Greyscale [✓]

Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

"Thank you, Miss Adem," Mr Daniels said, taking the essay Hannah had rushed to print that morning from her. They had finished the entire thing the day that Rayne had come to her house and it was pretty good, even if she did say so herself. But most importantly, it revealed enough about her family to answer the assignment brief that had been set but not enough to actually say a thing about her messy background.

Hannah beamed as she slumped back down at her desk, grinning at Rayne from across the room.

"Well, I guess someone's glad that's over," Mohammad said from beside, nudging her with his arm. She only laughed in reply, changing the topic to what she had missed when she had skipped school. He was the only one of her friends in most of her classes and thankfully, had taken the liberty to copy down all the homework she'd missed out on as well as update her on all the whispers floating around school.

Hannah pursed her lips, flicking through the sheet of maths equations Mohammad had given her, mind reeling at the complicated binomial distribution questions. "I owe you one."

"Well," he continued, in a tone that indicated she would not like his next words. "I know how you can pay me back, eh?"

Hannah raised one eyebrow, whispering over Mr Daniel reading off his PowerPoint presentation regarding their next assignment. "What do you want?"

"A date."

Hannah yelped out loud, sitting up in shock until she realised all eyes were on her. She mumbled a sorry to her English teacher for interrupting the class and looked over at her friend in horror. "You what?"

Mohammad laughed under his breath, raven eyes twinkling in the dim light. "Chill, woman. I just wondered if you would do me a favour and go to the Winter Ball with me? Y'know considering you're obviously not gonna go with Gabe The Gorilla and I'm not going by myself, that's just sad."

Hannah slumped back down in her chair, having momentarily forgotten about the Winter Ball with everything else that had occurred recently. Ashlyn had been looking forward to it ever since high school had begun, dreaming of the day she would stand on the stage and be crowned School Queen, a title all the women in her family had gotten. Premrose was certainly ridiculously pretentious in terms of traditions and Hannah had always been happy for her former best friend to take the limelight in that aspect, but it was different now. Since they 'broke up' or so to speak, the social standing of the school was askew and she knew people would be pitting her against Ashlyn. She didn't want to be in a competition, especially as Ash would no doubt walk in with Gabriel on her arm and Hannah had nobody.

With a snort at the mental image of Gabriel as a Gorilla, she mulled the idea over. "Okay," she mumbled, rolling her eyes when he beamed and ruffled her hair in response. "I'll be your date to the Ball but only cuz I know I don't have a choice in attending. Guess even you're better than nothing."

They both stifled their laughter and for the rest of the lesson, paid attention to Mr Daniel's droning on about the importance of Harvard Referencing.

---

Thankfully, Hannah managed to go the whole day without a dramatic encounter with her former best friend and ex-boyfriend. Although they had a handful of classes together, she kept her head raised high and ignored the two of them. Ashlyn breathed for drama and she knew that by ignoring her, Hannah was driving her livid.

The last bell had just rung and she stood against Cameron's locker, humming to herself as her cousin pulled out a few textbooks that he needed. "I'm gonna go out today, I think, gonna see Ty. You gonna be alright by yourself for a bit?"