Rhys came over in the evening. He told me he wanted to come right after school but something had com  up.

I was doing the homework and finishing some assignments. We had buttloads of school work, so I wasn’t even offended when he brought his work with himself.

I had just woken up and I understood the pressure of submissions that the school gave us.

“You sure you don’t want to just sleep it off?” he asked me. I shook my head.

“I have already a lot of pending work from when I got the flu. The last thing I want to do is pile more up. I’ll be fine…I’ll do the biology homework you finish the math one.”

We never used to use the same words or methods, but it always helped us both do our homework: especially me who knew nothing about math.

We worked silently what half an hour, that was until I started copying his math homework and realized that I knew nothing; absolutely nothing.

We had a test coming up the following Friday, which was right there and if I failed, I would mess up my entire GPA.

“You’ll be fine,” he coaxed, cupping my knee with a hand. Instead of his words, my attention went to his hand. “Do you want me to remove it?” he asked, his grip tightening.

“No, no, keep it there,” I whispered, trying my best to not sound desperate.

“Why?” he questioned, his eyes gleaming with mischief.

“It feels good…” I admitted, making him trail his hand upwards to my thigh.

“What do you mean it feels good? How does it feel good?” his tone was teasing, and I knew he just wanted me to cave in.

“It feels comforting,”

“Comforting how?”

“Your hands are warm and my skin is always cold so it feels comforting.” Call me a coward but at that moment that was all I could think of.

As if disappointed, his grip tightened and he looked away. If he wanted a confession he wasn’t getting one. Cause there was nothing to confess.

I was still way too messed up in my head from the morning’s incidents with Mr Grey to flirt with him.

“You want me to help you out?” he offered genuinely.

“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll read through it once.” I answered, my mind still foggy.

My mom chose that time to shout at us to come downstairs to get some snacks.

We got out of the bed at the same time and skimmed down the stairs to the table. “Wash your hands first!” my mother ordered, shooing us away.

I turned on the tap and let the cold water bring me out of my day dreams. I was washing my hands when he came up behind me and put his hands above mine, directly under the running water. His shoulders brushed against mine and annoyed, I crouched and escaped from under his arm, giving him an infuriatedlook. I loved it of course, the way his breathing fanned on my neck as he dipped his head low and how he looked down teasingly at me. 

“Relax, i was just irritating you,” he raised him hands in surrender before flashing me his signature trouble-filled grin.

Later that night, long after Rhys had left, Daniel texted me. He asked me how I was, and then quickly jumped to another topic; Rivika.

That man was hopelessly in love with her and she didn’t even know it. And perhaps that was exactly why she used to repeatedly hurt him.

Rivika had gone on a date with a classic playboy after a fight with Daniel. While I was a bitch, my bestfriend was innocent. Well, not completely innocent, but she was comparatively more of an angel.

She didn’t know about his reputation when she had agreed, and I hadn’t gotten the chance to tell her about it until she’d gone on that date.

Miller (that was the guy’s name) was her newest obsession. After the five girls she had crushed on before dating him, if I were Daniel, I would’ve been happier just knowing that she wasn’t a lesbian.

But my boy was stupid enough to get jealous and I didn’t even blame him. He was a little too stupid when it came to Rivika.

Daniel: I just feel like maybe I am not good enough

I stared at his latest text, cursing at him from the inside. I never got shy around any of my crushes, as a matter of fact, I got more excited. But if I was sodium, then Daniel was water.

          Me: Hey, come on. Miller’s a meanie.

          Me: Hotties are meanies.

I paused for a moment. It sounded like I was implying that he wasn’t hot.

          Me: I mean no offence.

Stop talking. Stop talking.

          Me: I mean not you, of course.

Oh God.

          Me: You’re cool.

I was screwed. I was so damn screwed.

I turned off my phone and put it aside. I had messed up big time. That wasn’t the right way to talk to your ex-crush.

It was a little smooth, though. Knowing Daniel, he was probably laughing his ass off on that, and for sure believed that I meant it innocently.

I had concealed my crush on him way too well for him to see through it.

The next morning, I decided a different approach to deal with Mr Grey.

I put on my favourite red dress-it had lace borders, a fine v-necklines with lace, and barely covered my ass. It had a lace see-through portion right below my breasts, and had the thinnest possible sleeves.

It was actually a nightwear outfit, but with a black shrug, it looked just fine.

My mother would’ve definitely sent me back to change, and so would’ve my father. But my mom was out of town and dad had an early meeting.

So, the only person left to complain was Rhys, and I had to face him since he was the one who was driving.

“Hey-,”

“U-turn, girl. Change that dress,” he spoke sternly, not giving me a chance to even butter him up.

I batted my eyelashes at him in a quiet, sultry manner.

“A no is a no, darling,”

“Please…I can’t go to lab today!”

“You aren’t seducing a grown man, Jan!”

“He isn’t that old, he’s just twenty-five!”

“And you’re sixteen. He knows he’ll go to jail. Everyone knows you’re a whore, you don’t need to fuck the hot new teacher to prove it!”

Silence elapsed.

I stared at him, hard enough for him to realize his mistake. “Fuck, I am so sorry-”

“Get to school, Rhys, you might get late.”

“I am sorry-”

“Oh, no, I just have to go back in and give a guy a job. Nothing on you. Now get the fuck away from me!”

He gulped. “You can’t skip school-”

“I’ll walk!”

“You aren’t walking in that!” he nodded pointedly towards my outfit.

“Why not? Everyone’s also certified me as a slut! What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t mean it-”

“Leave it, seriously. You’ve spoken enough today.”

My Uber was in front of my house five minutes later. It took me fifteen minutes to get to school, fifteen minutes during which I had to hold back all my tears. I couldn’t risk getting to school with a messed up mascara.

I hastily paid the cab driver and ran to the nearest girl’s room.

I didn’t honestly care if people thought I was a whore. I had done lots of nasty stuff to earn that badge, but my best friend using that to taunt me just had me break.

I spent almost the entire first lecture in there, not caring that it was exactly the lecture i had dressed up to attend.

I left the restroom at an understable time, right before the bell was supposed to ring. “Are you quite alright?” came a strong voice from beside me.

It was Professor Caspian, in a brown suit this time, with a hand running through his hair and spectacles slightly crooked.

“I am fine…”

“What happened, January?” I had always found my name quite mundane. People used it a lot, it was a month, after all. But never had I ever heard someone say it the way he did.

“Nothing…”

“I don’t find girls missing my class for nothing. Nor do I see them with mascara running down their cheeks for nothing!” his eyes dropped slightly to my outfit and he asked, “Did someone steal your clothes or something?”

“No! It’s what I came to the school wearing. I just-it’s just…my best friend called me a hoe!” I blurted, letting the tears fall again.

“Can’t imagine why…” his eyes trailed down the slightest bit and if I wasn’t so damn close to a major breakdown, I would’ve been proud of myself.

“Great! Now even my new teacher thinks I am a slut!” I stomped my boots and turned around to power walk my way to the next class, but Mr Grey gripped my arm and pulled me towards him with a sudden force.

“Pardon me, miss,” he let go of my hand slowly. “But it would be appreciated if you were to not accuse me of such thing. All I believe is that you have the right to dress any way you want, but you cannot control what other people think and hence, you cannot blame your friend for thinking such things. If you really want to dress boldly, you shouldn’t let his thoughts affect you either.”

“I know…it’s just…he’s my friend, you know. He’s supposed to know be…”

“Let me get you some coffee…”

“Aren’t you supposed to offer me tea?” I teased, unable to control myself.

“And a moment ago a certain someone was crying because of prejudices…” I gave him a small smile in return. “There was a fire emergency, you have to leave early anyways…let me treat you with coffee to make up for yesterday,” holly shit, my biology teacher had just asked me out. “And to talk about your biology marks.” Not a date, apparently.

“That would be wonderful, but you really don’t have to do that, you know!”

“I am aware, Miss Decembers…but I am very curious as why you were named so. Perhaps that’s another thing we could discuss?”

I had most definitely pulled the biology teacher.

He had insisted that I buy one of the most expensive drink on the menu, which was nowhere even close to my monthly allowance, and believe me, my allowance was way too high for a sophomore.

We were in a restaurant ran by an English owner. He was jolly old man who knew Mr Grey by his name. It was definitely one of the most expensive restaurants I had ever been to, and it also happened to be full of people meaning business.

Heck, I had seen some of them in news as well.

I, however, was getting those dirty looks from the old wives of the businessmen. Apparently, dressed as I were, I looked like a prostitute. If I were to see me and Mr Grey as a stranger, then I would most definitely assume that he was taking me to a dinner which was followed by some dirty stuff that I was getting paid for.

He knew I felt that way, and he liked it. Maybe he even chose this restaurant to make me feel that way.

“Isn’t she a little too young for you, my dear?” asked the owner’s wife who was American. Her words were a little judgemental, but she looked genuinely curious.

“Oh, Molly, she’s just a student. Just brought her to discuss biology,”

“Oh, I am sure you’ll be discussing a lot of that,”

I quietly sipped my water, trying to hide my reddened cheeks. Did I want to do that? Yes. But were we going to do that? Probably not.

“Please, Molly, she’s sixteen,”

“Hey, I am not the one doing illegal stuff!” she raised her hands in surrender before leaving.

“I am so sorry for that. I don’t know what possessed her!”

“That’s okay…” I answered in a small voice. After all, what was I supposed to say? I wish she was right and that you were doing illegal stuff?

“So now, would you be so kind to tell me why exactly you hate biology lab?”