Love at First Fight: An Arranged Marriage (On Hold)

Love at First Fight [An Arranged Marriage] 13

Karli’s POV

“Eewww! That is sooo gross!,” Nicole shrieked. Nick brought the spoon up to his mouth and ate the peach slice whole. Nick gave a two-thumbs up. “Ahh, but it’s good.” Everyone besides Nicole laughed. Nick had squirted ketchup all over his peach cup saying it gave it flavor. “Ugh, you will never get me to try that. Not even if you paid me,” Nicole said, scrunching up her nose.

It’s Friday and lunch is about to end. I had felt so much better the day after I got sick. My uniform had come in Wednesday; it fit perfectly and I loved the colors. They were so much better than the common school uniform. We had the skirts for warm weather and when it got colder we could just wear out jeans.

The bell rang and everyone filed out of the café. Me and Jason walked off to the gym. Shane said he had to take care of something and jogged on the opposite direction. “So what do you want to do tonight?,” Jason asked. I shrugged. “I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. All I can think about is how I’m going to survive a night of Gossip Girl and face masks.” I heard Jason laugh. “You’ll do fine. But if you really can’t handle it, just sneak me a text and I’ll come save you.” Now it was my turn to laugh.

“Haha. Nah, I don’t think that will be necessary. And I couldn’t do that to them, they’re really exicted about it.” And I want to get some info.. - I thought. Jason shook his head. “You are way too nice… how did I get you?,” he put his arm around my shoulders and kissed the side of my head. I smiled and shrugged. “Guess you got lucky, now let’s get ready so I can kick your ass.” I pushed the gym door open and headed to the locker room.

When I came out I went to sit next to Jessica. She’s grown on my tremendously. She is a sweet girl and kept me company.

“Hey Karli! How’s your day?,” she said as I sat down. “Good actually. Nick grossed Nicole out at lunch today. It was funny.”

“Oh yeah? What’d he do?” I told her about the incident and she busted out laughing. “That is funny!” She smiled wide. Then we heard the whistle. Everyone stopped stretching and waited to be placed. Today we’re playing volleyball. We were placed into 4 teams, 2 on one side and 2 on the other since there were too many people to play all together. Jessica was on my team and Jason was on our opposing team. Shane was sent to the other game.

I was immediately picked as the server since I was one the most athletic people in the whole class. Coach threw me a ball and I went to my spot. I waited ‘til everyone was ready then threw the ball in the air, hitting it with my palm when it came down. It went over the net to the boy with red hair, that I now know is Kevin, and he set it for another guy to spike but Jessica blocked it. I gave her a high five and took the ball to serve again. 20 minutes later we were ahead by 1. It was the last play and if they got a point we were going into overtime. It was out turn to serve again.

I took a deep breath and hit the ball. It went over to a petite blond; she hit it back with a grunt. Danny, a sophomore with blue streaks in his hair hit it back over where Jason knocked it close to me. I hit it to Jessica and she set it up for the person beside her. The spike was blocked but Jessica saved it with amazing reflexes. The ball was hit back over to Jason and he hit it. Hard. I gasped. The ball was headed to the worst player on our side and he just cowered at the oncoming object. I lunged for the ball, barely saving it. Everyone on the other team was too shocked that they didn’t see the ball coming at them. We won!

My team broke out in cheers. I got a bunch of high fives and pats on the back. I hugged Jessica tight, jumping up and down. “That was awesome!!,” she yelled. “I know! Did you see their faces?! OMG Jason is gonna be pissed. Haha,” I replied. Speaking of Jason, I looked across the net to see him still staring at me. I wiggled my fingers in a wave and laughed. His face was priceless.

Coach told us to change and we were dismissed early. I headed to the locker room with Jessica, talking about our plans for the weekend while we dressed. “I’m going to visit my cousin. She lives like, 50 miles away,” Jessica said, “ She’s like, 4 years older than me and oh Karli! She has the most adorable baby girl. I have to take pictures so you can see.” I smiled. I’ve always loved kids. Their faces, the little hands and feet, just their innocence… it’s so sweet. “I would love that Jessica.”

“What about you? What are you doing?,” she asked.

“I’m having a sleepover with the girls tomorrow.” “Oh, that sounds like fun!,” She said. I laughed. “More to you than to me. I’m not really into that type of stuff but I couldn’t say no to them.” Jessica smiled. “You will have fun, you’ll see.”

I headed to Drawing after I got my stuff together in the locker room. When I got there, Andrea was already in her seat. “Hey, girl. How was PE?,” Andrea asked. I smiled. “Great. Beat Jay’s ass… again.” She laughed and said, “He can never win when you around.” The bell rang just as Nicole came running into the room.

“Nicole, your late,” Mrs. Gray said. “I know, I’m really sorry. I had to stay after class to talk to my math teacher.” Mrs. Gray looked at her, gave a nod and turned to her desk. Nicole let out a sigh of relief. “Okay kids, today we will be working on portraits… in a way. We are going to start off easy. In my hand are pictures of people. I will hand you one and you are to draw them.”

Mrs. Gray started handing out the pictures. I got my sketchpad and pencil out of my bag and looked at the picture she gave me. My picture was of an Asian girl with her hand in front of her, like she didn’t want her picture taken. I started by making the lines for the middle of her face, eyes, nose, and lips and drew an outline of her head.

I decided to start on her nose. I got the outline done then started darkening it in and shadowing it. I did this with the mouth and eyes too. Next I did her hand, the one reaching for the camera. I finished her off with her hair and shoulder. When I was done I looked over my drawing, looking for errors or where I should shade it more. The girl reminded me of a girl at my old school, an exchange student. So I decided to put her name on the side in block letters that spelt “YUKA”.

There was only five minutes left in class so I got up and went to Mrs. Gray’s desk to turn in my assignment. I gave the drawing and the picture to Mrs. Gray. She looked it over, comparing it to the picture. “That is very good Miss Tucker! Good job! You go ahead and keep it, I’ll put your grade in now.” I nodded and went back to my seat. “Karli, let us see it!,” Andrea said, Nicole next to her nodding her head in agreement. I handed it to them.

Nicole’s mouth dropped. “Oh my gosh, Karli, that is really good. Where did you learn to draw like that?” I shrugged, “ I really just sorta taught myself. I’ve always been drawing people.”

“I wish I could draw like that,” was all Andrea said. Ringgg!!! They gave me the drawing back and packed their stuff up. I waited since we were going in the same direction. We had to depart though when they reached their building. “Bye Karli, see you later.” “Bye!,” I waved and kept heading to English.

Jason wasn’t there yet but I saw Nick and headed to my seat next to him. “Hey, where’s Jason?” Nick shrugged, “He said he had to take care of something and to tell you… ah, I can’t remember.” He looked toward the teacher, but she wasn’t paying attention. Nick quickly got out his phone and showed me the screen after he pushed a couple pushed buttons. It was a text.

Tell Karli to come to my room after school

I nodded. I had no clue what he was up to but it kept my mind busy during English. I couldn’t focus on what the teacher was saying, trying to think of all the possible reasons why he wanted to see me. I didn’t come up with anything good. When the bell rang I told Nick goodbye and practically ran out of the room.