Love, Isla (Wattys 2016)

2 | teasing

I growled, and this time it was Jenny's turn to block me from the boys. "Me? Ugly? That's good 'cause I was aiming to look like you today!"

"Care to tell me what this hassall is about, Penrose?" Jenny asks me.

It didn't occur to me in the morning but now that I see it, everybody around me was staring at me, snickering and whispering to one another. Ignoring Jenny's request, I glare at Callum.

"Callum! I beg you, just delete the damn photo, you son of a - "

"Miss Penrose! Cussing is against our school rules! Detention!"

No. No. No. You have got to be kidding me.

Miss Everdeen - a scrawny middle-aged teacher with wrinkly grey skin and a habit of ruining our lives - grabs my arm between her firm grip and drags me to her room for a 30 minute long lecture.

"Miss Everdeen, it is not my fault! Callum, Jacob and Noah was - "

"You know what," Miss Everdeen turns back around to face the silent group of Jenny, Callum, Noah and Jacob, "you're right, all of you, detention too!"

They looked at her in shock. "What? Why? We didn't do anything!"

This caught her off guard. "Be-erm-because, you guys were...erm," she stutters, looking around, visibly thinking of an excuse,"...You have no rights to ask me questions I wish not to answer!"

And with that, she urges all of us into her office.

***

So that is why, I'm stuck between Callum Justin Hayes and Jenny Carlson in a detention room on a Friday afternoon.
I could be sleeping right now. Peacefully, on my mattress with my cotton blanket pulled over me like a fortress. Or I could be watching Teen Wolf and staring at Stilinkski's perfectly shaped face for hours upon hours.
But no, I'm stuck writing an apology letter to Miss Everdeen while giving Callum death stares every now and then.

After detention was over, Miss Everdeen sent us out of the classroom, warning us that if she hears us swearing in the hallways again, she'll have to write a complaint letter to our parents.

"How are you going home?" Jenny asks me, resting her shoulder on the school gates as we stood beside each other. Everyone had left before 3:30 so we were pretty much the only ones here.

"I don't know...mum's obviously not going to pick me up and I have no ride so..." I look at her with pleading puppy dog eyes.

"Tiffany's picking me up and we're going straight to Mariana's preschool to pick 'er up too so...I can't Penrose," she says, dragging her hand down her face, "and obviously, you wouldn't want to be in the same car as Tiffany. I don't know if I can live with her any longer. I told her I was going shopping with you today but she bitched on me and told me if I didn't come with her, she'll spread a stupid rumor that the reason I was stick skinny was because I got plastic surgery to remove my belly fat a few years back."

Tiffany, the eighteen year old sister of Jenny and captain of the senior cheer squad was probably, not going to lie, the bitchiest and most two-faced girl alive. She had the same coppery red hair as Jenny but when Jenny had freckles covering approximately 75 percent of her body, Tiffany was somehow clear skinned and flawless. Jenny was also taller and more slender whereas Tiffany was shorter and curvier.

They were also polar opposites. Jenny liked soccer, jeans and jerseys, and darker shades of makeup or no makeup at all. Whereas, her sister, liked wearing skirts, showing her skin and putting layer upon layer of makeup on.

Jenny left a few minutes later leaving me stranded on the school's front gate, with no ride home.

A tall boy approaches me, a cigarette poking out between his lips. Callum. Will he ever leave me alone?

"Aw, did poor Isla baby get ditched by her one and only friend? Don't worry, one day you're mum will actually care to come and pick you up from school..."

"She's busy." I try not to look genuinely hurt. If only he knew.

Thank god, he didn't seem to notice because he pulls his cigarette out of his mouth, huffing a whiff of smoke before flicking it away. Then, cocking his head to the side, he looks at me, expectantly.

Staring back at him, I sigh, "oh mighty lord, please will you drive me home? I will be truly honored."

"Hmm, let me think about that...you got me into detention for not doing anything and I have to look at the ugliest monkey alive whenever I look at you but on another note, you donated a picture of you for my instagram page so everyone else can feel my pain so let me think..." he smirks, "flatter me, and then I'll take you."

I grin at that, ideas forming in my mind, " you asked for it. Roses are red, violets are blue, God made us beautiful, what the hell happened to you?"

He crossed his arms over his stomach, stubbornly, and I follow lead.

"Okay, well I'll see you later, bye!" he says, twirling his car keys in my face and slowly walking away. I grab his shirt, tugging him back.

"Okay, fine. You look better than an average guy your age - "

"You look like a sexy male model," he corrects.

"Fine...you look like a sexy male model... and I'm actually kind of, maybe, just a tiny-weeny little bit, approximately 5 percent outta a hundred happy that you came back." Lies. Lies upon lies. Okay, maybe he does look like sexy male model but either than that, lies.

"Aw, come here, you big baby," he drawls, choking me with his enveloping sweaty arms.

"Cooties! Cooties! Get off!"

"I'll drive you home but I'm going to have to tie you to the top, I don't want fungus growing in my car tomorrow."

I give him my biggest grin I could.

"Why are you smiling?"

"Oh, you see, I was going to give you a nasty look but I see you already have one."

He shoves me soft in the shoulder and I hop into the front passenger seat in his car. He was already at the steering, starting the engine.

"I'm pretty sure that is you're nasty face."

"Are you sure you were looking at me or you in my eye's reflection, because isn't that what egotistical brat's do? You don't know how much I despise you, do you?"

He chuckles, "you secretly love me, Penrose, you just don't know it."

I pretend to shove a finger down my throat, gagging and he rolls his eyes.

And just like that, we rode in silence through the busy neighborhood.

Picture up top: abhaya