Becoming Beautiful (Wattys2014)

| Chapter 17 |

“Congratulations, Ms. West, you have an A-,” Mr. Park told me. I grinned widely as he put the grade into his online gradebook. I glanced at the time and noticed that it was 8 o’clock on the dot. Where are Noah and Marissa? I never asked them where they were going. “You can take the test home if you'd like.”

“Thank you,” I smiled as I lifted the test and exited the classroom. I ran down the hallway until I was on the second floor, where the career speakers were. I looked at each of the posters that displayed who was in which room.

A zookeeper. A librarian. An engineer. A writer.

I backed up a few steps and glanced into the room with the writer. Noah has to be in here. I glanced around and noticed a tall man talking excitedly to the group of students. I looked towards the back of the room and noticed Noah leaning against the wall, listening quietly. I slowly entered the room, squeezing between people as I approached Noah, who still didn’t notice me.

“Noah,” I hissed as I was about two feet away from him. He turned and glanced at me, his eyebrow raising as he had a blank look on his face. He realized it was me and he sighed, kicking off of the wall. “What do you want? What does it take to get rid of you?”

“Holy water and demon proof walls,” I muttered, earning a confused look from him. “Oh, wait, look!”

I held up my test and he glanced at it, nodding slowly as a smile brought the corners of his lips upward. “Nice job.”

I grinned as I brought the test back to my chest. “I know!”

People slowly started leaving the classroom as the man finished off his lecture and Noah and I unhurriedly followed. “Thanks for helping me.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he muttered.

“No, I mean it. I would have failed without your help.” I put my test in my bag.

“Probably,” he shrugged and I rolled my eyes, nudging him in the side. “What? I was just being honest.”

“Mean and honest are two different things,” I retorted. “Where’s your sister?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Do I look like her keeper?”

I took a moment to study him before I nodded. “Yeah.”

He scowled at me. “Why don’t you text her?”

I sighed. “I already did.” We took turns texting her, waiting for a response. We moved from speech to speech, listening as the people informed us about what they do, but also keeping a hand on our cell phones in hopes of reaching Marissa.

When it was time for lunch, we finally caught sight of her. She was casually walking back from the lunch line towards our usual table. “Marissa!”

She whipped around and saw me and Noah. “Oh, hey guys. What’s up?”

“What’s up? We’ve been trying to reach you for the past three hours!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, haha, about that…I was busy,” she smirked. “Now why don’t you guys get your lunch? We can all talk this out over nasty school food.”

I rolled my eyes but walked towards the lunch line, my eyes falling over the small selection. It was only cold sandwiches. After getting lunch, I returned towards the table. “Why didn’t you reply?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t really feel like it. I mean, you guys had fun, right?”

“If this is about your stupid idea that we should get to—,” I began but she cut me off by screeching across the cafeteria.