29 Days before Valentine’s Day

        “Sofia! Over here!” I called, she waved and made her way over across the classroom.

        “Hey, Avery,” she paused and played with her fingers. “So...” she began, I instantly didn’t like where this was headed. “I... I can’t be your partner for the art project. I’m transferring next week.” She said as quickly as she could.

        My jaw dropped to the floor. “B-but...who am I going to work with?” I guess, I could work on the project alone...That's not that bad, right?

        “Avery,” Mrs. Holmes interrupted and Sofia quickly made her exit. “I know that Ms. Spence is transferring, what a pity." She glanced at Sofia, but didn't seem all that bothered to know that she was leaving. “But, it seems that someone was absent last lesson and therefore wasn’t assigned a partner. You’ll be working with them.”

Ugh. Just when I thought I could do things my way.

        “And who would I be working with?” I asked, trying to disguise the annoyance in my voice.

        “You’ll be working with Mr. Meyer.”

        “Dylan? Oh hell n-” I started to argue but she held up her hand.

        “No buts, excuses, no anything. You’ll be working together and that is that.” With that being said, she spun on her heels and walked away only to stop mid-stride. “And Avery?”

        I turned, “Yes?”

        “I expect good results.” Mrs. Holmes smiled evilly, as if she knew how annoyed I was.

Great. I had a perfectly good partner but she’s transferring. And now I’m stuck with Dylan. Mr. “I’m so hot that I can get away with anything” douchebag.

Kill me.

***

As expected, he was late to class. Half way through the lesson, he walked in, looking as arrogant as ever with his perfect looking hair and bright blue eyes. I couldn’t help but scoff. He probably spent more time fixing his hair and looking in the mirror than I did.

        “Avery!” He sat down next to me and leaned back on his chair.

        I rolled my eyes and kept my head down. "Dylan." I made kt clear that I didn't want him anywhere near me. Hell, I didn't even want him breathing the same air.

        “So, since we’re working together. What do you want me to do?” I could practically hear the grin on his face. His over cheerfulness annoyed me.

        My jaw clenched. “Nothing. You don’t have to do anything. I’ll do the work and put both our names on it.” I answered coldly.

I didn’t want him to ruin this for me. I may hate the theme but I’m not failing this class.

I don't want to fail. I'm not going to fail. I repeated in my head like a mantra, desperately trying to keep restrain my rage and annoyance.

        A split second later, his arm was around my shoulders and I stiffened. “Are you sure? Because we are partners.” Dylan whispered in my hair.

        “I’m sure,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now, get off me.” I pulled my sleeve over my hand and slowly took his arm off me, careful to not make any contact with him.

Who knows what kinds of diseases he could infect me with?

        “Alright then.” Dylan leaned back on his chair again and crossed his arms under his head.

I rolled my eyes and continued working on my mind map. I had a few design ideas with our project. I was concentrating so  much that I didn’t even notice Mrs. Holmes march towards our table and hover above me.

        “Ms. Green,” She said warningly. My eyes shot up to look at her.

        I pulled an innocent face. “Yeah?”

        “I hope you realise that this is not a project to do on your own. That’s why you were put into pairs.” She gestured towards Dylan who had his eyes closed, completely oblivious.

        “Bu-” My eyebrows furrowed as I began to protest.

        “As I said before, no buts. I want equal amounts of effort,” She glared at Dylan whose eyes snapped open, and he immediately sat up properly. “From both of you.” She spat.

She didn’t give me time to argue. Within seconds, she was already on the other side of the room.

Equal amounts of effort. Yeah, right. As if, Dylan is going to do anything.

I explained my ideas to Dylan, earning a few nods. At least he was making an effort on pretending he knows what I’m talking about. We could feel out teacher’s watchful eyes on us, constantly checking if we were working together.

        The bell rang and saved us from her death glares. “Remember, that in order to pass this project, you must both do work!” Mrs. Holmes shouted over the sound of chattering, she glanced at me and Dylan. “Be prepared to work together outside of school.”

        Now that was enough to stop us all in out tracks. The whole class looked at our teacher in disbelief, she only smiled.  “You heard me. No arguments.”

Then groans and whining erupted as eyes rolled. I glanced at Dylan who smirked at me. I wanted to hit my head against the wall. Emma must’ve guessed what I was thinking and laughed at me.

***

        I slammed my locker shut. “I swear, that woman hates me.” I complained and started walking towards the cafeteria.

        “You’re amazing at art. She can’t possibly hate you. I mean, you could easily be her best student.” Emma assured.

        My hands clenched into fists, “Ugh. But Dylan? Come on. That’s unfair.” I whined, throwing my hands up.

        Emma shrugged, “Maybe, she’s trying to test you. She might want you be a good influence on him or something.”

        I scoffed. “Yeah right. You could surround that boy with the best students in the world and it still wouldn’t help.” I answered sarcastically.

        She shook her head, her hair moving in gentle waves. “Well, it’s not like he’s an awful artist. He’s just lazy.”

        “But he’s not lazy enough to flirt with every girl that has a pulse.” I joked.

We sat down on our usual table and I ate my cheese fries. Emma was blubbering about how working with Aaron was actually “fun” because he was “funny”.

        I swalled a french fry. “Emma, aren’t you worried about working on this project outside of school?” I asked.

        She arched her brows and thought about it. “I don’t think so?”

        “You sound unsure. It’s just that, you never know. They could try to rape us.” I dropped my jaw and made a scared face mockingly.

Emma threw a cheese fry at me and I glared daggers at her. We will not accidentally start another food fight. Yeah, you heard right. Accidentally.As in it was an accident. Emma threw a fry at me a while ago after I made fun of her for crushing on Aaron so I threw one back. The next thing we know, the entire cafeteria was in the middle of a food fight.

        “Rape you?” Dylan sat down opposite me, threw his head back and guffawed.

        I groaned. “What are you doing here?” I asked bitterly.

Seconds later, his friend Aaron was sitting with us, too. Although, he didn’t receive any objections from Emma. The two quickly engaged in conversation.

        “Spending time with my partner." Dylan ge me a duh look. "So how are you doing, partner?” He purposedly exaggerated the word 'partner' to antagonize me.

        I sighed, “I’m fine. But I’ll be even better if you left.” I spat out.

        “Now, now. I’m only trying to be nice. I just thought it would be a good idea to get to know each other since we’re going to have to spend a lot of time together.” He nodded, smirking.

God, how I wanted to slap that smirk away.

My head fell into my hands.

Somebody please help me, I silently pleaded.

I was forced to talk to Dylan for the entire lunch period because he wouldn’t go away, and Emma kept kicking me under the table telling me to be “civil”.

In the end, it was like playing twenty-one questions except I got asked about a billion.

        “What’s your favourite colour?” Dylan asked, shoving a handful of fries in his mouth. Ew.

        “Blue.” I replied.

        “Me too!” he chirped. “What’s your favourite animal?” He cocked his head to the side and wiggled his eyebrows.

Ugh. Somebody please help me.

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{Unedited}

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Does Dylan remind you of any annoying boys you might know? I'm almost certain that he does because there's always that one annoying kid in class.