Ash’s POV

A Tuesday morning, room 104, AP calculus. My brain was going crazy. The teacher was explaining things on the board, drawing weird diagrams and placing numbers and letters everywhere. I managed to figure out what some of the things meant, but I didn’t understand so many terms. Basically, I was busy trying to translate everything rather than actually learn new things. Why did different languages have different words for things like this! Not only was calculus confusing for me, but so was physics. I was probably going to fail both classes miserably.

When I finally managed to understand one example and actual write it down in my notes, I looked up to find that she had finished another problem. What was this! It was completely different to the one I had just written down. I sighed and looked around the classroom. Everybody was busy writing things down, and I was just left confused. The boy next to me with black hair and glasses, which he frequently pushed up, seemed to be finished. I mean, why not ask him?

So I leaned over and tapped his shoulder, “can you help me? I’m so confused right now. I normally get all this stuff, but it’s not in German.”

The guy looked so surprised to see that I was talking to him, “y-you want my help?”

“Yeah, who else would I ask?”

“Ok…” he looked at the board and at my paper before proceeding to try to explain thing. But that wasn’t for long.

The teacher, Mrs. Williams, noticed us talking, “Ashley, stop flirting with Quentin and pay attention!”

Once again, everybody in the class turned to look at me. But the looks were very judgemental and some were even giggling. Was talking to Quentin also a bad idea, just like apparently talking to Lianne was? I just wanted to talk to whoever I wanted to. This school was so confusing.

“Mrs! Her name isn’t Ashley, it’s Ash!” Rian shouted from a couple of rows in front of me. Since when was he in this class? I hadn’t seen him, but then again I wasn’t really paying attention to people. Trying to understand this was a whole lot more important.

“Well, Ash, pay attention. I don’t need any PDA in this classroom.”

There were more giggles and I blushed, just wanting to hide away from this. Why were things always going wrong? This was a lot worse than I had expected. I just wanted to go home to my dad and brothers and go back to my normal school. Everything was so much better there. Here everybody only cared about gossip and having a laugh.

“No, Mrs,” the guy with glasses, now also know as Quentin to me, “she was just asking me to help her with understanding this. You’re going pretty fast for someone who has to translate all the math language.”

Everybody seemed so surprised to hear and see Quentin talk and stand up for me. Was he another kid that didn’t talk in class? He did seem kind of nerdy, but I didn’t understand why people wouldn’t want to talk to him. Behind his glasses, he was pretty good looking. Maybe it was something about him not being the hottest around in the earlier years of school, and now nobody even dared to talk to him anymore.

“Alright,” the teacher nodded, “I’ll let it slip this time, but next time put your hand up and ask. I don’t want anybody talking while I’m talking.”

I was ready to get more stares, but the bell rang before anything could happen. After quickly throwing everything into my bag, I rushed out of the classroom, but not before thanking Quentin. He really was nice to try to help me and stand up for me. I couldn’t just leave him hanging like that. Plus, I now also knew the name of one of my neighbours.

I rushed to the canteen. Why was I rushing? For no other reason than that I didn’t want anybody making fun of me. They didn’t seem to really appreciate me ‘flirting’ with Quentin. But something unexpected happened. A group of kids, who I could definitely recognize as the popular and richer kids, stopped me.

“Hey, would you like to sit with us today?” a girl asked. I recognized her as the girl who called me out on rejecting Alex at the party. She was actually quite pretty: very long blonde hair that flowed down her chest, blue eyes that had a slight hint of gray in them, makeup that didn’t look overdone, but just perfect. Everything about her was perfect.

“Oh, umm,” I didn’t know whether they were being serious or not.

“It’s just that I thought it was pretty awesome that you rejected Alex. There’s so many girls that can’t resist him, trust me. Some of us even haven’t been able to keep our hands off of him. But don’t worry, I understand if you don’t want to.”

I looked around to see if I could find any familiar faces, but there were none, “sure, why not?”

----
Alex’s POV

I was so confused when I went to get lunch. Ash wasn’t waiting for me, nor was she sitting at the table she sat at with Lianne. Rian was telling me a story, but I couldn’t concentrate on him. I was too busy scanning the crowd for Ash. Maybe she finally realised I was really stupid for trying to kiss her, and decided to avoid me. I really screw up, didn’t I? Oh god, this was all my fault!

“So, if you hear any rumours about Ash flirting with Quentin, it’s not true,” Rian finished and we sat down, Jack already going crazy with stuffing his mouth.

“Wait, what!” I did not know what was going on. Ash was flirting with Quentin! She could do a lot better, you know, like me.

“Weren’t you listening?”

“No,” I continued looking around, “I haven’t seen Ash since I walked her to calculus.”

“You walked her to calculus?” Jack said with his mouth full while he gave me a suggestive smirk, “Isn’t you classroom on the other side of the building?”

“Yes, because I wanted to. Shut up. But seriously, where is she!”

“She’s right over there,” Jack pointed at the table behind him, the one I had a clear view of, and took another bite of his burrito.

I looked at where Jack was pointing and saw her sitting with all the naturally popular kids. They were pretty rich and spoiled, but most of them were also pretty nice. But why did they suddenly have Ash with them? Were they going to screw her over? I didn’t know what I would do if anything like that happened to her. But she was actually laughing and they were also laughing… it was too suspicious, though!

“Why is she sitting with them!” I frowned and started playing with my food.

“Aww, is Lexy-Poo jealous?” Rian pouted and gave me puppy dog eyes.

“No,” I grumbled and took a bit of my sandwich, thinking it would be a waste to turn all of it into crumbs.

“Lexy-Poo is jealous!”

“Am not!”

I saw Lianne walking through the aisle, and sighed. She was going to see Ash sitting with the girls that hate her. I would have definitely felt betrayed if she were me. But nothing like that happened. Ash actually stopped Lianne and after a couple of seconds, Ash scootched up to make some space for her. What the fuck was going on!

“Guys…” I pointed at Ash, “what’s going on there? Don’t they hate Lianne? This isn’t normal!”

“You’re being way too overprotective,” Rian shook his head after turning his head to see what I was talking about, “maybe they realised that Lianne is actually a nice person. I don’t know. Just stop freaking out and let Ash do whatever she wants.”

“But maybe she’ll get together with one of those jock guys!”

“Alex, she hasn’t even reacted positively to any of my attempts,” Jack rolled his eyes, licking his fingers, “she won’t sleep with any of them.”

I just pouted. I never had felt like this before. This wasn’t normal, and I didn’t like it. I was caring too much about her, and I had to change it. But I fucking couldn’t. Ash had basically stolen my heart already. I was fucked and I knew it. There was no getting over her at all, not even sleeping with some cheap girl would help. I wanted Ash, but I wasn’t going to force her.

Notes

Poor Alex... Rian and Jack are always teasing him, yet also telling him it will be ok. Alex is going to go crazy if they keep continuing like that. And what about the fast that Ash and Lianne were just accepted into the popular group? Is it a setup or is it real? Will any of them find out?

So here's the gif of today:

it's only the best dance ever.

So, I will be gone the entire weekend and forgot to tell anybody on my other story. Don't worry, I won't be dead. But I'm not going to be able to write. So the next chapter won't come out until sometime next week :( But family comes first.