√ | i hate you, 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐥 𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐚²

xxii. elephant in the room

"Professor's kind of cute, huh?"

Ashely didn't say anything, she just ignored him. Which resulted the guy leaning back over and whisper something else in her ear, "Saw you two chatting."

Ashely leaned over, "He's our professor and I have a girlfriend."

He rose his brows glancing at her, "I call dibs."

Ashely didn't understand why that guy thought for some reason that she even cared a little bit. She will admit though, Professor Clark is charming and good looking but other than that, there's no way.

• • •

"Clean teens? Now, that's a new one." Brooke mentioned to Rachel as the two walked by the table in the courtyard while laughing with one another.

Brooke and Peyton had another falling out over the summer, which resulted into Rachel and Brooke spending so much more time with one another. Ever since Ashely left, Rachel had been getting into more trouble than usual.

If anything, her badgirl side was just a coverup of how she was really feeling and that's probably hatred and anger. She misses her girlfriend but Ashely didn't even consider staying. The blonde just left — she left Rachel, Chad, and all her friends. For Rachel it left like Ashely was getting so caught up in her college life that tree hill was now just a distant memory. Kind of like how Ashely felt when Rachel left.

As the two girls were making their way into the school, they bumped into a boy.

"Oh —! My bad." The guy walked in between Brooke and Rachel.

Brooke turned around with a smile, her gaze following the tanned boy. By the look on her face, Rachel knew exactly what Brooke was thinking.

"Brooke, please don't." Rachel pleaded but the burnette ignored her.

Brooke flaunt her way over to the guy with Rachel dragging her feet behind. Brooke stood in front of him with a smile. It was clear she already liked this guy quite a lot.

He looked up at Brooke, "Oh hey, it's bump girl."

Brooke smile faded once she saw the shirt he was wearing, "You're clean teens?"

He looked down at his shirt, "Yeah, it was a decision to make."

Brooke noticed someone passing out clean teen shirts out, so she grabbed one from that person's hands, "Yeah me too."

Rachel rolled her eyes at her friend's stupid attempt to get a boy's attention. She turned on her heels and continued to head into the building. She had other things to worry about than dealing with Brooke's possible boy dramas.

She walked to her locker and then stood there for a moment, thinking. She'd been waiting for a possible message since yesterday and Ashely yet hadn't got back to her. She didn't want to be one of the those girlfriends and she told Ashely that in long distance relationships, trust really needs to go both ways. She's not saying the doesn't trust her, but she's just worried.

Her girlfriend all alone out there in a city that she knows nothing about — that's scary, at least for Rachel.

As she shut her locker, she looked over at Chad who shockingly seemed fine because his other half wasn't around anymore. Rachel approached him with her arms gripped around her books.