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Mari's POV
"—Mari? Mari!" "Huh? What?" Ria gave me an annoyed look and went back to speaking. "Where's your mind at? Have you even been listening to anything I've been saying?" "Nope. Sorry, just got a lot stuck on my mind." "Damn, like what?" I gave her a playful grin and wrapped my arm around hers. "None of your business." I chuckled. She scoffed in a exaggerated tone and then smiled my way. "If you wanna be that way then okay. Don't start complaining to me though if I start repeating my words whenever it looks like your mind is in the gutter." Her words made my smile grow wider, "Yeah, yeah. Don't worry I won't." My mind had been all over the place after what had happened yesterday. The words he told me couldn't leave, they stayed etched into my brain. 'You'll always be my crybaby.' My... as in his, his crybaby? What??? No matter how I tried to make sense of it I just couldn't.
Whenever it felt like I had come to understand him even a bit more he'd pull something that'd show that I still didn't know him at all. The smirk he gave me, was it supposed to mean something? It all just felt like a strange dream, something that just couldn't have happened. But the stinging on my nose would bring me back to reality and confirm that it all wasn't just some strange dream. I wonder, what could possibly be going through Bill's mind right now? We soon enough got to class and took our usual seats. This time my seat hadn't been stolen by some random, so sitting next to Bill again wasn't necessary. Well being his seatmate could've been a good way to get closer and understand him more. But after what
happened yesterday I needed a moment for myself to calm down. The teacher entered the room and threw her stacks of papers on her table. She looked at us with a wide grin.
"Alright class! Today we'll be working on a fun group project. You'll be in groups of four. It'll be about what we went through last week: Social Media and how it's affecting the youth." The class remained silent and the teacher grunted at our reaction. "You get to pick your partners." Immediately the class erupted into cheers and everyone moved over and rearranged their seats to be with their friends. I stayed seated but exchanged glances with Ria, we were both smiling to each other and soon enough she got up, carrying her backpack with her. Her smile faded and she stopped walking, I followed where her eyes were looking to see what caused such a reaction from her. To my right stood Bill, his eyes cold. "Join my group." The way he said it made it clear I didn't really have an option to decline.
He didn't even bother to phrase it as a question. I nodded slowly and then glanced to the corner of my eye to see
Ria's reaction, which was very not pleased. She looked like she was about to pop a blood vessel. I gave her a sheepish grin hoping that would calm her down a bit and it did. Well she was still very pissed, but her expression had turned to a deadly scowl instead. Bill had taken a seat
next to me and Ria moved one of the chairs to sit in front of me. Her eyes stayed locked on Bill as if he were her prey while Bill kept his eyes to his phone. "Who will be our fourth member?" I asked. "Tom, he's not here right now but he should pull up to class in about ten minutes." Ria clicked her tongue but I ignored it and nodded. “Alright." Was this a weird prank of his? Was he trying to torture me or maybe this was a strange new way of bullying? Just when I felt like
taking some time to gather my thoughts he does this. 'Mari Moore really is a person I'll never understand.'
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