I Never Imagined ✔️

Chapter 4: Costly Mistakes

"Oh, he did not," Zara tells me. I nod.

 "He did," I say, and before we can continue our conversation, our teacher, Mr. Donaldson, walks up to the front of the class. 

"Okay, class, today we are going to be partnering up, and I've already picked your partners for this lab. And no complaining! You will be working on this lab with your partner for the rest of the week," he announces, and while he's blabbering about other random things, I turn back to my friends. 

"Yeah. I plan on keeping things at a simple level. Not too much contact today," I say, and with that, Mr. Donaldson reads off, "Pete, and Sophia." I shrug, grab my things, and prepare for moving.

 When he finishes reading off the partner list, he says, "alright, move around and start on the lab!" With that, I take my things and move to Pete's table. I set them down, and then he gives me a shy smile. 

"Coincidence, huh?" he asks. I nod, with a little chuckle, and he opens his lab notebook. 

"I'll get the goggles and the beakers," he says, as I get up. 

"I'll get the ingredients," I say, and we make our way to the back table to grab some ingredients. 

When I get there, I feel Ray come up behind me. "How was your weekend, Sophia?" he asks. 

I turn around, with a neutral look on my face, and say, "it was good." I turn back around, and gather the necessary ingredients. 

I feel him scrunch his eyebrows in confusion, and then I hear him ask, "I didn't see you after the masquerade ball. Everything okay?"

I squeeze my eyes shut, in an attempt to keep my self control together, look at him, and say, "yeah. Everything's fine." I head back to the lab table with Pete, and lay out the ingredients. 

Pete comes back, with glass beakers in his hand, and sets them down. "You okay? You seem kind of off today," he tells me, as I slide the goggles over my eyes. 

"No, everything's fine. Why do you say that?" I ask him. 

Pete raises an eyebrow at me. "Sophia, I know when you're lying. You're easily the worst liar that I know. Tell me, what's going on? You know I don't bite," he tells me, right when the chatter amongst the class starts to intensify. 

I let out a slight sigh, while pouring a liquid in a beaker. I lean in, and reduce my voice to a whisper. "Okay, I'll tell you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone. Especially Ray." He leans in as well. 

He nods, as he plugs the Bunsen burner into the gas, which he turns on. "You know you can trust me. Go ahead. Spill."  he lights a match to turn on the Bunsen burner. 

I let out a sigh, and I just tell him everything that went down at the masquerade ball. We're kind of multitasking at this point, as we're doing our experiment while I rant to him about everything that happened. Pete, being the great friend that he is, just listens like a psychologist, as we continue with our experiment. 

When I finish explaining, Pete has the sarcastic, "wow," look on his face. "Wow. Just wow. I applaud Ray. I guess he had a few asshole pills to take that night,:" Pete groans, as I snicker. 

"But, even I'm not sure if the semi-silent treatment is good enough. What do you think?" I ask, as I turn the flame for the Bunsen burner down. 

He sighs. "Well, I actually disagree with that. Ray hates the silent treatment. Mrs. Richards gives it to him after chewing him out in Czech, with some Estonian thrown in there as well, and he hates it. He knows he's done something wrong when someone's avoiding him. So it won't take long for him to start asking what he's doing wrong. Also, side note, he does really stupid things, and I've noticed this, when he likes someone. I know. Because when he liked Adalyn Connor in the 5th grade- don't ask me how I remember this- he would act like a total idiot. He would pick on her, and just tease her. He's cleaned up his act a little bit, but it still doesn't excuse him from being a douche on Friday. Especially since he knows that your weight is such a touchy subject for you."