***
Everyone knew that Hunter Cole was the worst kind of bad news. But that didn't stop the girls from my class from drooling over him like vultures over a fresh carcass of meat.
It hadn't always been the case, though. Before Hunter left for CIA, Hunter was forever off-limits. He was the school's walking and talking danger zone, sort of like an active volcano; beautiful and enchanting, but was better and safer admired from afar.
It was an open secret that girls from the higher hierarchy wanted to have him as their trophy boyfriend but no one dared try to pursue him that time because:
1.) There was a higher tendency that he would set their salon-perfect hair on fire rather than sweep them off their feet.
2.) He was busy planning for world domination to even notice them anyway.
3.) He already had a girlfriend.
Of course, reasons number one and two were just excuses. The main reason why the vultures didn't swarm over Hunter before was because they knew they were no match on Heather, his girlfriend and our school's golden girl.
So you could probably imagine what happened next after Hunter came back from DC looking more gorgeous than ever and officially single for the first time in our high school life. I'd give you a clue: IT WAS UTTERLY INSANE.
After he showed up in Physics, I had to endure an hour and a half of misery that was the Hunter Cole Show. It took all of my energy to listen to Mr. Charleston and ignore all of the distractions around me because of all places; Hunter had to choose the seat that was just behind mine.
And it seemed like my classmates were absent when the subject of respect was taught during their pre-school days.
They kept on blabbing to Hunter-telling him how they missed him, how the school became boring when he left, and how it would be more exciting now that he was back- even if Mr. Charleston was lecturing in front of the class.
To give Hunter some credit, he didn't really get the chance to talk because everyone had already beaten him to it.
Good thing he wasn't on my next class, but the awkward silence that greeted me as soon as I entered the music room was just as bad. It was the subject I had with Rush St. Clair.
No one dared speak loudly of Hunter's name during the rest of the class out of fear of the school's resident bad boy but I could still hear their whispers and it drove me nuts.
"Crazy people..." I said to myself while tuning my violin.
"Yeah, tell me about it."
I almost jumped out of surprise when I heard that voice. I looked beside me and saw Rush also tuning his guitar. He wasn't looking at me but an amused smile was playing on his full lips.
Well, that was a surprise. We were classmates but I never had a single interaction with Rush St. Clair before. As much as he wanted to distance himself from the popular crowd, he was still a part of it. Just one of the disadvantages of being a blue-eyed, raven-haired, drop dead gorgeous, rockstar.
His life must be really hard.
Having said so, I never really felt the need to talk to him (note my rule number 3), he was not a talker either so we just kind of co-existed in the same class without really bothering to communicate with each other.
And I intended for things to stay that way. I never opened my mouth again after that little altercation.
Usually, school was tolerable during lunch. Not this time, though. It was only mid day and I had already heard Hunter's name a total of hundred and fifty two times. Yep, I counted.
Just the mere mention of his name made me want to wear a bulletproof vest or go to the nearest Insurance company to get an early life insurance. He was that dangerous.
I felt like my worst nightmare came back to haunt me after two, blissful years of separation, and I did not have any other choice but to watch everyone rejoice for the return of that evil spirit disguised as a totally hot male specimen.
The amount of buzz he was causing was just too much! There were more important things to talk about other than that guy's comeback. Zayn already left One Direction, for God's sake!
If I wasn't really hungry, I wouldn't dare set foot on the Cafeteria. But alas, the only thing I loved more than tranquility was food so I decided to just suck it up. No use acting like a misunderstood, angsty teenager.
"I swear, if I hear you mention Hunter's name again, I will throw your Xbox into the Lake Erie." I warned Shawn as soon as I arrived at our usual table which was at the backmost part of the cafeteria. I took the seat opposite him.
"Hey, that's below the belt! How could you threaten my Samantha?" said Shawn, looking horrified.
I rolled my eyes.
"Who in their right mind would name their Xbox, Samantha? No, erase that, what kind of people even bother naming their Xbox?"
"Awesome people like me." Shawn answered taking a bite off his hotdog sandwich.
"Whatever." I said then started to devour the contents of my lunch box which contained rice and adobo, my favorite Filipino meal.
My mom's Filipino and I grew up with her cooking so it was really hard to break the habit. I couldn't even imagine how anyone could eat three meals a day without rice. I loved rice; I believed it was the holy grail of agriculture. I would marry it if I could.
"Is that adobo?" asked Shawn, looking at my lunch box longingly.
We had been friends for a while now that I felt comfortable enough to share my Asian-food fetish with him. He eventually developed a taste for Filipino cuisine, which was one of the reasons why I thought he was the best friend ever.
"Yeah, you want some?" I pushed my lunch box at the center of the table and offered him the spare fork I always brought with me just in case Shawn wanted to share my food, which was usually the case.
He nodded enthusiastically and soon we were both happily filling our tummies with rice and marinated chicken. I couldn't be more content, I was on my happiest whenever I was eating.
"So what's your deal with Hunter?"
I almost choked when Shawn threw that on me out of the blue.
"Can't I spend a single minute this day without hearing his name?" I complained. "Honestly, I feel like my ears would finally bleed if I hear his name one more time."
"I just don't understand, why the hate? Hunter is a cool guy." Shawn insisted.
I gave him a stern look.
"He hit me with a tennis ball on the forehead. Yeah, coolest thing ever." I said, sarcasm dripping with every word.
"Ah, that's exactly what confuses me." He leaned forward so that we were closer; the look on his face told me he just formed one of his "crazy-ideas-that-actually-made-sense", like that one time he told me about how aliens were actually our ancestors and the ones who founded modern civilization. It was a bizarre theory but for some annoying reasons, some of it weren't completely farfetched.
"You see, Hunter is the bully of the bullies. He only pranks the beautiful people. I can't remember a time when he bullied someone from the lower hierarchy, well someone other than you."
Translation: 'beautiful people' was our code name for the popular kids, and the lower hierarchy was our code name for those kids who were not beautiful people. Shawn and I belonged to the 'invisibles', those unlucky ones who were not included in the high school hierarchy because people liked to pretend that we didn't exist.
"And? What's your point?" I challenged.
"My point is, what if he didn't really mean to hit you with that ball? What if he was aiming for someone else, say for example, Kenji Yamamoto, but unfortunately, he missed him and the ball hit you instead?" said Shawn, his eyes shining with excitement.
"I don't care who his target was that day. The fact that he didn't even apologize to me after that incident just showed me what kind of person he really is." I said stubbornly.
If Shawn's theory was true then it made me dislike Hunter even more. Why would he hit Kenji? Kenji was such a sweetheart; it should be made illegal to hurt him.
"And besides, it's not like I hate Hunter. I just think he's overrated. He did all those terrible pranks to people and they just let him off the hook every single time. He's even considered as our town's hero all because he put Youporn and the Department of Defense in one sentence. Very classy, such genius." I said, getting annoyed that we were actually talking about the guy of all people!
Didn't I just say that there were more important things to talk about? Shawn just made me a hypocrite. I should change the topic ASAP.
"So... have you decided where you want to go for College?"
I asked him, eager to talk about something that actually mattered.
"I'm thinking MIT, but who am I kidding? The probability of me getting accepted in a top notch university is the same as the probability of you falling in love with Hunter Cole."
"Which is zero probability so I think you should think of a better scenario." I stated matter-of-factly.
Shawn just shrugged.
"You can never tell." He said mysteriously.
***
Someone spray-painted the words: "U A SLUT, BITCH! 😝" (Yes, including the emoticon) on Heather's locker. That was the big news that greeted me as soon as I stepped inside Diamond Crest High's building the next day.
I was no Hunter Cole fan but I was one hundred percent sure he wasn't responsible for that particularly crass prank.
In fact, I had a very good guess who the culprit was based on the grammar and spelling and the amount of paint stains in Rachels' skirt last night.
I should probably turn her in just so someone could teach her basic sentence construction. That sentence was like a death blow to America's educational system. But on second thoughts, maybe not. I did not want to involve myself with the petty fights of the popular ones. I had my own problems to deal with, thank you very much.
I passed by Heather's locker on the way to my own and was surprised to see Rush and Hunter standing in front of it, looking like they were in a very serious conversation. There was a crowd of people gathering around them and blocking my way which was irritating because all I wanted was to get the hell out of there.
"Uhm, excuse me." I whispered as I tried to squeeze my way through the crowd, all to no avail. People just chose to ignore me and continued to watch the two guys. Annoyed, I decided to just blend in and see what was going on with the guys.
"When are they going to ninja-kick each other?" asked Collin Anderson to his fellow jocks.
"Dunno, but I bet you 10 bucks Rush can kick Hunter's ass in two seconds top." answered Connor, his twin.
"I bet you 20 bucks Hunter will have Rush running to his momma screaming 'help'! in less than a minute." Said a familiar voice I knew so well.
Kenji!
I sneaked a glance to my right and saw him standing just over two feet away from me. Connor said something that made him smile which in turn made my heart do a somersault worthy of an Olympic gold medal.
Kenji had those chinky brown eyes that always turned into cute slants whenever he was smiling; His blue-black hair was always stylishly messy making me want to run my fingers on them. His skin was a healthy tan and his face had this amazing bone structure, all thanks to the combination of genes of his Brazilian mother and Japanese father.
Kenji was just so perfect, I couldn't even!
He was just wearing a simple black Led Zeppelin T-shirt and dark blue jeans but he still looked every inch like the campus star that he was.
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves because I was feeling giddy just by being in the same room as him. To my credit, this was the closest we had ever been since the drowning incident so no one could really blame me for being such a total klutz.
I forced myself not to gawk at him so I wouldn't look like a complete creeper. I pretended I was interested in the Rush versus Hunter stare down so that I could take one step closer to Kenji who had a better view of the scene in front.
Maybe he would recognize me, and he would strike up a conversation, and we would finally become friends, and then we'd fall in love with each other, get married and have three kids. Who knew?
But before I did, Sophie Vanderbilt brushed me off to the side like I was a particularly annoying fly and proceeded to walk towards Kenji, her hips swaying on her every move. She flipped her platinum blonde hair and batted her eyelashes at him.
I thought that was the worst part of it, but I was wrong. The next scene just about broke my heart into tiny pieces.
Sophie put her arms around Kenji's neck, and then she leaned in and kissed him on the mouth right in front of me, and all of the other people in the hallway. To my displeasure, Kenji kissed her back with as much enthusiasm.
Since when did the boy of my dreams get in a relationship with the Pompoms queen?
I was trying so hard to control my tears as I watched the like of my life exchange spit with another girl. Great, just great.
They looked like they were eating each other's faces and I had to look away or else I would go all ninja on Sophie and kick her face or worse, burst out crying like a freaking five year old.
Meanwhile, Heather chose to arrive in the scene right at that moment, and it was like all hell broke loose.
Suddenly, Hunter and Rush were exchanging punches after punches, and Heather was shouting for someone to help her stop the two. Unfortunately, the crowd was so distracted by Sophie and Kenji's make-out session that they failed to notice the free boxing match happening in front of them.
It was a split second decision and I knew at the back of my mind that I would regret it later but I found myself running towards the two murderous guys to help Heather pry them apart. I would rather be caught in the middle of that stupid fight than spend another second watching Sophie molest Kenji in public.
I grabbed Hunter's shirt and used all the force I could muster to pull him away from Rush while Heather did the same to her boyfriend. I might as well had pulled a hard concrete for all the progress I was making because Hunter was as strong as a sumo wrestler possessed by a raging gorilla.
"Dude, seriously, can you stop thrashing? You're going to break my arm!" I shouted at Hunter.
Thankfully, Hunter heard me. He stopped trying to get away from my grip and looked at me as if he couldn't believe someone was stupid enough to get close to him while he was on his criminal mode.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked incredulously, looking at my hands on his t-shirt.
"Errr, stopping you from killing someone?" I said looking at my black converse like my life depended on it.
"You're ruining my shirt."
Uh oh.
I immediately let go of his shirt.
"Sorry."
I never dared look back at him for the fear of being put on his hit list. Our other schoolmates seemed to have recovered from their initial uselessness and finally decided to help.
In a split second, Hunter was surrounded by his cronies so I used the mayhem to quietly exit the scene without getting too much attention. In fact, nobody even acknowledged my presence in that particular incident, which worked perfectly on my favor.
I ran away from the chaotic scene faster than Miley Cyrus being chased by a pair of jeans.
I was panting so hard when I finally found an empty room to hide for a while.
My heart was still aching from knowing that Kenji belonged to someone else now but I felt so relieved at the same time. Despite breaking my rule number 3, I still got to preserve my invisibility.
I breathed a shaky laugh.
"Thank God! I'm safe!"
What were the odds of me being a referee in a Hunter Cole's fight and get away unscathed, eh?
Guess I got lucky. Or so I thought.