The Strength of Us

Chapter One - I Just Like To Piss You Off

Chapter One - "I Just Like To Piss You Off"

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I hate him. I hate him so, so much.

As I stared at the back of his blonde, curly-haired head, I narrowed my eyes and imagined throwing my pencil at it. Making a perfect dart at his stupid head. I rolled the pencil in between my fingers and gnawed on my bottom lip.

There's only one thing that could've broken my concentration, as I felt myself lifting up my hand to aim fire at him.

"Stevie? What do you think?"

I snapped my head to the front to see my teacher, Mrs. Donnelly, staring at me with a curious look. I cleared my throat for a few seconds, and pulled some kind of bullshit answer out of thin air.

"I uh... I totally agree," I nodded vigorously.

"Oh, really?" She raised her eyebrows in a bit of surprise.

"Definitely," I nodded again, pretending like I was really concerned about whatever it was she was asking me.

I kind of have a tendency to zone out in my classes, but it's only when we're learning about something that's tremendously boring. Which is practically all the time. I manage to get by, though.

"Oh. Well, I'm glad to hear that," she smiled warmly. Then she turned away to write something on the board and I slumped back in my seat. I glanced up at the clock, seeing that I have about twenty minutes left in this awful history class.

Now back to plotting my pencil throwing.

The boy that I hate with every fiber in my sixteen-year-old body is Travis Woods. The ideal guy. Good looks – actually, scratch that– incredible looks. Confident, persuasive, and basically every girl's dream.

Except I see right through that perfect personality for who he really is.

An egotistical, annoying, self-centered asshole who thinks everyone bows down to him; which they kind of do. Everyone in my school basically kisses the ground that he walks on.

I, on the other hand, do not.

I watched as he glanced back at me from his seat in the front about three rows over, smirked, and then proceeded to wink at me. I just pretended to choke.

He chuckled and turned back around to talk to his friends, while I rolled my eyes and stared down at my doodle-filled notebook in front of me. I continued to somewhat take notes for the remainder of the period, had the strength to not throw my pencil at Travis, and gave up the hope that this boring Thursday would go by quickly. It's literally dragging.

"Alright, don't forget your homework for tonight! We're going over it tomorrow so be prepared for a class discussion!" Mrs. Donnelly yelled out the door as we filed out of her classroom.

"We should have a class discussion about how Stevie is always staring at me," I heard Travis chuckle beside me. His best friend Rob was trailing right along and snickering with him.

I narrowed my eyes and plastered a sarcastic smile on my face. "Don't you have something better to do other than think about yourself?" I retorted.

"No, because that's the only thing important in my life," he scoffed arrogantly.

"Oh, but not your girlfriend?" I raised an eyebrow. His face dropped for a second, before he composed himself again and ran a hand through his curls.

"Don't talk about Laura. You know she doesn't like you very much. And you know what she could do to you," he tried threatening me.

"Please, she has the I.Q. equivalent to a potato. She couldn't do anything to me," I rolled my eyes.