Third Time's the Charm

Chapter 4: Mia’s friendly advice!

Detention was supposed to be horrible but the both of us however managed to have some fun. Mr Dillon made us clean all the notice boards in the school and even clean up the auditorium but somehow me and Isabella….now I call her Bella had managed to connect more and had some incredible fun. Who knew cleaning could be this fun? I was on cloud nine as I finally had a best friend. All my high school I had been a loner, and didn’t really knew what I was missing out on.

“Hey, what did you do now?”, a familiar asked from behind and I jumped, startled then found myself grinning as I recognized the owner of the voice.

Luke Grayson…the son of my mom’s best friend and my childhood friend.

I smiled at the ruggedly handsome blonde who was currently leaning nonchalantly at the edge of the notice board I was attempting to clean. I playfully punched him for scaring the s**t out of me and he pretended to yelp out loud in pain.

“you know the usual…What brings you to detention, Luke?”, I asked him and he shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

“I got caught doing a dare.”, he said nonchalantly.

I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously. He was one of the rich kids plus he was in Mike Dillon’s g**g, so the teachers kind of tended to turn a blind eye to the stuff they pulled unless he did something way out of line.

Seeing my raised eyebrows, he quickly raised both his arms defensively up into the air and gave me a smug smile and muttered cheerfully, “I was dared by Mike to burst firecrackers under the principal’s chair”

I looked at him with a horrified expression on my face and my mouth fell open completely aghast at his declaration and I shot him a dubious look…..He actually burst firecrackers under the principal’s chair and all that got him was detention. If it was me, I was sure that would get suspended or worse would be packing my bags right about now. I hated his company. Luke was such a warm, friendly person and I hated the fact that he always hung out with the wrong crowd. But Luke and Mike were basically inseparable. They always had fun together, even got into trouble together.

Luke’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he saw the girl right next to me. Bella had been keeping quiet all this time and continuing to wipe the notice board. Was it my imagination or was her hands just trembling slightly?

I turned back to Luke, fully expecting to see a face of awe. Every guy wanted her. She was just perfect. But to my surprise, I saw that he was barely suppressing anger.

Without another word, he left us fuming which left me completely confused. I was just going to introduce them. Luke wasn’t a rude person. Why did he leave just like that and Bella looked relived that he had left just like that without having said anything. I pursed my lips uncomfortably wondering what the hell had just happened. Besides Luke was her neighbor, why had he just left like that in a hurry without even greeting her properly? That was so not like him. And by the tone Bella had taken when she had said that she was familiar with Luke had suggested that they were close but judging by his reaction to her, it was quite obvious that he wasn’t very fond of her.

I pursed my lips anxiously and asked, “Hey Bella, is there something going on between you and Luke?”

She let out a sigh then murmured softly, “ I have a crush on him, Ava and I kind of confessed to him last week but he has been avoiding me since”

My mouth fell open again……

“Hey, I am your best friend. How can you keep this from me?”, I shouted at her indignantly.

She avoided my eye contact and started scrubbing the glass harder and harder. My mind went a thousand places. Is Luke mad or something? Why on earth would he reject a girl like Bella? She was literally perfect. She has it all…..stunning looks, super hot body, good character, wealth..

All the boys were after her. I sighed.

“Luke is a little dumb. Don’t worry I will have a good talk with him”

Bella eyed me dubiously then tutted at me, shaking her head, “He apparently already has a girl he likes so I don’t think I stand a chance.”

My eyebrows almost vanished into my forehead at her declaration.

“No way! We had been friends since childhood. I would know if he had a girlfriend”

She sighed again and replied, “I know he doesn’t have a girlfriend. It is more of a one sided crush of his”

I looked at her disbelievingly then sighed. I had no idea who this mystery girl is but the one thing I was sure of was that she will never be able to match up to Isabella.

“Honey, you have nothing to worry about. I mean, which girl would be idiotic enough to compete with you. He is going to come around sooner or later”

She eyed me seriously and muttered under her breath, so quiet that I doubt whether it was meant for me to hear but I heard it anyway.

“Yeah, you are right, she is not my competition, just hope that she remembers it”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Just when today’s morning class was over, Mia and her g**g came straight to our bench. I raised an eyebrow at her but as usual my cousin just ignored my existence and flashed a sugary sweet smile at Bella.

“We need to talk”, she declared adamantly and Bella and me shared a worried glance.

“You get out!”, Lisa, Mia’s best friend shouted at me and I shrank back immediately. No matter my new makeover, it doesn’t change the fact that I was still a freaking coward. I loathed myself for involuntarily taking a worried step back.

I gulped and shot a disgruntled look at Bella who nodded calmly at me and motioned me to leave. Bella looked so used to the attention she was getting and she looked least bothered or intimidated by the g**g around her.

With shivering legs, I ran out of the classroom without another look back. A part of me hated myself for being such a wuss. I hated the fact that they still get to me.

Mia and her g**g had always bullied me in childhood, they had only stopped when my mom came to know about this and went to Mia’s dad, my uncle to complain and run interference. Since then, Mia has been giving me the cold shoulder and pretending I don’t exist which was a relief to me. I had wanted to stay hidden in my shell but Bella has been adamant to make me come out of my own damn shell and make some friends.

Though Bella’s friends were rather reluctant to make friends with me, they had started warming up to me after my makeover. I didn’t like them too much because they were far too vain and self obsessed for my taste. At first they couldn’t see why Bella had chosen to become friends with a loser like me….a fact which I was curious about, myself.

I went outside on to the grounds, hoping to catch a nice, quiet break and calm my panicking heart beats. I had started stuttering and having panic attacks when Mia and her g**g came near me since childhood and even though they had left me alone for a good few years, I could see that they still had that effect on me. Today’s incident proved that. I thought I was finally over it.

I took a deep breath and let it all out. To my distaste and embarrassment, I found out that my legs were still quivering with fright. I let out a sigh and slumped down my shoulders annoyed by the effect they still had on my life even though they had stopped bullying me. Then several familiar loud, shrill, shrieks filled the air and I let out a groan. Oh Mr popular was there surrounded as usual by his cheerleading squad.

Seriously! Doesn’t he have anything better to do? I grimaced and fixed my attention on the palm tree in front of me and continued to stare at with such concentration as if I had never seen a palm tree in my life before. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw him eyeing my curiously and checking me out. I immediately blushed furiously and my eyes struggled to keep their focus on the palm tree. When the bell rang, I immediately took off to class without another glance back but weirdly enough I could still feel his eyes on me. Odd! Isn’t it? Was I just imaging it? Was it all simply in my head? Why would Mike check me out when there is always so many Barbie’s hanging out with him?

I ran right into Bella and I winced in pain as our heads butted together.

I snickered at her and she let out a laugh.

“So, what was it all about?”, I asked her nervously while fidgeting with the long sleeves of my top, already dreading the answer.

“Mia just wanted to bad mouth you. She said you had been copying her since childhood and that you are obsessed with whatever she wants. She just warned me to stay away from you because apparently, you are not a very good person. She claimed that she was only warning me out of the goodness of her heart and that she was just looking out for me. Oh! God bless, the tainted vain, little soul”

I rolled my eyes at her. Seriously! Trust Mia to think that even my makeover was to copy her…..She has got to stop thinking that the entire world revolves around her.

We both looked at each other solemnly and then burst into laughter.

After school, when I was showering, I found myself unconsciously thinking about Mike once again. I was still puzzled over his expression when he had checked me out. What did it mean?  Or maybe I was just reading too much into it. Even when I was hanging out with Luke and we ran into each other, he had always ignored me, why the sudden change in behavior? We had known each other for more than ten years but to this date we hadn’t had a proper conversation.

Oh! Maybe he was just shocked at my sudden transformation. Yes! That must be it. And silly me! Here I was wondering whether Mike fancied me…………