Eve and Lexie

Chapter 2

The Blaring of Lexie’s alarm wakes her up with a soft groan, not wanting to get out of bed. She looks at the clock on her phone and shoots up, noticing it was her last alarm to go off and she slept through the other two alarms. She rushes around and gets dressed for school, running down the stairs with her bag on her shoulder. “Running late! I’ll just have toast.” She yells, rushing into the dining room where her parents are eating breakfast as she grabs a slice of toast with jam on it.

She runs to her car and sped down the road to her school, just making it in time for homeroom. She stuffs her face with the remainder of her toast as she enters the school. Both Lexie and Eve go to an all girls school; Shelbyville Private School. The students wear uniforms there, red plaid skirts that are mid-thigh in length with an inch or two longer in the back but it’s not noticeable unless you stare too much. The shirt is a plain white blazer with ruffles starting just under the chest, going up to the collar that has a neck tie around it, but some girls prefer wearing a bowtie, but both are already pre-tied, ready to be worn. The outfit is matched with socks that go two inches below the knee that are black and white striped with black mary-janes for shoes.

Lexie rushes into homeroom just as the bell rings, sitting down just in time. She tunes out the morning announcements as Lexie and Eve text, not getting caught. All they said was a simple ‘good morning’ to each other and Lexie’s heart flutters from just that. Another thing the two girls did since they became friends. For some reason, everything they used to do as friends is making Lexie's heart flutter, as her feelings for Eve grow.

In English class, Eve stops at Lexie’s desk, startling Lexie. “Sorry Lexie, didn’t mean to startle you. Did you do the math homework? I forgot to do it,” Eve tells her in a slight whiny voice. Eve’s whiny voice doesn’t bother Lexie though, she’s actually used to it. Lexie actually likes the whiny voice of Eve unlike the other girls around them. “I did,” Lexie starts, seeing excitement in Eve’s eyes as she reaches into her bag and takes out the paper, filled with math problems that were assigned to them for homework. Lexie hands the paper to Eve as Eve just hugs her tight and takes the paper, not able to say anymore as Eve squeals out a ‘thank you,’ running to her seat as the bell is about to ring for the period to start.

Lexie occasionally looks at Eve during English class, watching her copy the homework. She lets out a sigh, wishing Eve would make it less obvious she’s copying the homework. After a while, Lexie forgets and got so engrossed in the assignment for English that she didn’t notice the bell rang already. She quickly packs her stuff up as Eve comes by, giving Lexie the paper back and they both rush out of the classroom, straight into Math class.

As the bell rang, Mrs. Jones, the teacher, spoke. “Alright class, pass your homework up to the person in front of you. I’ll grade these as you do the equations on the board.” As she spoke, the students already started to pass their homework up to the front. Lexie comes up to the desk as she was the person in front of the row and places the stack of papers on the teachers desk. Lexie goes back to her seat and starts working on the equations on the whiteboard as they are in the textbook the class uses.

Five minutes til the bell and twenty math equations later, the teacher finally got done with the grading. Lexie peeks at her desk and notices two papers are put to the side. Fear settles in as she side-eyes at Eve but she wasn’t paying attention. Mrs. Jones finally speaks up, “That’s enough, take note and any unfinished equations are to be done for homework tonight. Alexandra Collins and Evelyn Sanchez, please stay back after class. I’ll give you two passes when we’re done talking.” As usual, a collective of sounds are heard from the other classmates' mouths, a long ‘oh’, as children do when someone is suspected to be in trouble. “Alright. That’s enough, class.” Mrs. Jones says, silencing the classroom of the sound.

The bell rings as Lexie and Eve stay seated until everyone has left. They both go up to the teachers desk. “Are we in trouble?” Eve immediately asks, realizing why they were called to stay back. Eve knew she shouldn’t have copied the exact thing Lexie did, yet she did it anyway. “You’re not, Eve. Lexie though is. It seems like she copied from you with the homework.” Mrs. Jones says, not letting Eve or Lexie defend themselves or speak, she continues, “Lexie, you know this isn’t acceptable at this school nor class. I’m signing for you to have detention after school today. You know the time, right? straight after school?”

All Lexie could do was nod as Mrs. Jones kept talking. “Great,” She starts again, signing her signature on a few pieces of paper as the bell rings. “Here, the hall passes for your next class and your detention slip, Ms. Collins. See you after school in the library.” They both nod as Mrs. Jones dismisses them. Lexie and Eve walk out of the classroom together, “I’m so sorry, Lexie. I wish I didn’t-” Eve starts but Lexie cuts her off. “It’s fine. You didn’t know this would have happened. We all should have gotten the same answers with the same work, right? she’s just picking on me as she always does. You know she doesn’t like me for some reason.”

Eve, being upset now, just nods. Lexie looks at Eve, noticing her emotions. Eve could never hide her emotions, everything she felt was written all over her face. Another thing Lexie liked about Eve. She was easy to read. Lexie is realizing she loved everything about Eve. That was the moment Lexie had a plan. She knew she had to make Eve hers, despite knowing they’ll have to keep it a secret.

The rest of the school day goes by in a flash as the next thing Lexie knew, she was heading towards the library for her detention. She knows full well the school already called her parents about what happened. It wasn’t fair but she couldn’t defend herself nor could Eve say something in her defense. As Lexie enters the library, she shows the lady at the desk her slip; all the lady did was nod and went back to tapping away on the computer. Lexie finds a random spot and sat down, away from the view of the librarian as she taps away on her phone, talking to Eve the whole time all the while handwriting lines, saying she won’t cheat off of another student's work again.

During the whole detention, Eve was sending Lexie apology texts all the while Lexie was telling her it’s okay. Eve felt bad for letting Lexie take the blame for copying her homework. They both know Mrs. Jones had a thing against Lexie since the start of the year. Neither of them knew why, she just didn’t like Lexie. They had a running theory that Lexie wronged Mrs. Jones in a previous life and that’s why she doesn’t like her. It was just a theory though; a silly theory at that.

After an hour, her detention was over. Lexie gave the lady at the desk her paper, having her name, the teacher who gave her detention and what period it was in the corner of the paper. The desk lady just nods in acknowledgement, just as she did in the beginning of the hour as Lexie left the library, leaving the paper right in front of the lady.

Lexie walked a short distance to the entrance of the school and exited the building to go straight to her car. Her phone was blowing up with text messages from her mom, asking what happened; she just ignored them, knowing she’s gonna ask the same thing when she got home. During the ride home, she started to think about Eve. Her birthday was two months away; in May. Eve is currently fifteen, turning sixteen years old. Lexie wants to do something for her birthday, something special. That’s when she thought about what she should do. She wants to ask Eve out before her birthday.

Lexie pulled into the driveway and saw her mother in the entryway of the door, leaning against the doorframe. She already saw her mother talking but she couldn’t hear what was said since she didn’t even get a chance to exit her car. Lexie sat there for a couple seconds, mentally preparing herself to get the tongue lashing her mother was famous to do towards her own daughter. Mrs. Collins stood there, mumbling profanities towards her daughter.

“She’s going to ruin her chances at getting into a good college. She needs to think about her future and stop messing around.” Mrs. Collins thought to herself, not actually saying it out loud. As she stood in the doorway, waiting for her daughter, the rage she got from the call from Lexie’s school of her getting detention after school today dissipated. She watched her daughter get out of her car and walk towards the house, without looking up.

“I got a call today,” Mrs. Collins started, gauging her daughter's reaction. When Lexie didn’t react, she continued. “Mrs. Jones told me that you cheated off Evelyn's homework. I knew she wasn’t good for you. What would the colleges you apply to say? hm?” She followed her daughter in the house and up the stairs, continuing the one-sided conversation. “They’d think you actually cheated on your homework. Homework, Lexie! This isn’t acceptable!” After the long silence from Lexie’s side, she blew up. She couldn’t handle the slander anymore.

“Just shut up mom! You don’t know what really happened!” Lexie began, yelling at her mom. “You know what really happened?!” She questioned, not giving her mom a chance to even speak, just as Mrs. Collins did to her own daughter. Just like Mrs. Jones did it to her during class, accusing her of cheating. It all just blew up and spewed out of her right at that moment. “Mrs. Jones has been a problem towards me, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? You don’t listen when I talk to you. It’s like it goes in one ear and out the other. Eve didn’t do her homework so I let her look at mine. I didn’t know she’d copy it. She regrets copying it. It wouldn’t matter though since everyone should have the same answers and work, right?”

At this point, Lexie is in tears out of frustration. Taking a deep breath as she continues. “You’re going to spew all this nonsense without knowing the truth? Stop and ask before you start accusing me of things. You’re always like this, saying I did something when you weren’t there to see it yourself. You always assume and project and I’m done with that.” With the final words, she doesn’t allow her mother to speak as she runs up the stairs going straight into her room, closing and locking her door.

Lexie takes a pillow off of her bed and presses her face against it, screaming into the pillow as her tears soak into the very thing she’s using to take out her frustrations. Her screams get progressively louder, being muffled by the pillow. Mrs. Collins has always done that to Lexie; accusing, assuming and jumping to conclusions, never wanting the actual truth. Lexie was tired of her own mother doing that to her and every day she wants out even more.

As Lexie calms down from the aggressive screaming into her pillow, she ends up bawling her eyes out while laying in her bed. She’s curled up into a tight ball, hugging the pillow that got assaulted earlier. All she can think about while crying is that she wants out and be on her own. She wants a way out. The thoughts of leaving when she turns eighteen as she slips into a deep sleep, her eyes puffy and red from crying so much.