Clay POV.
Group project. This could be seen as both a good and bad thing.
Good: you can do an assignment with your friends, it only ever needs to be as long as a project you'd do on your own but you only have to do about 1/4 of the work. And you'd always be able to get a second opinion on anything you needed to without pulling in a random person to give input.
Bad: everyone would end up messing around. There would be friends gossiping and showing eachother unrelated videos on YouTube or Tiktok. Honestly, how the fuck does a youtubers new Minecraft speedrunning video have anything to do with you Geography project about some country in western Africa?
Or there is the fact that teachers often group you themselves. And when that happens you always end up with the person you hate most in class.
Either way, that was what was announced in Mr Phallus' class, a group project.
"Okay class. Since the dance is coming up in a few weeks we will be doing a group project to plan for it." The teacher announced.
Most of the class groaned.
This is the first time I've been in his class for the group assignments but apparently Mr Phallus tries to put us together in groups with people we like that will also work well together. Although he gets the second half of the requirements right, apparently the first half often doesn't work as well as the teacher hopes.
George tells me that what Mr Phallus means by 'people we like' is people he has seen us with in the halls. 60% of the time they aren't actually friends, just lined up behind eachother while waiting to get their food at lunch, or have their lockers beside eachother and said a hello while he was in earshot.
"I will get you all in groups of three, and you will need to plan what you think would be good for the school dance, remembering that it needs to be school appropriate. Which means no weird suggestions like WWE wrestle mania or catwalk set up through the middle of the school gym."
He looked at several groups of students as he spoke.
"They must be finished by the end of next week and if they aren't, or you don't put enough effort in then you must each do a 500 word essay on whatever I choose. When you are all done and turn it in, some other teachers in the school will get to vote. Whoever's project gets the most votes from staff will be put in charge of organising the event.
Group assignments will be as follows:"
"...Ella, Lauren and Dayna..."
3 girls sitting to the left of Zak all seemed excited that their friend group got put together.
"...Miles, Liam and James..."
Some boys sitting in the back corner all fist bumped eachother.
"...Adam, Jess and Nellie..."
Most of the class seemed happy with who they got paired with as Mr Phallus made his way down the list.
"...Darryl, Zak and George..."
My friends all sat up as they heard their names, but looked to me sympathetically when my name wasn't called. But I felt fine, I trust the ravenette and his boyfriend with George, my job is to make sure he is safe and if he is with them then he should be.
"And finally. Clay, Wilbur and Nick."
Shit.
You know how I said I was fine? Well turns out I'm not.
My eyes drifted back to look at the pair sitting in the corner and both looked as irritated as me as they glared in my direction.
I was clenching my fists in annoyance and narrowed my eyes in frustration when I turned back to look at the teacher who was still talking. "You will all have the rest of this period to organise yourselves and then you will need to work on it during your own time. I have set up a document for each group and I can tell what everyone adds so I can make sure you all do at least some of the work. If one person carries the others than they'll have to repeat it on their own."
He stopped talking and that was the classes cue to begin planning their ideal school dance. I didn't bother going to talk to Wilbur and Nick, I knew that no matter what the teacher said about all contributing I'd be the one doing all the work. If they wanted to organise sometime to meet up and talk about it then they can come over here and do that."
Beside me, George, Zak and Darryl were all talking about something completely unrelated but then again, they didn't need to plan. They'd all just meet at George's house and plan out something. Simple.
They also tried to include me in the conversation but I just sat quietly, only replying with a smile and a nod when they asked me a question.
"Hey Smith." Someone was standing right behind me. Actually, make that 2 someone's.
I turned to see Nick and Wilbur standing over me. "You better have a plan to get us both A+." Nick said with a disgruntled expression as he looked down at me.
Wilbur nodded in agreement with his friend, "yeah. If you make us fail this, we kill George."
I knew they wouldn't honestly mess with George. It was easy for me to fight them when they had Zak, and now that there's only two of them instead it'll only be easier. Either way, you'd have expected the bullies would have gotten less cocky when the ravenette left, seeing as he had the biggest ego of the group (and still does), but if anything they got worse.
Nick grew a cruel smirk, "just letting you know we'll be going to your house after school."
I rolled my eyes at them "not a fucking chance."
Darryl heard me swear but he didn't even say anything, the bullies had hurt his boyfriend and I feel like he enjoyed all the harsh words that got sent their way.
"Fine." Nick growled, growing irritated, "we'll go to Wilbur's house today and yours tomorrow."
"Whatever."
They walked off and I turned to look at the other 3, all of whom looked sorry for me.
Clay POV. (But 4th wall breaking.)
Why the hell did I end up with Nick and Wilbur. It's almost as if Mr Phallus knew we hated eachother and wanted to watch one of us go crazy, or he wanted to punish me. Did I do something wrong that I should be punished for?
Couldn't the author have just made it one of those basic ass Wattpad stories where the main character (George) and their smart, attractive, strong, manly love interest end up together in a group project.
Did the author want to see me, their most beautiful character suffer? Or maybe the readers requested it to up the stress that the main character's are facing. If either of those are true I swear I am going to come to everyone's house and threaten them with the knives and guns I took off Georgie.
I let out a sigh and looked over to the Brit, then over to the bullies who'd returned to their seats.
Get a good look readers (or get a good read readers I guess), by this time next chapter I'll probably be in jail for the murder of two assholes.
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1253 words.