Loving Brianna Brooke

2

"Oooo look who just walked in."

Ellaine teased as she looks behind me. With that tone of voice I already knew who she was referring to. I glanced over my shoulder. Jiovanni Schwartz. She's looking at me as if she's about to eat me, thankfully her friend seemed to pull her back into reality.

"Your girllllllfriend." Jasmine joined in.

"Urgg." I replied as I rolled my eyes. "She's such a creep, I mean who in their right mind dresses like that to school?"

"Uh, she does."

"Shut up Ellaine, now's not the time to be a smart a*s. You would think that after all these years she would just give up on trying to get with me."

"I don't know, maybe that snake in her pants is telling her otherwise." Alexa added sarcastically.

"You're going to make me throw up. That....that thing she has is....it's an abomination."

"First of," Candice interrupts, "you need to chill out, the girl was born with it, give her a break. Secondly, I don't see an issue with her, I think it's refreshing that you have someone that likes you and doesn't express their attraction to you by slapping your ass."

"Then by all means Candice, you can go out with her."

I was really getting tired of this. Ever since the second grade Jiovanni's had her eye out for me. Every valentines day she would make me these cards and buy me chocolates and ask me to be her valentine in the cheesiest way possible. She would take my hand and kneel before me as if she was going to propose. And in her most gentlemanly way she would say, "My dearest Brianna, will you please do me the honor of not only being my dream girl however my reality girl as well?" Then she'd look at me with bright blue eyes in hopes that my response would be different than all the past ones. It never is. I mean usually girls swoon over these things but it was a joke. She was a joke. And now I hear Samantha blabbering about how she's walking towards me- wait, what? I shook myself from my trance and hear the girl behind me call out my name.

"Goodmorning Brianna!"

I turn around to see her closer than I thought she was. I take a couple steps back to give us some space and clear my throat.

"Schwartz." I say as vaguely as I can. "What do you want?"

"You look beautiful today!" She exclaims.

I can't help but feel the heat in my cheeks rise at her compliment, but I try my hardest to surpress it. "I know." I hear my friends behind me giggling.

"Y-you look beautiful everyday actually." Her eyes met the floor and I felt myself getting flushed again. What the hell?

"Well you look...." I eye her clothing. "....er.." "Dashing" she intrudes, while sticking her thumbs underneath her suspender straps and smiling confidently, as if her nerves shook away. Before I got the chance to respond, I felt an arm swing around my shoulder.

"Is she bothering you babe?" "Hello Hans, I don't believe I am so much as bothering her, only making light conversation before class starts is all."

"I wasn't talking to you dork." Hans replies sharply before turning his head to me. "What do you want me to do?"

"Uh.." I turn around to see all my friends waiting for my answer. Reluctantly I spoke out. "....swirly.." Hans smirked before yelling out to James on the other side of the hall.

"Excuse me?" Jiovanni asked. "I don't think I heard you correctly Brianna."

"Come on dork." Hans says before roughly grabbing her by the back of her suspenders. "It's time for some morning fun." Soon enough James and some other football guys were surrounding her.

"Where are we going fellas?" Jiovan replied naively. They smiled deviously. "You'll see." James responds. They shove her through the door of the men's restroom. "Hey wait! Come on guys, you're gonna make me late to first period!" I hear her yell as her voice becomes muffled with the sound of a toilet flushing. Within a few minutes I saw Hans followed by James, George, and Shan coming out the restroom fist bumping each other and laughing their asses off. Candice rolled her eyes before going into the bathroom and retrieving the girl. It was as if none of this effected her.

"Thanks Candice! I thought it was a nice gesture that they didn't flush my glasses down this time." Jiovanni chuckles.

"I'm glad you're okay, at least the restrooms were clean....I hope."

"Oh yes, they were! Not a speck of dirt in sight!"

Candice lifted her brow before responding. "You pick up the littlest things don't you?"

"I mean I guess." Jiovanni said before pushing up her glasses and turning to me. "May I do you the honor of walking you to class my lady?" She extends her elbow for me to take. It's amazing how quickly she's able to bounce back right after she was publicly humiliated. It was then that I realized Hans had left me. Typical. I sighed before taking my textbooks out of my locker and shoved them in her arms, and made my way to class, no more than seconds later I hear Jiovan's foot steps coming up next to me.

"I'll take that as a yes." She says with a wink.

I opened my mouth to respond to her little comment but nothing came out, so I clamped it back shut. This girl is starting to annoy me.

"You know, I'm really excited for the game on Friday. Are you?" She decides to ask after an awkward silence dawns on us.

"I guess." I try to make our conversations as minimal as possible, but she doesn't seem to get that because she still continues talking.

"Our band learned a new number which I believe the student body will love to uh....get jiggy to...as the cool kids might say."

I couldn't help but let out a loud laugh. Does she seriously not know how to speak normally? I swear she's a grandma sometimes. I looked at her in time to see her confused face morph into a gigantic smile.

"What are you smiling about?" I couldn't help but ask.

"I made you laugh." She replies before looking away from me.

"Well you sounded funny. I mean, jiggy? Seriously? Who says that?" We both entered the classroom in time. She jogs ahead of me and places the books down on my desk and pulls out my chair. Gosh she's so chivalrous.

"I'm not quite sure, but at least now I know you don't." I couldn't find it in me to even thank her for carrying my books and pulling out my chair because, well I guess you can say I'm used to it. She goes to sit in the chair next to mine and while she's about to sit down, Peter takes it upon himself to pull the seat out right from under her. It all happened in slow motion, and now Jiovanni's on the floor and the whole class is laughing at her. I see a tint of pink cover her cheeks due to the embarrassment. I swear Peter is such a child, that guy's never going to grow up, and I don't think he wants to either. Being a kid is what he does best. I was about to help her up until I remembered our school social ladder.

You see, there's a status I have to maintain. Being the head cheerleader, I'm at the top of the heap and should only associate with those in my caliber. Jiovanni on the other hand is on the other side of the spectrum. I mean she's in band, she's the president of some comic book super hero club, and she used the word jiggy. Therefore, being around her is a no go. However, I bend the rules every now and again when she insists on carrying my books for me, because I'm not gonna lie, those things get heavy, and it sucks lugging them around after a sore practice.

I shake my head from the thought and notice that Jiovan is now making her way to the seat in front of the class since it's the only one available. While one of my friends Cindy takes the place next to me.

"What happened?" She asked, probably because she just showed up.

"Peter swooped the chair right from under her." I didn't even need to say Jiovan's name, I mean she's the only one people really play those kind of pranks on so there's no need for me to even say it. I can be as vague as possible with describing the situation and everyone and their mother would know who I'm talking about.

"It's only first period and that dweeb is already making headlines." She laughs.

Cindy and I talk for a couple minutes before Mr. Weselton comes in, and sets his man purse on his desk dramatically.

"SHUT UP!"

You could hear a pin drop from the hallway with the silence engulfing the room, that is until Gene started laughing. Soon enough so was the entire class.

"I SAID SHUT UP YOU i***t CHILDREN!" He. Was. Pissed. You could see the steam radiating off of this little guy that more the class started to ignore his commands.

"Calm down gramps." Gene replied "Now's not the time to go into cardiac arrest." He said cheekily before starting up another fit of laughter.

All of sudden Weselton's face became white before he calmly turned to the board and wrote something down.

What?! A group project seriously?! You could hear the groans from the other students in the room who feel my pain. The only person who seems happy about this is Jiovanni. Figures.

"...and your partner will write a total of twelve poems." What's he talking about? s**t I need to start paying attention.

"And yes....I will choose your partners."

"Yar the devil!"

"Sixteen poems now." Weaseltown replied calmly. Damn it Mery! You couldn't keep your mouth closed for the sake of the class. Exchange students....

Time went by as I waited for my name to be called.

"Brianna Brooke and Jiovanni Schwartz." The class got quiet. Jiovan turned to me with a huge grin across her face. She was obviously excited about this unfortunate arrangement. So after forty dreadful minutes of Weaseltown go on about American Literature, the bell finally rang. I sprung out of seat and into the hallway in hopes that Jio wouldn't try to talk to me.

"Bree! Hey Bree!" She ran infront of me, but I kept walking forward, so she walked backward. I know I'm off as a b***h but this partnership thing isn't a good thing for me. I was going to be teased endlessly.

"Can you get out of my way, I'm trying to walk here!" So that came out a little harsh, however she didn't seem to pick up the frustration in my voice.

"Yeah sure." She quickly moved to my side keeping up with my quick strides. "Soooo, I was thinking that m-maybe you could come to my house o-or I could go to your house for the assignment." She started fiddling with her suspender buckles. I pulled her into the supply closet when I made sure no one was looking and got straight to business.

"Listen up Schwartz." I spoke authoritatively and poked her chest. "Neither of us are going to each other's houses do you understand me?"

"B-but the proje-"

"I. Don't. Care. We can do that separately. I do eight poems, you do eight poems, then when we're finished, we print them out, staple them together, and voila we're done. We will have absolutely no contact with this. No hanging out after before or after school. Got it?"

"If I may say, I do believe it would be easier if we did it together, we could probably knock the whole thing out in a couple days if we prioritize it."

"Did you not just hear what I said?!" I was growing impatient with her.

"There is no way in hell that I will be seen with you in public or anywhere for that matter. You'll ruin my rep. I didn't work my way up the chain just to get knocked down because some creep wants to spend time with me every second of the day!" I saw her visibly wince at my words.

"Okay." She replied quietly. "I'll stay out of your way." She grabbed her backpack and walked out. I felt a pang of guilt in my stomach, I mean she deserved it right?