Unexpectedly Bad

3: Strike Three and You're Out

                                                                      L   U   N   A

     The cold showering water ran down from the top of my hair to the edge of my toes, rinsing the strawberry-scented soap that was currently foaming on my body, leaving a cold sensation on every part of my bare skin.

     The thought of yesterday's incident with Aiden was lingering in my head. I could still feel his warmness due to the proximity we had yesterday, I could still hear his voice in my head and perfectly pictured the scene whenever I closed my eyes.

     I was so afraid of him yesterday, although it was not the first time I had ever seen an angry Aiden. My voice was shaking, my body was too, and I couldn't managed to speak properly because he was so close.bI had never been that close to Aiden before. It made my heart beats a thousand times faster than it used to, the mixture of joy and fear collided inside me; joy of the closeness between me and him, fear of the angry emotion he was feeling at the time.

     I stepped out of the shower, still thinking about yesterday. I quickly dressed myself in a comfortable outfit and went downstairs.

     The aroma of mom's delicious cooking welcomed me as I was entering the kitchen.

     "Good morning, sweetie," My mom greeted my with her warm smile.

     "Morning, mom," I kissed her on the cheek. I started walking to the dining table and had breakfast.

     After breakfast I kissed my mom goodbye and walked outside the house to the bus stop.

     As I was walking to the bus stop, I spotted couples holding hands, some of them were high school students like me. Actually, I didn't really care about any relationships yet. It was not really my priority. My goal was to finish high school, go to college and achieve my dreams. Besides, it was not like someone would ever like me or even love me.

     I deciced to take out my headphones, and played one of my favorite song, Over & Over Again by Nathan Sykes, and closed my eyes.

     Suddenly, I remembered of what happened yesterday. I couldn't sleep last night just thinking about it. I was humiliated. I continued my thoughts as I looked out through the window.

     A couple of minutes later I was arrived at Lakewell High. I got off the bus, ready to face those people, especially the queen bitches, who would probably mocking me right in front of my face about yesterday. I peeked into the school building, I looked around and saw the students were busy talking with their friends, some of them were taking out their books from their lockers. I thought it was safe for me, so I slowly walked to my locker. No one said anything about yesterdy yet. Until.....

     "Oh, look who it is."

     Great. It must be Shelby and her what-so-called 'friends'. I turned around to see her standing in front of my locker with Nicole on her right, Michelle on her left, and Caitlyn behind her.

     "If it's not the angel from yesterday's fight." I heard Nicole said in a mocking tone.

     "What do you want?"

     "You're such an attention seeker." Caitlyn said. Excuse me? Didn't they know that they were the ones who was always trying to get everyone's attention?

     "Have you looked into the mirror?"

     "WHAT?!" Shelby put her hands on her hips, "How dare you speak to me like that?"

     "I didn't remember anything about the rules of speaking to you."

     "Well, let me tell you then. No one can raise their voices at me, snap at me, saying filthy words to me, or call me names."

     "And what would happen if someone broke the rules?" I asked.

     "Trust me, you don't wanna know." The next thing was happening unexpectedly, she slapped me.

     "That was strike one. Strike two, strike three, and you're out." Michelle said.

     I stared back at her. I was holding my tears. I was not weak that I cried just because some slapped me on my face, it was the fact that she slapped me in front of everyone. The students were looking at us. I just stood there, frozen, didn't know what to do. I felt so embarassed at the moment. I looked around to see everyone staring at us, I kept blinking so fast to held back my tears.

     She turned around and walked away, followed by her friends. The crowd started to disappear as the bell rang. I walked to my class by myself, looking at the ground as I felt a tear slipped down my face. I bit my bottom lip, not liking the feeling. Suddenly, I felt my head bump into something, so I forced to bring my head up to see what it was. The thing was it was not 'what it was', it was 'who it was'.

     Aiden Dominic.

     "I-I'm sorry." I said and he frowned, probably wondering why I was crying. I looked back at the ground when I realized the tear was still on my cheek and started to walk away.

                                                                     ∴∵∴∵∴∵∴∵∴∵

     "Okay, class, that's it for today's Biology lesson."  Mr. Lawson said as he gathered his papers, "We still have 30 minutes left, and just like yesterday, I want you to do this worksheet, so I'd know how much you understand. But, before that, I'd like to change the seats, and I want no complain because I'll choose who will sit with who."

     There was a lot of "Ughs!" behind me, in front of me, on my left, on my right, everywhere.

     He took a paper from his bag and started to mention names, where they should move and I was waiting for my name to be metioned.

     "Miss Lynch, you can move to the corner back of the class with Dominic, I think he needs a company."

     Oh no.

     "Miss Lynch?"

     "Uh, y-yes?"

     "I said, you'll have to move to sit with Mr. Dominic, did you not hear me?" Mr. Lawson rolled his eyes.

     "O-okay." I said as I gathered my stuff and took my last glance to Charlie, my ex-chairmate before started walking to my new seat.

     I sat right next to Aiden, we caught each other staring at each other a couple of few times before we turned our heads back to Mr. Lawson. Thank God, he didn't say anything about yesterday.

     We were working on our worksheets, Mr. Lawson had excused himself to the restroom. The classroom became so noisy after he went out, students started chattering, probably looking for answers from their friends, while I sat here unmoved because of the fact that I was so nervous and the tension that was really bold between me and Aiden made it even worse.

     I turned my head a bit to see what was Aiden doing and I just wanted to know if he was also nervous like me. But, no, he wasn't. He was leaning back, eyes closed, leaving his worksheet untouched on the table, but I knew that he was not actually sleeping, so I decided to make the awkward tension become a little bit less...awkward.

     "H-hi, I-I'm Luna," I said nervously to him, he didn't move an inch, "I'm sorry for what happened yesterday, I didn't mean to interfere with your problems."

     He still didn't move.

     "Are you sleeping?" I said, still looking at him, fiddling my fingers on the table.

     "I know you're not sleeping. You know what? It's rude to ignore people when they're talking to you."

     Still. He didn't move. His eyes were still closed. Was he really sleeping? Or he was just ignoring me?

     "Can you talk?"

     "Helloooo?"

     "Don't pretend to sleep, I know you can hear me."

     "Are you...ignoring me?"

     "Oh my God, you're so rude! You shouldn't ignore people when they're talking to you, do you have any manners? At least say hi back or someth-"

     "Geez, you're so loud, can't you see I'm trynna sleep here?" He suddenly opened his eyes, making me flinch, and he straightened his sitting position.

     I blinked. "W-well, you didn't say anything back to me," I looked at him as he started leaning back to his previous position and closed his eyes. "Not even a 'Hi'"

     "I know you already know my name, since you're my knight in shining armor yesterday." He said with his eyes still closed and a smirk appeared on his face as I felt my cheeks burning. "What else is there left to say?"

     "Well," I blinked, thinking of what to say, "at least you can say 'Hi'."

     "I can see you're cheeks reddening now," He said with a smirk, "through closed eyes." He added. Such a tease.

     "So, you're some kind of magician?" I mocked. "You have a superpower that can make you see through closed eyes, I bet you can communicate through minds as well since you're always quite." He chuckled.

     "You were crying when you bumped to me this morning," He said, changing the subject, while he straightened his sitting position, his eyes were finally open, and he stared at me with curiosity. "Why?"

     "Huh?" I blinked a few times.

     "You heard me right, princess."

     "Um, its nothing." I tried to look as calm as possible.

     "Someone told me that when a girl cries, something must be wrong with her."

     I fluttered at his statement. So, the Aiden Dominic had a sweet side of him?

     "You shouldn't interfere with someone else's business, y'know." I said. "And why are you so curious?" I added with a scoff.

     "Well, you interfered with my business yesterday, princess." He grinned. "By acting all hero-like."

     Just as he said that, Mr. Lawson entered the class and the bell rang. No one actually realized how long was he out doing his business.

     "Class dismissed." Mr. Lawson announced as he took his bag and papers before walking out of the classroom.

     I ignored his last statement and started gathering my stuffs, "Nice talking to you, Dominic." I said as I got up from my seat.

     "Nice talking to you too, princess." He said. I ignored him and walked out of the classroom heading to my next class.