit with each other since we already knew each other. But I really didn’t want to. Sure, she didn’t talk to me, but I didn’t want to have her around me the entire day!

The last lesson we had before lunch was art. And once again, I had to take Ash up to the teacher and had to introduce them to each other. Once again, the teacher told her she could sit next to me. Great. I was about to slouch over to my seat when Ash spoke up.

“Umm, actually, I’ve been seated next to him in every other class. I would like to meet some new people,” she asked as politely as possible.

“Ok, sure,” the old female teacher smiled at her, “choose and free seat.”

I light out a sigh of relief and went to my usual seat: a seat surrounded by all my friends. Ash looked around the room for a bit and started walking to an empty seat. I follow her with my eyes and saw where she was heading. Oh god no. Not Lianne! She was the fucking weirdo shy kid nobody ever sat next to! Ash better fucking turn away now! Why was I allowing this to happen! But Ash had already put her bag down on the floor and sat down. I saw her say hi to Lianna, causing her to look up from her drawing and smile back. After that Lianna kept drawing with a smile on her face. She never fucking smiled. What the actual fuck was going on!

“Yo, dude, you’re staring at her,” Rian nudged me in the ribs.

“Hmm, who?” I looked away and raised my eyebrows at Rian.

“At Ash, you doofus. I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I don’t, but nobody’s going to want to socialize with her now. We will never get rid of her.”

“Yes, but why were you staring?”

“Because she’s sitting next to Lianne,” I rolled my eyes as if it was obvious.

“Ok, if you say so,” Rian started whispering since the teacher actually started doing her job, “and I actually think Ash is pretty cool.”

“Whatever.”

We were assigned to make a poster about a problem high school students had, in pairs. It could be anything, nothing would be stupid. But I knew better, the teacher might not judge, but classmates definitely were going to. There was always a wrong answer to an open question about opinions.

Rian and I decided to work together and we were brainstorming ideas. But I couldn’t concentrate. My eyes kept wandering off to where Ash was sitting. She was talking and laughing with Lianne. What type of sorcery was this! Lianne never fucking talked, let alone laughed! Did she have some evil plan to murder Ash in her sleep? But ugh, Ash’s laugh was just perfect. It wasn’t like that over bubbly or high pitched laugh most girls had; it also wasn’t like a crazyass donkey; it was perfect.

I was interrupted by Rian snapping his fingers in front of my eyes, “do you agree, Alex?”

“Huh, what?” I shook my head and looked back down at the table.

“Our high school problem is Crushes,” Rian told me and twitched his head toward the teacher who was standing next to us. She had probably just asked us what our theme was.

“Uhh, yeah…” I smiled.

The teacher look satisfied and walked away, “good luck, boys.”

I glared at Rian, “I do not have a crush.”

“Oh come on!” Rian exclaimed and lowered his voice, “you’ve been staring at her for the past 20 minutes. I’ve been trying to talk to you, but you probably haven’t even heard me.”

“I do not have a crush. I’m just confused about Ash actually getting Lianne to speak and laugh.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

I did not have a crush on Ash! It was never going to happen. We couldn’t even be around each other for long before something would go wrong. I thought she was annoying, and she hated me. It was just how we worked. I was never going to like her, let alone like like her. That was fucking impossible!

I tried working with Rian, trust me, I really did. But I just couldn’t. I couldn’t help but look at Ash. She was so interesting and beautiful- wait no. This was probably why Rian thought I had a crush on her! Couldn’t I just think a girl was pretty without wanting to date her? Yes, I definitely could. Ash was hot and I wasn’t going to deny it, but I would never ever want to fucking date her.

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Ash’s POV

I was trying to catch my breath after having laughed with Lianne about something she did in the summer. She was really cool and was actually nice, unlike many people I had met today. Since we were sitting together, we chose to work on the weird project together. We both agreed that this wasn’t really art, but that we were going to try to make an artwork out of this poster. Our problem was going to stay secret. We didn’t want anybody stealing our idea.

“Ash, act normal and don’t look, but Alex freaking Gaskarth is looking our way!” Lianne squealed.

“Ugh, can’t he just stop!” I whined, “he’s the most annoying person ever. One moment he’s all nice to me, the next he’s making fun of me and trying to hurt me in one way or another.”

“But it’s Alex Gaskarth! I swear to god that he’s staring at you!”

“What’s so special about him anyway?” I played with a pencil in my hands while I was trying to figure out what would look better on the poster: a red figure or a green figure.

“He’s in a band with his friends Jack and Rian and some other guy from another school,” she said like I was being stupid.

“Oh, Zack, he’s pretty cool, actually. Alex, on the other hand, will stay the guy who walked in the bathroom this morning and started peeing while I was putting on my makeup. I don’t get why girls think he’s amazing.”

“Wait. You’re staying with him!”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

“Can we please trade places,” she begged me.

I laughed, “I’d be happy to.”

The bell suddenly rang and students ran out of the classroom. Lunch really was the best time of day for some people. I, however, didn’t feel rushed to go to lunch. But Alex obviously did. He came right up to me and stared at me, giving me annoyed glares.

“Come on, Ash, I want to go to lunch!” he ‘helped’ pack my stuff away, “my mom gave me our lunch money. Hurry up!”

Before I could even say bye to Lianne, Alex was dragging me away. Rian was also walking with us. I had seen him sitting with Alex. However, Jack was nowhere to be seen. He was probably in a different class.

“What was that about!” I ripped my arm out of his grasp.

“Don’t talk to her,” Alex told me, “nobody talks to her.”

‘I’ll talk to whoever I want to talk to!”

“I’m just warning you,” Alex raised his hands in defense, “we’re meeting Jack at the cafeteria, by the way.”

“Oh great, him again.”

Alex rolled his eyes and continued to pull me along. He forced a tray in my hands as we stood in line and angrily gave me all my food before paying for both our lunches at the end of the cue. I could have easily done it myself, but Alex seemed so determined and didn’t listen to my arguments. Why was he so mad? Or was I just mistaking his meanness as mad?

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Alex’s POV

Jack was already sitting at our usual table, so we quickly joined him. Rian took the seat next to him, and Ash and I were left to sit opposite them. Jack greeted us and we started eating our lunch. The cafeteria was slowly filling up with more students and the noise was getting louder and louder.

“So, Ash,” Jack spoke up, “how many guys have you done it with?”

I expected him to ask her how her first day had been so far, but nope. Jack wasn’t as sensible as I hoped him to be. He went right back to trying to sleep with her. Couldn’t he see she didn’t want to? She obviously had other interest. He was basically harassing her.

“Umm, I’m sorry?” Ash did as if she hadn’t heard him.

“How many guys have you done the sex with?”

“And you want to know this because…?’

I knew exactly where this was going. Why did Jack have to be so stupid! Couldn’t he just be nice to the girl!

“‘Cause you’re hot,” Jack took a bite of his pizza, “so, how many?”

Ash gave him a disgusted look and put her sandwich down. She got up and picked up her tray before walking away. This was not what I expected and of course she went over to Lianne, who was sitting at a table all by herself. This was going to be her social death. Nobody was going to want to be her friend and I was going to be ignored as well because I had to hang out with her.

I scoffed at Jack, “seriously! Can’t you give up already!”

Jack looked taken aback by my outburst, “no, she obviously wants to, but she’s just playing hard to get. Why do you care anyway?”

“Remember what happened last time you did this?”

He thought for a bit before shaking his head, “nope.”

“You fucking made her cry! What’s wrong with you!” I was seriously starting to get mad at him.

“Oh yeah, I did,” he nodded like it was nothing and started eating again.

“She’s just a girl, can’t you leave her alone. There’s a whole lot of girls here that want to sleep with you. Just leave her alone!”

“Alex’s got a crush!” Rian smirked in a teasing voice.

“I do not have a fucking crush!” I snapped.

People turned and looked at me. I did not have a crush.

Notes

New character! Yay. Ash made a friend that wasn't forced because of Alex. But Alex doesn't seem to like it. How will the rest of the school react when they find out the exchange student socialised with the one person nobody talks to?