Tethered

Chapter 7:

"you are kidding, right?" Lola chuckled humorlessly making me look at her, "because it's NOT funny!"

Liam had a cute frown on his forehead while Janet and Diana wore a poker face. We had been sitting like shocked statutes for last ten minutes till Lola broke the deafening silence. And the emptiness of the place only made it look more of a serious situation than a problem of a high schooler.

Liam and his pal, David had sort of joined our group, unofficially, might I add. We all have had been hanging out together quite frequently, lately.

"I shouldn't have skipped that class!" Liam grumbled under his breath. His cute frown had transformed into an irritated expression.

"can we not do anything about this?" I asked frustrated as I swirled on the wooden chair of Taco Bell. The thought of sitting beside Rome for the rest of the senior year suddenly seemed not so thrilling after his arrogant behaviour towards me during the Mrs. Veronicas' class.

"Damn! What was such a big deal about this!?! Just exchange your partners," David stated in a duh tone before adding, "And whoever is Liam's partner will be very thrilled to sit in Lizzy's seat with no objections." He sniggered making Liam to scowl and my stomach to form a knot. It was true, no matter how much I wanted it to be a lie. Any girl would die to be in my place except for me, of course.

"he is not an angel," Liam protested. His green monster was clearly visible. I couldn't help but admire the jealous Liam. I wanted to tease him very badly but now was not the time.

"but he will not object our solution," Janet voiced out for the first time that evening. Thinking again, I found that the idea was actually pretty good. Liam was better than that asshole of a Rome but still a part of me secretly wanted him to object the new set up.

Stupid Lizzy! Are you still not over him? You CANNOT handle another rejection, for your kind information... My rationality shouted.

Yeah, I didn't think I would want to be treated like s**t by that asshole again.

"yeah, Mrs. Veronicas will have a lot more on her mind than keeping track of the pairs formed out of the box," Liam smiled making me relax. It was always better to stay away from Rome as much as possible. He was a complete hopeless case.

"I'll talk to Grace tomorrow morning," I implied and everyone nodded in agreement. I wasn't going to sit another day beside Rome!

*****************

I waited by the lockers for Grace to show up. The time for the first period was almost up yet this Grace was nowhere to be found. I was losing my patience as the time ticked away. I always hated the waiting business. I would have had given up a long time ago and walked to my class if that bastard Rome's face hadn't haunted in my head. His furious glares, his scowling lips, he ignoring my presence and that arrogant attitude.

Sighing, I leaned on the locker. I must get this done as soon as possible.

Grace, Grace where the hell are you?

Finally, her voice boomed above the chattering in the hall way.

"excuse me! Excuse me! Please, let me through!" she pushed herself through the quickly dispersing crowd and made her way to her locker with a whole lot of books stacked in her hands. Someone found it funny to bump into her intentionally making her drop her books and when she bent down to pick them up, they pushed her making her fall on the ground with face first. I cringed at the sight. It was actually cruel to torture people like that. No one wanted to tolerate this type of s**t all throughout their schooling years.

That was the problem every average student faced every single day. And one word definition would be: bullies...

I walked forward to help her. As I neared her, I noticed her features. She was a typical blonde with a set of nerdy glasses. I had nothing against the blondes, in fact I admired them but this one's fashion sense shouted NERD making me stereotypically judgemental. Her shirt was loose and her pants were baggy. Did she wear her mom's clothes by mistake or was that her taste in clothing size?

Anyway, I ignored the urge to question her and crouched down beside her, picking up her fallen things. She smiled nervously making me smile in return.

"um... thanks," she mumbled.

"no worries," I put her books in her now opened locker then turned to face her.

"you...you're Elizabeth, right?" she asked hesitantly making me look down at my blue summer floral dress wondering if I looked peculiarly odd or shabby. Did she have trouble recognising me? There was no one in the whole building who didn't know me, whether or not I knew them. Then, why was she asking?

"yeah," I replied with a tight smile. Was is just for the sake of introduction? Just to reduce the awkwardness?

"I'm Grace. Grace Nixon," she raised her hand in the air for a hand shake.

"I know who you are," I replied with that same tight lipped smile, feeling slightly awkward.

"oh!" she flushed before pulling her hand back. She looked quite intimated by my presence as if I would eat her up right now.

"can I ask you a favor?" I cleared my throat to cut down the slightly building tension. I didn't want to beat around the bush, I didn't even have that much of time to play around.

"okay," she bit her lower lip while fidgeting with her fingers. She was definitely nervous I could tell and that made me want to smirk but I resisted the urge.

"I need you take my seat beside Rome from today onwards in Mrs. Veronica's class," I ordered it out straight forward. It wasn't like she would say no to me since she was such a nervous wreck at the moment. She gaped at me for a while before recovering from the initial shock.

"seriously?" she inquired, there was a conflicted emotions on her face. A mixture of surprise, joy and suspicion. Well, who wouldn't be? We were reputed for playing cunning tricks. But as if we had enough time to pick a nobody and embarrass her before the whole school. We were preoccupied with our rivals, expanding our equation was out of question.

"very," I confirmed feeling the irritation seep into me. No doubt that she would have heard it in my voice.

"Okay! that's so cool! Thank you!" she exclaimed with a smug and had almost hugged me. Surprise hadn't left her features yet.

"yeah sure," I stated as I walked away rolling my eyes. I was irritated and a part of my stomach dropped. What was with him that drove girls crazy?

Okay, I knew the answer already. Why did I even think of such a stupid question anyway?

I spaced out, letting my mind sail through miles together as I headed towards my first classroom. My body had already adjusted to the schedule and did mundane things reflexively.

My first class was biology and Mr. Woody was already inside. A gangly man with whitened hair in the front would be the perfect way to describe him. He was tall but slouched visibly making him look rather shorter. I stood by the door frame and smile innocently when his eyes met mine. He nodded allowing me in without any word exchanged.

"sorry" I mouthed and sat in the nearest empty seat. A microscope was placed before me.

"you will be given different slides containing different types of cells. Your task is to identify the cells and report it to me," Mr. Woody announced making me furrow my brows. Identify the cells? Seriously? Every cell looked the same...

What was I going to do? How was I going to make out which cell was what? I looked at the slip placed beside the slide. Parenchyma, sclerenchyma and chlorenchyma was written on it making me scratching my head. I noticed that everyone else had already started.

"any problem, Ms. Marshalls?" Mr. Woody's voice asked from behind. I turned around to smile nervously at him.

"um...er..." I hesitated. But he didn't let me continue.

"let me guess, the same problem as the previous year. You have trouble identifying the cells?" he asked making me drop my gaze to the ground feeling embarrassed. I was grateful that the conversation was taking place in a hushed voices such that only my neighbours could hear it and not the whole class.

"stay back after school. I'll tell Havana Paul to teach you the topic again," he ordered before moving back to the front of the class making me sigh.

Why and how was it that these type of things always found me?

"shall I help you with this?" a cute subcontinent transfer student asked me from beside. Her raven head looked like a replica of mine. She looked quite harmless.

"yes, please! That's so kind of you," I smiled nervously at her.

"no problem," she smiled back adjusting her chair beside mine.

"by the way, I'm Elizabeth. You can call me Lizzy," I informed. At last I was making a new friend rather than an enemy.

"I'm Ala."

At least now I won't be sitting idly for the rest of the class!

*********

I sighed as the third period of the day passed by. After the biology class, the next two periods went in blur. I stood by my locker trying to remember what was the next period.

"so princess, ready for English literature with a hot guy like me?" a voice whispered suavely above my ear giving me chills down the spine when the cool breath tickled the exposed skin of my neck. I spun around to find Liam smiling cheekily at me. His bedroom hair was adding to his good looks.

"you wish," I scoffed as I opened my locker and took out my next books. He held his hands above his heart and mocked hurt, "ouch!"

I couldn't help but chuckle.

"okay, drama queen. Let's get going before Mrs. Veronicas concludes that we skipped her class," I pinched his nose playfully and turned around to walk towards the class.

"Babe, I'm a man. So it will be drama king not queen," he retorted.

"Whatever," I replied as I smiled slightly.

"so, I was thinking.... Maybe....we could go out after school?" he asked nervously scratching the back of his neck as we walked.

"no one is allowed to stay back after school unless a teacher asks you to. So everyone needs to go out!" I bit my lower lip to hide the smile threatening to spread. I loved messing with him. He stopped dead on his tracks to give me a blunt look. I was expecting his smart ass comeback. It was always the funny things that would come out of him in these situations or sometimes really cute cheesy stuff.

"no Lizzy, I wasn't talking about that. I was asking you out for a date," he explained me like I was a five year old. I stopped and looked at him, my smile broke onto my face as I walked up to him and ruffled his hair chuckling all the time.

"hey!" he protested catching my wrists and stopping me. His lips had curled up with excitement.

"you are such a tease! I should have known," he chuckled.

"of course, doofus. Teasing is the only thing I'm good at," I laughed pulling my hands back.

"so, is it a yes or a no?" he asked hopefully.

"would definitely have been an yes, if Mr. Woody hadn't decided to redo the whole 'cell' chapter for me," I pouted.

"you still couldn't make out the difference between the different cells?" he asked amazed.

"hey! Don't blame me! I didn't ask them to look so alike! By the way, how did you know that I had trouble in identifying them?" I narrowed my eyes at him. Had it already spread like a wildfire all around the school?

"er...um...a little bird told me about that," he scratched the back of his neck smiling nervously.

"is that little bird's name Ala?" I asked raising my eyebrow. But I seriously doubted that she would do that to me...

"by Ala, you mean the new girl? No babe, she is a sweet girl and I have never seen her go around gossiping about anything. It was the tape recorder," he muttered the last sentence mostly to himself.

"Lola!" I exclaimed frustrated. Tape recorder was her nickname since she would repeat the whole incident several number of times to each and everyone she encountered. A typical gossip girl. Liam grinned goofily scratching the back of his head. She must have heard from her cousin, Havana Paul. After all, Lola would do anything to get some juicy gossip. And especially about me after that funny duck costume one.

"she is just trying to get back at me for accidentally sending her funny video to everyone! I will kill her in the break!" I was fuming would be an understatement. Now everybody in the school would know that I still couldn't differentiate between the different cells!

"whoa! Easy there tiger! Don't go all Kill Bill over Lola in the school now. We don't want to see this pretty face with a 'wanted' title posted at every corner of the street," Liam raised his hands in surrender, amusement clear in his voice.

The short bell rang warning that the classes would start in two minutes. So I and Liam rushed to our class. The class was already filling in and it unintentionally caused my eyes to flash towards Rome who was chatting animatedly with Grace. He looked... comfortable.

As if sensing my gaze, his eyes lifted to meet mine just for a second before he decided to ignore me completely and pretend like he didn't see me. I didn't know why but it hurt me. It felt as if I was shot in the heart and the pain intensified when I saw him chuckle at something that Grace said. What had I ever done to him that he couldn't even smile at me like that?

"you okay?" Liam's concerned voice made me avert my gaze from Rome as I blinked away the tears threatening to roll out and mustered a weak smile before nodding in his way, not trusting my voice. I shouldn't have bothered to look at that asshole, now all I did was hurt myself.

Looking up to meet Liam's grey eyes which now held slight glint of hurt and the look on his face showed how unconvinced he was with my reply. He looked back at Rome's bench and then at me.

"I'm good, just remembered some bad memories," I shrugged trying to convince him. I didn't want that wreck job to destroy my day any further.

Liam nodded slightly before pursing his lips in a thin line; gently grabbing my hand he dragged me to the left out table at the end of the class. I could already sense his disturbed mind radiating a negative energy all around him as he sat down quietly letting my guilt engulf me. This was all my fault. I had not only spoilt my mood but I also managed to strip Liam off his jolliness.

"you're upset," I stated observing his expressions. The only thing I wanted right now was crease away his frown with my fingers and remove the sadness from his entire being. He looked up but not into my eyes as he defended, "no, I'm not."

"don't lie Lee, I can see you pout," I pouted trying to light up his mood. The last thing he would be expecting from me would be a nickname.

"what did you call me?" his eyes sparkled as his head whipped in my direction. The hints of disappointment vanished from his eyes. Guess my plan worked much better than I anticipated it to. It was a simple logic, whenever I nicknamed someone, it meant that person had become close to me. It meant that they mean something more to me. But my nicknamed didn't include curses like dickheads, bastards and assholes.

"Liam," I bit my lip try to hide my smile but it was way too late, he had already seen it.

"no, you called me Lee," he argued, turning his upper half towards my direction.

"no, I called you Liam," I argued back.

"Lee," he insisted.

"Liam," I argued.

"Lee," he inched closer.

"Liam," I didn't back away. Excitement started bubbling inside of me.

"Lee," he inched even more closer, his eyes sparkled with life.

"Liam," this time I inched closer, throwing him off guard.

"Liam," he said grinning as I felt the heat of his face. I could feel my heart skyrocketing and butterflies going wild in my stomach. It was such a long time since I had been this close to a boy. And Liam was no less good looking to be reducing my nervousness. I bet he could feel the heat radiating off my cheeks due to this stupid blush! He winked at me right when I was going to repeat his name.

"Lee," I immediately covered my mouth as I realized that I just told Lee and backed away from him. I had lost in my own game due to his cheeky smile and seductive wink. I had lost control over my mouth and my mind had shut down for a second!

"ah ha!" he chuckled. Why that little...!

"so, what if I called you Lee?" I arched my eyebrow. I tried playing it cool as if he knew the theory behind my nicknames.

"two possibilities. Either you have started seeing me as someone you cared about or..." he paused over there and wriggled his eyebrows, "I've become your Jet Lee."

Boy, he was smart! I will give him that. He figured it out so easily!

I couldn't help but laugh, "you wish."

He mocked a pain, holding his hand above his heart, "Elizabeth! Save me! I'm dying. Please call me Lee again! One last time please!" he acted like a person having his last breaths holding his chest and then his throat pretending to chock on air. I was laughing so hard that the sides of my stomach started aching.

"you know, your acting skill are very...poor," I teased him.

"come here, you!" he playfully glared before reaching out and tickling me.

I gave out a little squeak as his strong hands held me and started tickling me mercilessly.

"hey! Stop! Please! Okay, sorry!" I spoke between my laughter.

He laughed some more as he let go of me.

"so finally," he smiled victoriously at me.

"you cheated!" I exclaimed hitting him a couple of times. But all the fun came to stop as Mrs. Veronicas walked in.

"you made me," Liam whispered above my ear making butterflies go wild in my stomach. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and heard Liam chuckle softly beside me making me flush even more. I gently nudged him making him chuckle some more. Mrs. Veronicas' lips moved but I couldn't concentrate due to that simple line that left Liam's lips you made me. It's like he said million things in just that simple sentence. It looked like my good days were finally back.

"Ms. Marshalls?" I was brought back to present by Mrs. Veronicas' voice.

"huh?" I asked out of blue.

"weren't you supposed to be sitting with Mr. Mathews, here?" she pointed towards Rome's bench.

"s**t!" Liam cursed under his breath as I gulped.

Did my perfect day had to be ruined all of a sudden like this?