"Dude," I whispered to Lila one day in English Lit, "our finals are coming up in three weeks. Three weeks."

"Shh," Lila said back to me, holding a finger up. "I'm going to miss a very important point about the Greeks and their notions of honor."

I glanced over to Olivia, with whom I would have exchanged a glance, but she was too busy taking part in the discussion. Right. I should really do the best I could to boost up my class participation grade (even though it was rather late in the game). So I resorted to letting out a very heavy, dramatic sigh and trying to pay attention to whoever was speaking at the moment.

People were being so uptight today.

I was just in the middle of writing down the example of Achilles and Hector's body when Lila poked my arm with the eraser of her pencil. I turned to her. "What?"

She wasn't even really looking at me since she had gone back to writing something. "My brother wants you."

All right then. I looked up to where Luc was sitting two rows in front of me, flanked by Eli and some other guy on the rugby team I didn't know too well. He was turned around just enough to face me (after all, he did have a reputation to keep up among the teachers). His light eyes sparkled.

"My pencil," he mouthed, pointing at something underneath my desk. (At least he hadn't pointed out my feet, which he'd mentioned, on several occasions, were fairly large. I'd smacked him afterward, taking a page from his sister's book, to show my agreement.) I glanced down. Sure enough, his favorite #2 pencil was lying right next to my black flats.

How the hell did he get it all the way here? He was probably just calling for attention, and as usual, he got what he wanted.

I leaned down to pick it up grudgingly (it was rather difficult since the pencil was about four inches long and my arms were kind of short) and held it up above my desk, raising an eyebrow at Luc.

Ugh, I was totally missing so much valuable class discussion notes.

(But again, luckily, my best friends were both very, very skilled at catching me up to the things I missed in class. After all, they did know that I was prone to wandering off to nowhere in particular in my mind. Plus, they were both really good at it—as in they were the sole reason I was still getting A's in class at all.)

Luc grinned and nodded, fiddling with his eraser in his other hand. "Toss it," he mouthed, holding his hand open to catch his pencil.

That was a risky suggestion since my flawed throwing abilities could land the pencil either halfway across the room or in the bush of Avery's hair (Avery, who was sitting in the row between us, had hair that looked like a mix between a bird's nest and an afro). Luc seemed to already realize this since he mouthed again, "You can do it."

I could see the wariness in his posture—for good reason. All right. I could totally do this. I steadied my arm, checked on the teacher (whose back was turned to us), and threw the pencil forward.

Well, at least it flew over Avery's head. But it hit Luc (almost point first) straight on his left eye, and he happened not to be very discreet about it.

"Shit," he hissed, holding his eye with one hand and his very stubby pencil with the other. "Goddamn—"

The teacher turned around abruptly, cutting off whoever was contributing to the discussion. "Mr. Mercier!"

I sat up, shaking my head with a little smirk, and copied the last few lines of notes I'd missed from Lila's notebook.

↔

"You just really had to cause a scene in English Lit," Olivia said to me, shaking her head as we navigated through the hallways. We were heading for third period (and after that, lunch—or freedom!), which was Psychology, with Lila in flank (even though she was going to Spanish, which was across the hallway from our classroom). "We were about to get to the good part."

"There's a good part in The Iliad?" I said flatly. "Oh right—there are none."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Well, I guess we were just going over the part of the book that isn't too bloody."

"I don't think there's any part in the book that isn't gruesome. I think you're stuck in The Odyssey." I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and rubbed my left eye since my contact was out of focus there. "I mean, the sorcery in there was just fantastic—"

"You're too fixated on Madame Bovary," Lila cut in, lifting her eyebrows at me. "As far as I can see, it's centered on a married woman's affairs with several different men, and you have been reading it with my brother for a month or so now—"

I held up a hand. "First of all, let me assure you that I haven't really been reading it. Do you think I can actually understand that stuff? Luc does all the interpretation for me. Second of all, my reading of different books has no effect on my perception of our class book, in case you're wondering." I lifted my eyebrow right back at her. "And why'd you bring up your brother?"

Olivia looked off in a random hallway. I didn't really blame her (although she was taking a ridiculously long time adjusting to the idea of me and Luc, let alone actually accept the sight of us hanging out together). So I turned my complete attention to Lila, who rolled her eyes at me. "Because he's my brother. Why are you bringing it up?"

"Because you just mentioned him out of nowhere, like, totally randomly. Usually you're very coherent—"

"Excuse me? Are you calling me delusional right now?" Lila pulled on my blouse collar so we were a little closer now. I stumbled along with her as we came closer to the hallway. Ugh, I hoped she wasn't going to drag me into a cat fight here. "Bitch, let's go. Let's fight."

"I mean, it's not like you aren't though," I muttered under my breath. Lila yanked more insistently on my blouse. It really was funny how none of the teachers really noticed this (it wasn't like they had too many students to look over in a private school, and plus, they were paid rather extravagantly).

Olivia had stepped behind the two of us at some point, and now, she yanked Olivia's hand off my blouse. "Now, children," she said slowly, staring at the two of us like we were two quibbling toddlers, "calm down. We have finals in three weeks."

"Exactly what I said!" I leapt away from the two of them like I was a unicorn, pointing accusingly at the two of them, but Lila in particular. "That's what I've been trying to tell you in class, but you keep telling me to shut up."

The bell rang, and Lila and I broke off our accusatory stares at each other. As we parted in different directions to our class rooms and Olivia and I sauntered into pysch class (a little late, granted, but we were tired juniors who had the right to be a little sluggish), I burst out into a little fit of giggles. I didn't bother to shut up when Olivia gave me a little glance.

Lila was so fun to mess around with.

↔

"So which chapter are you guys on right now?" Olivia said, a little to all of our surprise, as she bit into her bologna sandwich.

Damn, I really wanted her sandwich right now although the lunch today was pretty fantastic. But it was fun to act like I was jealous of her lunch. Olivia really liked it when people sucked up to her.

Luc took a split second to swallow his bite of salad (I swore he ate healthier food than half of the cheerleading team—but that was easy to say since the cheerleading team survived off of yogurt and energy drinks, which clearly weren't anything close to nutritional). "Uh, chapter five of part three. We've got, like, four chapters after that."

Well, really, good riddance. I was kind of surprised that I didn't get tired of it sooner than I did. After all, I had to report to my parents pretty soon to brag to them about how I managed to read an entire book in French and actually sort of understand it (Luc totally wasn't part of the equation when I was sucking up to my parents).

"Won't you miss the book?" Olivia said innocently, taking a sip from her water bottle.

I really had no idea where she was going with this. But anyway, I scoffed, taking a bite from my pasta (alfredo, to be exact). "No, because reading it is like going through four hundred pages of gibberish. In French."

"It is not gibberish," Luc said to me, his light brown eyes jokingly outraged. "It's a perfect illustration of human fickleness—"

"Humanity, I love you because you are continually committing nuisances, but more especially in your own house," I cut him off, poking him right in the middle of his chest.

Lila held her hands up. "Woah, that was a direct quote from e. e. cummings. Impressive. I didn't peg you as the nerdy type, Burke."

"She'd made adjustments to the poem," Luc said (he still had to cut into all my glory—my first ever reference to a poem in casual conversation!), eyes gleaming as he pushed my finger off of him. "You skipped several lines and—"

"Let her enjoy herself, Luc," Lila said offhandedly, stealing a cherry tomato out of his salad. Luc shot her a sharp look. "I mean, she's turning into you."

"Oh!" I gasped. "You can't be comparing me to him. That's a horrible thing."

Lila sent me a look, like she was saying I thought you wanted to be Luc all along. I bit my lip. She wasn't wrong. Maybe, for a certain period of time in the past, I wanted very badly to have Luc Mercier's life—after all, he was an academically brilliant student, a star rugby player, and someone with a social life. And maybe that certain period of time in the past wasn't too long ago.

But now, really, this was enough. I was Audrey Burke, an awkward sixteen-year-old magazine editor who may or may not have something going on with Luc Mercier.

Yeah, that was my reality.

↔

It was in the middle of fifth period (AP Government, to be exact) when my phone vibrated in my pocket. Several times. Like someone was texting me.

It certainly wasn't Lila because she was probably too wrapped up in trying to find all of her homework (her backpack was a disaster—it was a tornado alley of papers from last year and other junk, half of it from the editing process of The Aquiline). I knew she was probably infuriating some teacher in her pre-calc class right now, and I cracked a smile.

I also knew for sure that it wasn't Olivia. She had this crazy obsession with her blue highlighter, which she tried to use everywhere, and she wouldn't have time to actually put the thing down for anything other than her trusty note taking pen.

And as for Luc—I'd told him to stop annoying me during class or else I'd reject him from my lunch table (which really wasn't the end of the world for him, and plus, I didn't really know how I was going to do that if I actually wanted to carry through the threat). He valued my company. So it probably wasn't his text.

I wanted to check my phone so badly, but since both Lila and Olivia weren't in my class (I knew I should have waited to take this class next year like my best friends were doing), I couldn't afford to fall behind on notes. So I ignored my phone as it kept going off in my pocket, like it had any right to throw me off course from my extremely important academic endeavors.

But really, I was never one to stay on task and undistracted by outside influences (except when it came to exams—I'd proved on many occasions that I was able to achieve the impossible while under the strain of midterms and finals). So when the teacher wasn't looking, I sneaked my phone out of my pocket and unlocked it, praying that I'd muted it earlier.

I did.

That was fantastic.

From underneath my desk, I checked on my messages. There were only about seven or eight of them, all from my mom, for some reason. Something about working late, and Dad wouldn't be home for dinner, so I'd be on my own. How was school going?

Just dandy, I texted back, keeping a wary eye on the teacher the entire time.

Mom's response was almost instantaneous. I felt intensely jealous of her. My skills in speed texting were highly hindered when half of my phone was blocked by the desk. I've noticed that your French grades have greatly improved.

I smiled. Aw. She did notice. I wanted to tell her off for texting me while I was in school, but really, did I care? Nah. This class was as boring as hell anyway. Thanks, Mom. Le devoir, c'est de sentir ce qui est grand, de chérir ce qui est beau, et non pas d'accepter toutes les conventions de la société.

Oh, I see the Madame Bovary reference. Nice touch.

My smile grew wider, and I stuffed my phone back in my skirt pocket a little haphazardly. It really was my luck today that the teacher didn't notice anything.

Yeah, maybe I was going to miss reading Madame Bovary.

↔

Hey guys! Yeah, this is a bit of a random chapter, but it does bring up some important things that will pop up in the later chapters...

I really have no reading comprehension questions for you now since I'm tired and the opening night of my play is tomorrow (!). Expect the next chapter very early tomorrow morning, haha.

Love y'all, and thank you so much!

Anne