Ignition

Chapter 4

Recommended songs: Playdate by Melanie Martinez, Greedy by Tate McRae (layered audio)

*Azaria's perspective*

I woke up feeling refreshed after a good night of rest. I have a feeling today is going to be a good day. I’m sure Ash will have forgotten about me and I can just focus on my studies.

I get to school, going straight to my first class since all of the girls are in the same class. I’m the first person there waiting for the rest of the girls by the classroom door. Nikki and Mia come a couple minutes later, both of them looking chipper.

“Hey girlie!” Mia says, hugging me. Mia is very affectionate, always wanting to express her love through physical touch. At first it was awkward but now I’ve grown comfortable with it and I've grown to actually appreciate it.

“Hey gurl!” I say, returning her hug. “Where is Nadia?” I ask. The bell rings in a couple minutes and she will be late if she doesn’t show up soon.

The school has a strict tardy policy. If you’re tardy to any class three times, you get an hour detention. There are worse consequences if you're tardy more than that, like getting suspended or even expelled. Only those rules really apply to students like us. Usually, the rich kids can find a way to avoid those consequences.

The warning bell rings and I see Nadia running down the hall. She looks like she’s been running a marathon with her uniform in disarray.

“I’m sorry guys, my brother was being an ass and wouldn’t let me take his car. I had to ride my bike here and it took a bit longer to get here through the morning traffic on a bike.” Nadia says out of breath.

“It’s okay, girl. We know how much of a pain your brother is.” Mia says. Her brother, Nadir, is a year older than us, as he is 19. He is training to be a car mechanic and he really doesn’t like anyone else driving his vehicles. Not even his little sister.

“Well let’s get to class before we are marked tardy.” I say and we walk into the classroom. We try to find the seats we were sitting in yesterday just to find Ash and his friends sitting there.

I blink my eyes in surprise. I don’t recall them being in this class yesterday. Ash notices our presence and he looks directly at me, smirking. That little shit knew we were sitting there yesterday somehow. I’m annoyed but not as much as Nadia apparently. She storms up to Dominick who is sitting next to Ash.

“Excuse me, these are our seats.”  Nadia tells Dominick, gesturing towards the desk with her hands. He just acts as if he didn't hear a word she said. This makes Nadia even more pissed and she looks like she wants to murder him and dump his body in a pool of sharks.

“Nadia, it’s okay we can just find different seats.” I say to her, tapping her shoulder. It’s only the second day of school and we have no claim over those seats. I have no interest in starting a conflict with the richest boys in school.

I see Ash and Jaden snickering and whispering among themselves. They definitely knew we were sitting there and I wonder why they are doing this. It can’t possibly be because of yesterday or do they just want to mess with Nadia.

Nadia and Dominick go way back. They were like best friends from kindergarten up until middle school. Dominick’s father got custody of Dominick and Dove when their mother had contracted a terminal illness. Dominick’s father is the CEO of Cortez jewelry and is incredibly wealthy.

Nadia said he changed after he left their middle school. Apparently, he had someone tell her that they couldn’t be friends anymore because he was too rich to be friends with someone as poor as her. She still holds a grudge against him and hates his guts with a passion, understandably so.