SUSPENDING GRAVITY , sweet pea ¹ ✓

016. Family History

     "I hang out with them because I am friends with them and I don't care that they're Serpents," Tori said with her arms crossed while narrowing her eyes at Veronica.

     "Right. But you are aware of the fight between MF and Cheryl, who is supposed to be your best friend. Then there's Sweet Pea, who was about to beat up my Archiekins, more than once, might I add," Veronica said, slowly starting to lose her calm and collected façade.

     "If you're talking about the fight that Cheryl didn't tell me about, then yes, I know. I don't even know if she started it yet MF still got suspended for it. And your 'Archiekins' literally posted that video attacking the Southside because of the biased assumption that the Black Hood was a Serpent and then tagged their territory with his Red Circle logo."

     "How did you─"

     "You should probably tell your boyfriend that 'Bragging Douchebag' is not a good look for him. Plus, people love to repost things on social media every minute. How do you expect to attack the Serpents and think that they're just going to be calm about it after being the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in this town?"

     "They do drugs, Tori─"

     "Have you seen them do drugs?"

     "No, but I heard─"

     "Exactly. You heard something but you didn't see anything. You're one of those people who hears things and doesn't see them for herself but chooses to believe it anyway," Tori said.

     Veronica slammed her hands on top of the table and leaned towards Tori who didn't seem to be fazed or intimidated by her slowly growing outburst.

     "How do we know you're not actually a Serpent too with all the time you spend with them and your mother being a Serpent back in the day?" she asked.

     "Whatever grudge or vendetta you have against the Serpents and the Southside, do me a huge favour and leave my mom out of it. But since we're talking about each other's parents, let's talk about your father, who continues to destroy lives and families as he goes on with his little 'business.' The only reason you even have the money and prestige life you do now is because of the crimes your mobster of a father committed over the years and the terrorism he continues to inflict that's disguised as legitimate business," Tori said while glaring at Veronica.

     "My father has done plenty of good things for others!" Veronica blurted out in defence of herself and her father.

     "Oh, really? Go ask your father what he knows about Mateo and Selena Alvarez and see if you still believe he's the good person you continue to tell yourself he is," Tori said, beginning to lose her patience with the young Lodge girl sitting in front of her. She stood up and grabbed her bag before turning around to leave the cafeteria but not before looking over her shoulder at Veronica and saying, "Have fun with your perfect little life with your 'perfect' father."

     She quickly walked out of the cafeteria and headed towards her next class. Sweet Pea noticed how there was aggravation in her steps when she walked into chemistry class and remained quiet as she sat down with her bag on the floor right next to her feet. After a moment of silence between the two, the Serpent boy decided to speak up the break it.

     "What's got you so upset?" he asked.

     "Nothing," Tori said as she straightened her posture and rested her hands on top of the lab bench. "Just a minor encounter with Veronica Lodge."

     "Andrews' girlfriend?" Sweet Pea asked as his eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

     "You got that right."

     "What did she say?'

     "Nothing your big head needs to worry about."

     "My head is not that big!"

     "Keep telling that to yourself, Big Head," Tori said, continuing to tease him. Sweet Pea rolled his eyes and Tori smiled mischievously at the look of annoyance on his face. "You know I'm joking, right?"

     "Yeah, I know," Sweet Pea said before an idea popped into his head and his lips curved into a wicked smile as he looked at Tori. "Peanut."

     "Excuse me?" Tori asked while glaring at Sweet Pea.

     "You heard me," Tori could hear the cockiness in his tone as he smirked smugly.

     "You are so lucky we're in class right now," Tori said ominously while narrowing her eyes at him before turning to face the front of the class.

     If he wanted to play games, she could easily become a player.

     Sweet Pea didn't know if he was supposed to take her words seriously but when she refused to say a word or even look in his direction, he wondered how bothered she was just by being called a "peanut." But to be fair, she did make it clear that she was tired of the short jokes, especially from Fangs and MF even though they continued. Yes, she was small, like a peanut but was that one harmless little nickname enough to annoy her into ignoring Sweet Pea for the entire class?

     "You are being tested on all of this when you walk in tomorrow and it will be a huge part of your overall mark," Mr. Harris said, looking at specific students and he clearly didn't care if he made it obvious or not.

     His eyes looked on Sweet Pea who only looked back at him, as if challenging him to pick him out of the crowd just like he did with some of the other students. The older man's gaze shifted over to Tori who was too busy writing down notes from her textbook to notice her chemistry teacher looking at her emotionless. She was too focused on answering the questions in her homework to notice that he was singling her out of the crowd as if she was a deer with three heads.

     Mr. Harris tore his eyes away from the focused teenage girl and sat down at his desk where he would go through the seemingly huge stacks of papers on top of the surface. Not much was heard for the rest of the period, except for a few whispers which Mr. Harris silenced with a detention threat, knowing that none of them would want to stay at school any longer after they have been waiting for the moment where they get to leave and go home.

     Tori's focus was no longer a thing when Sweet Pea lightly tapped the end of his pen on top of Tori's notebook. She looked at the Serpent who looked confused at the question in front of him.

     "I don't understand this question," he whispered quietly enough so they wouldn't be caught by their grumpy teacher who seemed to either hate his job as a teacher, or only enjoyed teaching solely to give students detention for the tiniest of things.

     "It's asking for you to draw the diagram so you can visualize the shape of the molecule but you also have to calculate the electronegativity so you can tell if it's ionic, polar covalent or nonpolar covalent. Between zero and zero point four is non-polar or slightly polar, between zero point four and one point seven is polar and anything above one point seven is ionic. It asks for what type of bonds there are and to also add dipoles if it's polar," Tori explained while pointing to small diagrams and sketches she had drawn in her notebook to help her visualize everything.

     Sweet Pea tried to follow along and nodded as if he understood what Tori was telling him when it actually sounded like a whole other language that wasn't English. He internally growled as he asked himself under his breath, "Why the hell did I take chemistry?"