A/N

Hello! I'm back with another chapter of No Sparks Required! Sorry this took so long, I've been very busy as of late, but I'll try my best to update this at least once every two weeks from now on. Thank you all so much for your patience, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

x Noelle

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T W O

i m m i s c i b l e

(Of liquids) Not forming a homogeneous mixture when mixed.

IT'S BARELY FIVE minutes into that fateful chemistry lesson with Shane, but already, I'm plotting his death. The hydrochloric acid in the far corner of the lab looks pretty good. And hopefully, it's concentrated.

Blissfully unaware of the devious thoughts that run through my mind, Shane's doing all he can to get my attention. Ten minutes into the lesson, he starts jabbing me in the arm with the back of his ballpoint pen. Not painful jabs, just the most irritating ones that make me clench my jaw in an attempt to ignore him.

But when he jabs me for the fifteenth time, I reach over to yank the pen out of his hand, neatly tossing it into the sink on my other side. He stares in heartfelt dismay at his lost pen for about three seconds, before he nudges me again.

"Beverly."

I ignore him, keeping my eyes steadily fixed on the whiteboard at the front of the class.

"Bev."

Think of peace, think of tranquillity.

"Seriously, Bev, this is really important."

Letting out a muffled, frustrated noise, I finally turn to face him. "What?"

"I seem to have misplaced my pen," he says mildly, his smirk widening when I narrow my eyes at him. "Can you lend me yours?"

Misplaced, my ass. The only thing that's misplaced about him is that annoying personality of his. Honestly, even monkeys behave better. Someone ought to lock him in a zoo or something. "No," I say flatly, and turn to face the front once more.

"Fine," he mumbles, and falls silent. That small window of blissful peace lasts for about thirty seconds, before his arm shoots right up as he waves his hand to get Mr Richards' attention. "Mr Richards?"

Mr Richards doesn't seem at all bothered by Shane's interruption. Quite the contrary, in fact, because Shane happens to be one of the star students in this class and is pretty much the apple of every teachers' eye. Such was life. "Yes," Mr Richards nods at him, "do you have a question?"

"Well – no," Shane has the decency to look sheepish, "I just lost my pen, sir, and I can't seem to find it. It's a little difficult to take down notes."

Screw peace and tranquillity. I'm going to stab myself with his stupid pen.

Right after I kill him with it.

"Use a bit of common sense and ask your lab partner to lend you one," Mr Richards replies shortly, looking somewhat peeved by the unnecessary interruption now. Sending a severe glare in our direction, he turns back to the board and continues to write.

I shoot Shane my frostiest glare but, unperturbed, he simply grins and holds his hand out. "Teachers' orders," he says cheerfully.

Gritting my teeth in frustration, I reach over and fish his pen out from the sink, before throwing it right at him. He catches it easily, nicking it out of thin air before it can hit him.

Pity. And to think I was aiming for his stupid face.

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As soon as class ends, I gather my things and leave the science lab in a hurry. Shane and I hadn't talked much after that little pen incident – maybe he'd taken one look at my fuming face and taken pity on me. Whatever the case was, the rest of the lesson had proceeded rather smoothly – and a bit dully, if I'm being completely honest.

"Beverly!" Someone yells from behind me. It's Tamara. "Wait up!" She catches up with me in a few quick, long strides. "What's the hurry? I've got so much to say!"

"Well, if it's anything about how Shane and I got along, I've only got one word for you: horrible. End of conversation."

Before Tamara can reply, someone slings an arm around my shoulders. It's that stupid guy again! Why can't he ever leave me alone?

"I actually thought we got along pretty well," Shane chuckles breathily in my ear. "Except for that bit where you threw my pen in the sink. It's ruined now, you know? You owe me a new one."

"The only thing I owe you is a good and proper smack to knock some sense into you."

"Kinky," he remarks, his smirk widening. "When?"

"You – " I stare at him, at a complete loss for words. How is he not offended by anything I say?! I whirl around and head down the hall, before I can say anything that I'll regret.

Tamara follows me, jogging a little to catch up. "Never knew Corelli would be into that," she muses, as she waits patiently for me to unload my books into my locker. "Anyway, I think it's safe to say that the lesson was a disaster – for the both of us."

I almost smile at that. With all my Shane-related troubles, I had momentarily forgotten that Tamara has troubles of her own too. If my time with my lab partner was painful, hers would've been excruciating, because Heather and Tamara simply repel each other.

Like like-poles of a magnet.

"Not so much chemistry with Heather, huh?" I say, giggling when she rolls her eyes at my pun.

"I don't know what cosmic force decided to put Heather and I on the same planet, in the same school, and at the same freaking table," Tamara says with a huff. "As if seeing her face during cheerleading practice isn't already enough, now I have to suffer through three hours of chemistry every week with her."

"Tough luck," I return sympathetically, knowing that I'm stuck in the exact same situation with Shane.

"Do you know what else she said? She said that these," and Tamara gestures wildly at her own chest, her vivid actions capturing the attention of some guys several feet away, "are too tiny, and that as a cheerleader, I should do everything I can to 'flaunt my assets'."

"Assets, or ass-ets?"

"Bet she meant both, that little shit," Tamara swears, then trails off when she notices that the guys some distance away are still staring and grinning at her. She narrows her eyes at them until, one by one, they begin to feel uncomfortable and look away. "But, honestly," she continues, turning her attention back to me, "the only assets that should be flaunted are our skills as cheerleaders – our flexibility, our stamina and our timing. Everything else is peripheral."

"Yes, master," I playfully quip. "I will bear that in mind when I next try out for cheerleading – which is never."

"You should. With your current workout regime, you'd be a shoo-in. This has got to be the eighty-fourth time I'm saying this."

"And for the eighty-fourth time – no," I shrug and smile; knowing that she's pulled the number pretty much out of nowhere. "I prefer swimming, thanks."

"Suit yourself." Tamara shuts my locker door for me once I'm done, and I follow her to her locker. Her earlier aggravation with Heather seems to have cooled off, and she nudges me with a cheeky glint in her eye. "So how'd it go with Shane?"

"I have three words for you: we don't mix."

"Like oil and water," she smiles brightly when I shoot her a quizzical look. "You know – immiscible liquids. Chemistry terms, honey," she adds, when I continue to look confuse.

"English, honey. You know chemistry's never been one of my strong suits."

"Huh, that's funny. I would've thought you'd be a genius at it now, given the sizzling amount of chemistry you seem to have with Shane," she laughs when I shoot her a dark look. "Anyway, do you need a ride home? I've got cheer practise so you might have to wait for awhile, but when we're done, we can have dinner together at that place near my house."

I think about it briefly before refusing. I don't have any extra classes or practises to stay back for today, and the least I can do is to head home early for an afternoon nap. I practically live for naps these days. Being sleep deprived is just part and parcel of being a senior in high school.

So after waiting for Tamara to stuff her books haphazardly into her own locker, I bid goodbye to her and we go our separate ways. I head through the parking lot, down a narrow path that leads to the side gate. My neighbourhood isn't that far off, and it's just about a twenty-minute walk, thirty tops.

I love the position of my house. It's right near a junction, and I like the contrast between two intersecting streets. The first street is part of a high-end neighbourhood where the more wealthy people live. Heather Fisher lives in my neighbourhood about seven houses away, while Tamara and Dani live in a little less crowded area a five-minute walk away that's surrounded with trees and no roads.

The other street belongs to a less wealthy side of town. There's a bakery right at the end that sells amazing croissants – I usually get them every morning for breakfast, and then head back to my street for a coffee. You can get a great variety of clothes too – pair a pretty lilac scarf from that branded shop together with discounted leather boots.

I hate making a Hannah Montana reference unless necessary, but this is necessary – you can get the best of both worlds just living near the intersection, and I honestly can't have wished for a better place to live. My parents chose wisely and I love them for it.

Or, perhaps, not quite wisely... I think to myself, as a familiar car pulls up on the road beside me. It's Shane. Again. An instinctive frown creases my forehead as he rolls down the window, looking up at me with a lazy grin on his face.

"Hey, Bev. Need a ride?"

He's asked this countless of times before, whenever our paths cross after school. I don't know if it's out of convenience that he does this – after all, we do live across the road from each other. Or maybe he just likes getting a kick out of my reaction, as is usually the case.

I'm betting it's the latter.

"No, thanks," I answer shortly and resume walking. But I barely get five steps ahead when he suddenly blasts his car horn. I nearly jump out of my skin, and drop my file in the proccess. My worksheets flutter out like autumn leaves, scattering all over the sidewalk. I knew I should've filed them up, but really, why bother when you can throw them all away when you graduate in a few months' time?

"Don't you have anywhere else to be?" I hiss at Shane in annoyance. "Like hell, maybe?"

"I might have time to go there," he says as casually as though he's talking about taking a walk in the park. "Wanna head there with me?"

I throw him a filthy look. I've a great variety of filthy looks, all which came from years of practise, especially when dealing with Shane. My best one's called the shit-on-my-shoe look. I even tried it once on myself in front of the mirror, and boy, did I feel like shit.

I ignore his chuckle and lean down to pick up my notes. A moment later, I hear the car door slam. Shane's dirty brown converses appear in front of me and I tense up. Right. Is he here to make fun of me again?

"What do you want?" I ask, not lifting my eyes from the ground.

He gathers up a couple of papers and hands them to me. "I'm here to help."

Reaching out, I take the papers from him, and our fingers brush. It's not like there's a sizzle of electricity or whatever cliche you read about in fiction. Rather, he's warm. And I'm always, always so hyper-aware of him.

I immediately let go of the papers, and one sheet flutters back to the floor. Shane stares at it, and I feel my face grow hot. Of all the assignments he had to see, it just had to be that one. The one where I got all the organic compounds confused, even though no one else seemed to have the same problem except for me.

I start to babble, like I always do when I'm embarrassed. "That's my C in Chemistry. C minus, actually. I'm just about this-bit close to failing." I tell him, nonchalantly.

Shane raises an eyebrow, looking truly puzzled. "But it's organic chemistry. You can't get a C on that, let alone fail it."

"It's possible." I argue. "I missed a couple of lessons because I was in quarantine for chicken pox. So when I came back, I didn't know shit about that topic. I got all confused. Like, really confused. I thought that organic compounds contained oxygen instead of hydrogen, and I thought vegetables were part of one of the homologous series."

"Vegetables?"

"What?" I say defensively. "I mean, there are organic vegetables and fruits, right?"

Shane stares at me for a long moment, before he starts to laugh. It's a rather pleasant sound, and I almost smile along. But when he laughs a little too hard, I begin to falter. Wait... Is he laughing at me?

"Glad I amuse you," I say dryly as I gather the last few sheets, and turn to head home.

Shane immediately stops laughing. "Bev!"

I ignore him.

"Shit," I hear him swear, and he starts to jog after me. "Look, Bev, I'm sorry." I take another step forward, but he latches onto my wrist and tugs me to a halt. "I wasn't laughing at you. Really, I wasn't."

That stops me. I turn around and stare at him, waiting patiently for him to continue. I watch as he runs his fingers through his hair, and tries to work out something to say that wouldn't offend me.

"That thing you said about vegetables reminded me about that time when we went grocery shopping together..."

I think rapidly. Grocery shopping? It's a rather faint memory, but didn't that happen in middle school? When we were nine? Our moms had wanted to go shopping together, so they assigned the task of grocery shopping to us instead.

I cannot believe he remembered.

"...and you thought organic vegetables were part of human organs or something, remember?" If I didn't know better, I'd say he looks almost nervous, the way he's biting his lip.

"Yeah." I finally say, a faint smile playing on my lips. "And after that, you believed me. So you started shrieking about how dead people's organs weren't incinerated along with them, but stored up to be cooked as vegetable soup and salads."

Shane chuckles. "Yeah, that. It was pretty funny, you know."

I smile a little at that. After that incident, we refused to eat vegetables for a whole month. Needless to say, our respective bathroom schedules were...more than messed up, much to the utter dismay of our parents. I start to ask him if he remembers any of that, when his phone suddenly rings.

Shane shoots me an apologetic look and turns away to answer the call. I try to pretend like I'm busy scuffing the tip of my shoe against the sidewalk, but there's really only so much I can pretend. Eventually, I just give up and listen in on him.

" – hey, yeah, it's no bother," I hear him say. "No, I'm not home yet. I'm with someone. ...who? Um, well – " he hesitates, meeting my gaze for a brief second. " – she's, um..."

Of course. I huff a small, almost bitter laugh to myself. How could I have been so stupid? There I was thinking that we were getting along. We were reminiscing. When, really, the harsh truth speaks louder and clearer than any fond childhood memory we've ever shared together.

I'm not a friend. I'm not a memory. I'm not anything to him.

Should've known better.

I turn on my heels and walk away, leaving him standing on the sidewalk with his phone still pressed to his ear. His bright, shrewd gaze burns into me as he watches me leave, and the spaces between us return to the way they should've been.