Apologize

Jealous

Kayla's PoV

Yes, I admit it: I'm slightly jealous. Not envious, no, no, no. They're two completely different things. Jealousy is when you have something and you think someone will take it away, basically, while envy is the wanting of what someone else has. Like how I wish I had as pretty hair as Jewl, an adorable figure as Cartney, and as beautiful an accent as Carina. That's envy. And jealousy is my thinking that one of them will manage to get Ash to break up with me and hook up with them instead because of the amazing looks that they have compared to me. Almost, that's not quite it, but it's close.

I walked into my STEAM class and was thankful to see Paige already in there. I took a deep breath and smiled. There's no reason for me to get all worked up over something so stupid. Now that our biggest project of the year is over, we're making robots in teams of two. Paige and I are making a penguin robot that will, hopefully, waddle in circles. I skipped over to Paige and dropped my backpack onto the floor next to our table.

"Okay, everybody, let's get to work--" Mrs. Sneed was interrupted by an innocent cough coming from the door. "Oh, hello." A small, brown haired head poked through the door and scanned the classroom. I grimaced as Carina's eyes met mine for a split second. She smiled and stepped into the classroom, towards Mrs. Sneed's desk. Paige shrugged and got to work with connecting the battery to our motor.

"Alright, you can work with... uh, do you know anybody in here?" I cringed at Mrs. Sneed's words, already knowing that Carina would probably choose to work with me because that's just my luck. And, sure enough, Carina's eyes immediately found me sitting quietly at my table.

"I know Kayla over there," Carina chirped. I groaned as she made her way over to our table, an angelic smile on her lips. Her bellbottom sleeves on her lacey white shirt swayed, contrasting the stiff movement of her dark wash skinny jeans. My stomach seemed to disagree with having Carina on our team, seeing as it tightened as soon as she sat down next to me.

"Okay, guys, let's get to work!" Mrs. Sneed announced before turning on her music playlist.

"You can hot glue the wings to the body," I mumble, handing Carina the hot glue gun. No, stop being such a brat, Kayla! She's just an innocent girl a girl who likes Ash. Everybody does. I'm just overreacting.

"Kayla, do you have any beads?" Blue asked me. I nodded and hand her my bead bag. She smiled at me and started looking through it.

Paige squeaked as she finally gets the battery to work, which makes the motor vibrate. Carina giggled and handed her the electrical tape to secure the battery.

"Thanks," Paige said. Yep, I was just overreacting. If Paige can trust her, why can't I?

•••

I sighed as I walked into the musty library. This is the last time I'll tutor Ash. And to think that I used to look forward to this day. When did that change? Surely it was only after we started dating, right?

"Took you long enough," Ash says from his seat on top of the table. He's got that stupid smirk that I still despise playing on his lips. I quickly tossed him the workbook and his papers, forcing him to move off of the table and into

"Whatever, at least I'm here," I scoff while trying to look like the dusty and outdated library books were intriguing to me. Honestly, I just didn't want to look at him.

"I'm surprised you survived a single minute being in then same class as Carina," he joked, not looking up from his papers. "I thought one of you would end up killing the other with constant glares."

"Pfft. I only gave her a few side glares," I lied. She got plenty of hidden glares and mocking faces. But not just from me. Other kids were doing the very same thing. God, why were we being so childish about a girl we didn't particularly like?

"So is she really as bad as you thought she was?" His voice was lambasting, as if he was secretly trying to say 'I told you so'. I hated it.

"No," I mumbled, muffling it even more with my sleeve. I don't enjoy having to admit being wrong. Especially to people like Ash. He looked up at me and grinned, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

"Excuse me? I don't think I quite heard you." I bit the inside of my lip and gave him an annoyed look. My insides ground together as my mind and heart fought against each other.

"No," I repeated, though it was still very muffled and inaudible. Ash put a hand up to his ear and I groaned resentfully, "No, she's not as bad as I thought her to be. You happy?" I sneered. He grinned and me and nodded in approval. I rolled my eyes and tossed a crumpled up piece of paper at his head, which he quickly swatted to the floor.

"Oi, what'd I do?" I gave him a 'are you serious?' look, to which he shrugged.

My stomach growled suddenly, making me jump. I looked around for a vending machine or something before I remembered how those were banned at this school before I was even a freshie. Ash looked up at me and held out a small bag of grapes.

"What did you do to them?" I asked suspiciously. I barely ever trust any food that anybody gives me, my family's cooking and the school's lunch being the only exceptions.

"Nothing!" He exclaimed innocently, giving me a fake hurt look. "You really think that I would ever do something to your precious food?" I rolled my eyes and popped one of the grapes into my mouth.

"I licked 'em." I coughed violently, spitting out the grape immediately. I stared at him with surprised, wide eyes. "Just kidding." He stuck his tongue out at me, his eyes holding a playful but teasing glint in them.

"You're disgusting," I laughed, throwing a grape at him. He tried to catch it in his mouth, but it bounced off of his closed eyelid and rolled off of the table. He handed his finished papers to me and gave me a peck on the cheek before walking out. I sighed sadly as the door closed behind him.

He's way too good to be true. How am I so lucky to have him be true?