THE NEXT MORNING doesn't come fast enough and the weather looks gloomy like a heavy rain is gathering up and going to pour anytime soon. I wear a hoodie black jacket over my school blazer and a small umbrella is tucked in neatly inside my bag. I don't think the rain would fall whilst we're still in school but you can never be too prepared.

I crouch down my locker, dropping my tin cup of coffee on the floor beside me as I fold the jacket over placing it into my locker and swapping up my books.

"Have you seen The Galaxy news?" Christine asks walking up to me and kicking my tin cup down.

"Christy!" I yell, picking the cup up as fast as I can. Thankfully only a little spills out.

"Sorry, I didn't see it there." She yelps.

"Ugh, there goes a mouth full." I shut my locker and stand up, then I see her with a newspaper and remember her question. "No, do I look like I read the school paper?"

Christine smirks, "Well, you'll want to read this." She hands me the paper and I warily collect it, eying her.

"Varsity Student, Matt Dunbar on steroids." I read and a gasp escapes my lips just as my heart skips a beat. My eyes lower and I see pictures of Matt injecting himself with a syringe behind what looks like the bleachers and library. My hand flies to cover my mouth, it is true! "Oh, God."

" 'oh God' alright."  Christine says still smirking, "now look at the name behind the news."

My eyes lower and just as expected, directly below the headline is "by, Ian Maurice."

"He's dead." Christine says and my eyes snap to her.

"What?!"

"He's done for. You guys are going to kill him."

"You guys?"

Christine rolls her eyes, "The football team, duh. Maybe not you but I saw Aiden and some of the guys and they looked pissed. I think the police are coming to pick Matt soon and the boys are plotting. I'll tell Ian to run if I were you."

"I can't believe this." I shoved the paper back to her, running a hand through my hair. "Why did it have to be--" I pause, then glare at Christine. "Why do you look so happy about this?"

She shrugs, "I don't know. I guess I'm just glad that karma has finally caught up to that jerk called Matt and I'm proud of the new guy and at the same time curious as to how he's gonna survive after this."

I roll my eyes at her. I guess its pretty incredible of Ian to uncover something like this when he's just a new guy. "I didn't know Matt was a jerk."

"Not to you, he wasn't. And I'm not even surprised by this news. I'm guessing that Lionel, another jerk is on steroids too."

We start walking towards class. "What do you think is going to happen to Matt now?"

"Well for starters, his football career is overrr." Jamie sang coming out from nowhere and joining the conversation. "He's freaking out right now in the principals office waiting for the test result and the police."

"Where did you come from?" Christine asked as they high five.

"Everywhere. Nowhere."

"I don't get why you guys are so happy about this. Its a freaking disaster." I mumble as I enter into the class. Christine and Jamie continue to talk behind me but I've pretty much zoned out.

All I can think of is this football season and the team. The coach and how this would dent his perfect image. My mum's and the school's image too and finally, Ian. Ian. Ian. Ian.

**

For a day like this one its pretty surprising that the periods go around quietly, well except for a teacher who made a jab at us calling us 'untrustworthy worthless drugie teenagers'. It's a miracle the class continued after that, some of us were pretty upset.

Well, lunch rolled around and just as I presumed, the storm after the silence started just then. It didn't even happen in the lunch room. I stood in line waiting for my salad and suddenly a loud bang is heard outside like someone being crashed into a locker. Everybody abandoned their uninteresting meal and rushed out to the hallway, including me.

I haven't seen Aiden, Finn or Ian all through today and I have been on edge.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?!"

I peeked over the mass of students and the first thing I see is half the football team surrounding an area and soon Ian stands up from the ground looking a little winded. He turns his neck and a bone cracking sound is heard. Then he glares at the guy in front who I now recognize as Aiden.

"Don't do that again." Ian warns directing an icy glare to Aiden, his voice deep and kinda scary. I wasn't even the one the glare was directed at but I felt chilly to my bones.

I don't know if Aiden is scared or not but he turns his head around to look at his boys. Then laughs. I don't need to be a genius to know that was a bad idea. Aiden turns back to Ian.

"Or what man?" He places his hand on Ian's broader chest and shoves. "What do you think you're gonna go about it? Huh?"

Ian smirks, I think and shoves Aiden back, making him stumble back to his boys. "Don't touch me."

Ian starts to walk away, but Aiden quickly recovers from the shove, pushes Ian pretty hard, then turns around and delivers a jaw splitting punch to Ian. Ian falls to the ground and a gasp leaves the watching crowd, mine probably the loudest and I start feeling sick. Ian quickly gets up with speed I haven't seen before. He grabs Aiden by the collar and throws him into the lockers behind. Ian quickly picks Aiden up and delivers two punches that I'm sure breaks a bone, then throws Aiden to the floor like a hay sack.

Before I can even push out the crowd, the other guys have already attacked Ian and he was taking them like I would take on gummy worms. Someone manages to knock him to the ground but he doesn't stay down for long and uses his legs to do some pretty serious damage.

"Please stop. Someone stop them!" I yell, rushing to the boys but there's little to nothing I can do. That's until I see Finn relaxing on the lunch room door, slowly chewing on a piece of leaf. "Finn, what the hell?!"

"What?" He asks like he isn't seeing what's going on.

"Do something!" I yell, close to punching someone by myself.

"Like what?"

"Um, help Ian?"

Finn pouts, "Nah, he's doing pretty good on his own and I don't feel like detention today."

"Come on!" I pull on his hand and with a groan, he follows.

"Okay, calm down big dog." Finn says shoving a guy away.

I pull on Ian's arm. "Ian calm the fuck down."

A loud whistle rings and for a second, the whole hallway quietens down. A furious Coach Martin stands in front with his whistle around his neck. I don't think I've ever seen him so red.

"The soccer team, stay right where you are. All the other students not in the team and who haven't thrown a single punch or push, disperse immediately!" He barks, gesturing with his hands.

The students start moving and soon its just us the team and Ian. My hand slowly moves down until I'm holding Ian's. He hold me back and I sigh in relief. He's back. I don't think I've ever seen anyone as angry as he in my entire life. All his vein were popping out and his eyes were darker than normal. I even fear for his knuckles.

Finn helps Aiden up to his feet and as he staggers up, his eyes land on me and he slowly traces them down until he is looking directly at my hand in Ian's. He looks at me, his brown eyes looking broken and screaming betrayal. I couldn't look at him, so I looked at coach.

"Since the Principal's office won't fit all ye rascals. To the field before I open my eyes!" He yells closing his eyes. A collective sigh is heard and we all turn around, heading out to the field.

My mum arrives minutes later and just like coach, she's furious. When her eyes land on me, she looks a little surprised and then they darken in more anger. I duck behind Ian.

I'm dead!

Ian turns to me with raised brow and I mouth, "My mother." To him, sending the message.

"I'm disappointed!" Mum starts and the speech goes on and on.

Aiden, Ian and all the guys with injuries and bloodied knuckles are giving community service, while the rest of us get to run laps around the field until we pass out. The boys included too. After my mum leaves, a doctor arrives – not, Mr Richards, thank God – and starts taking our blood samples. Its compulsive and needed to know which of us is a druggie too. I'm guessing Matt's test came out positive. Even our lockers are ransacked and not in a neat way either.

By the time I'm dismissed from the run of death, I feel dead already, I'm pissed and I have to freaking rearrange my locker by myself. All my things were thrown to the floor, including my locker in the girls locker room. Thankfully its just me and Jessica. I don't even want to know what the boys room look like.

"Where the hell is my towel?" I ask picking up my things from the floor. I and Jessica's things were mixed up.

"I think I have it." Jessica says just as the locker room door opens and we hear someone walking in.

I stare in wait and my eyes widen as I see a sweaty Ian materialize. "Ian!"

He smiles sheepishly, "Hi."

"Dude." Jessica calls out, tossing my towel to me and running to hide. She was in just her bra and shorts.

"Sorry." Ian squeaks out, looking really apologetic to her.

"What are doing here? Are you lost?" I ask.

He shakes his head, making his long curls bounce. "No."

I resist the urge to smile. "Well, this is the girls locker room and you aren't allowed in. I could've been naked."

He moves closer, "Well, unfortunately, you aren't."

This time, I allow myself a small smile. "Unfortunately?" What happened to the shy guy who couldn't even flirt?

He blushes, looking down at his fingers. "W-well--"

Ah, there he is.

I move closer, "Come on, why unfortunately?" I plan on breaking him.

He shrugs, still not looking at me and nearly whispers out. "I guess-- it would have been a feat for me to see you... n-nak--"

I smile, my face burning as I moved closer. "Why because I'm hot?"

He smirks and finally looks at me, "Precisely."

I want to keep eye contact and be a flirting diva, but I just can't. I'm a gooey mess and his eyes is just so overwhelming. I look away walking back to my locker with a literally heated body. Unfortunately, I'm not naked. I'm fully dressed, which kinda sucks and is reliving because I don't think I can handle Ian's eyes on my naked body right now.

"So, what are you really doing here?" I ask folding my towel up. Jessica walks out, fully dressed, waves at us and leaves. Once she's gone, I return my attention back to Ian and he sighs.

"I feel like I owe you an apology." He says.

"For what?"

He shrugs, "I'm not sure but I'm sure it's not for beating up your ex." I chuckle and he adds. "And I'll do it again in a heartbeat."

"Aiden's not a bad guy..." I start, then think against it. "You don't owe me anything Ian."

He sits on the bench. "You sure? Your mum looked murderous."

I laugh, now getting his point. "Yea, she's gonna fry my ass."

Ian shoots me a sad look as I sit beside him. "Can't you or anyone explain that you didn't even fight."

I shake my head, "Nothing will do. But don't worry, it won't be bad."

Ian reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear, I nearly purred as his fingers brushed my skin. "I'm sorry Roxanna."

I reach for his hand holding it in mine. "Its not your fault. They started it, not you." I see his bloodied lip and knuckles and I rush up to get the first aid.

"Yeah but I caused them to start a fight."

I returned with the box, "Ian, don't beat yourself about it. And congrats on your first paper."

"I didn't want to do that but I needed to write something stat and it really not--" I cut him off by sitting and placing my finger on his lips.

"You don't need to explain anything to me, Ian." Ian looks down at my finger on his lips and I blush pulling it away and distracting myself with opening up the first aid box.

"You don't need to fix me up." He says flexing his long fingers.

"I know, now shush." I smile at him and get to work immediately. I clean up the blood on his fingers and turns out, none of it is his. When I start working on his actually injured lips, I feel like I'm going to combust up in flames.

Ian's lip is super soft and utterly kissable. If any girl should describe the dream lips she'd love to kiss one day. It would be his. I can't work on his lip in silence, with his eyes on me and not go up in flames, so I speak.

"So how come you need good grades so badly. I mean, I've heard Jamie say it and now you and I know its not just the normal B and C we are all fighting for."

Ian looks away and I bite my lip in regret. He doesn't want to talk about it. I should've just--

"I didn't do junior year." He replies, startling me. I didn't think he would speak.

I blink back my surprise and stare at the break on his lip. Stupid Aiden. "Um-- why?"

He lifts a shoulder in a shrug, "I had-- some situation came up and I couldn't attend school."

"So how come you're a senior now?" I blurt out, then suck my lip in immediately. "Not to be over stepping boundaries or anything."

"Its fine." He offers a half smile, "I read books during the time I couldn't attend school and when I finally could, I passed all the exams and requirements for senior class."

"So, like homeschooling?"

"Yea, like that." He continues. "And now if I need my college application to look remotely good, I need all the credits I can get."

Oh.

I don't know if that makes sense but that's the idea and story I have. Haha :)