Checking my phone, I wondered if Daniella knew I was waiting for her and was showing up late to her locker on purpose. As if she had a feeling that the best way to annoy the hell out of Zoey Marie Summers today was not appearing in front me. The one time I actually wanted to see her. Daniella James was sent from hell to kill me.

I adjusted my posture against her locker again, going from hands into my pockets to crossing my arms, then letting my arms go and just kicking my foot against the bottom locker and pretending to look at something on my phone, but I was really just typing random numbers into my calculator. This was coming off too combative. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, I was not here to pick a fight with Daniella James today.

Walking by, Allison greeted me, "Hey, weirdo—"

She said to me, but she was the one wearing a chunky green turtleneck with puffy balls hanging off all over.

"Hey, good timing," I told her, "I need you."

She closed her eyes as if bearing the punch of my words. She smiled. "Oh, tell me you need me one more time."

"Don't ask for too much."

"Listen, all I need is your judging power, alright?"

She considered me up and down with a small pout on her lips. I straightened my posture, but she still didn't appear impressed. "Less fun than I wanted, but I guess it still has potential. What can I do for you Zoey?"

Sometimes I was pretty sure Allison was messing with me. Or maybe she was a little too much like Jess, too extravagant to the point I wasn't sure if she was being grand for fun or if it was an act. It made me feel like I didn't know the real person underneath. Then, I saw too much of myself and I couldn't stare directly at her anymore. Maybe Allison was meant to kill me.

"What are you doing?" Daniella asked.

Lights flickered.

The sound of off-key piano keys smashing boomed across the hall.

, I jumped to attention. Unable to filter myself or hold back, I raised my voice. "Where have you been?"

Showing her the clock on my phone, I told her like she couldn't read it, "It's almost time for the first bell! Are you trying to be late?"

Daniella opened her mouth and her brow narrowed; a look of genuine confusion plastered on her face. She didn't know what to say. Today, Daniella wore a black pair of overalls over a black turtleneck, and a gray utility jacket. Her hair was crumbled up into a messy bun. The lip gloss was new. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe I just didn't look at her face this much. She had a mark on the bottom of her jaw. Was it a birth mark? A mole? I wasn't sure what they were called, but I was staring at it now.

"Were you not properly caffeinated this morning?" Daniella asked me. . "Why are you already trying to bite my head off already? Did you have a dream I spited you? If that's the case, don't act like my girlfriend and get your panties in a twist over nothing."

"You—I—" I stammered with a shameful blush, knowing she was right, and it went against my constitution to admit that. So, I started over with a sigh and . "Listen, I need you to know I didn't change your tire just so I could win this bet, okay?"

In Daniella's eyes, it was just us. The school wasn't happening around us. Allison was a ghost standing in the corner of her vision. Her form softened, suddenly the only thing I saw in those dark brown eyes was me. She had this sort of half smile that made me want to smash my head through the cement school walls. She was studying me and I wanted to be a little kid that threw her covers over her head so the monster in my closet couldn't get me. Fear trickled down my body like speckles of ice water.

This was going to be bad. So bad. She had something good to say, something good enough to break me down and I wasn't prepared this morning. I hadn't rehearsed this conversation enough. I didn't know she was gonna smile like that. Didn't know she would react without barbed wire in her words.

Tilting her head, Daniella's face softened more. Daniella James was a girl made with belladonna, little dark flowers blooming between her bones. A flower alive within my looming death. She spoke without malice to her voice and suddenly I knew the voice inside that sweet little first letter. This was the girl with her heart on the page.

"Summers," she called me, and goosebumps trickled down my arms and legs. "Do me a favor and get a rabies shot." And she laughed because it was a joke and the side of my lips twisted, so I turned away before she could catch it. "Just calm down. I genuinely told Allison to give you the win because I know you sincerely went out there to change my tire.

She turned her attention to Allison with a sigh. "Madam judge it seems your ruling is unnecessary."

"That's fine." Allison shrugged and tossed her hair back. "I just like being included."

"But—" I spoke up.

Daniella dropped her arms in surrender, talking over me before I spoke out of my ass again. She said, "Summers, if you had gone there with bad intentions to win our little bet, you would have come to my car with a fake smile and fake concern. But no. You came as Zoey Summers. Cursing me, calling me a liar, and being an absolute nightmare."

"Why do you have to say it like that?" I asked. Maybe only to me, but it sounded like a compliment but the words were only insulting. She was making less sense by the second.

Daniella was loving it. Again, Daniella was about as swayed as a toddler that just saw their favorite candy on the grocery store shelf, but I was the one who wanted to throw a tantrum. She added, crossing her arms in the most pompous way possible. "But I guess you don't really fake it around me." Daniella laughed once again, and my innate fear told me to dodge out of the way. I debated crawling onto the floor to check the temperature of the earth. Surely, Hell had frozen over. "I don't know whether to be insulted or feel special. I'm gonna go with insulted. Stay consistent."

"I just... it feels like a gimme," I admitted. "I don't really... I don't like it when things are too easy. I like the challenge."

Averting her eyes, color flooded Daniella's cheeks and she took a deep breath. Rolling her eyes, she finally conceded. I could see an idea flicker through her mind as soon as it hit. It was like a spark before a wildfire. She said, "I bet I can finish my half of the challenge before the end of first period. Then, you can take your win guilt free."

I checked the clock on my phone and my brow scrunched. This was probably just her trying to intimidate me, tricking me into thinking she really could and then back down. Daniella James more than likely wanted me to simply stop bothering her... but my curiosity was an itch that demanded to be scratched (which was hard enough to accomplish as a nail biter).

"Fine, but just so you know I already told Penelope that I'd help her pass out tickets." My brow hiked up my forehead as if to say I got her right where I wanted her.

"That's fine," she said about as unbothered as a housecat lounging in a sunray. "Make sure you pick up my ticket and come bring it to me."

I grimaced. "How did this become me following your orders?"

She rolled her eyes, sweeping past me to open her locker, and I had to take a full step back. I'd always imagined she smelled like swamp water and misery. Couldn't be more wrong. She was all lavender and what I imagined the color pink smelled like. "Summers, I'm beginning to wonder how your brain manages to over think so much and not make the sound of a dying computer before it overheats—" she eyed me "—and explodes."

"Well," I huffed, my feathers ruffled. "I'd appreciate you not thinking about me at all."

"Okay, Summers." She laughed again in the Daniella James kind of laughing way. A little amused puff of air out of her nose and her shoulders would jut forward. Only half her lips pinched into a smile.

I took another step back. "And your time is already half up, so maybe you should worry about that."

"Okay, Summers."

Another step back and I accidentally backed into someone's shoulder. This random girl jumped and her face was so pink, but I snapped my head back at Daniella, raising my voice to make sure my words reached. "And stop saying my name so much."

"Okay?" She again. She had to stop laughing at me when I wasn't trying to be funny.

"Just leave me alone!"

"You're the one talking to me!"

I opened my mouth to snap at her, but I couldn't think of anything, so I just rushed to the journalism classroom to find Penelope and the others separating the reserved tickets alphabetically and by first period classes. Master of braids, Penelope's brown hair sat like a crown on her head. Paired with her chunky granny patterned sweater and frilly dress, she might as well have walked out of a fairy cottage.

Glancing up, Penelope pushed up her glasses with a smile nonjudging smile that Daniella James would know nothing about. "Hey, Zoey!"

"Hey," I said and dropped my stuff by the door. "What's up?"

"Just organizing. Thanks again for helping us out."

"I got you." I grinned, feeling my energy come back. This felt right. This was the way I wanted people to look at me. I'm in my element now.

"Um..." Penelope took a deep breath and reached for one of the tickets. "I found yours." She handed it to me, a little red stub with the name of the event: LADIES' CHOICE. While I was admiring it, Penelope asked, "Did you reserve another ticket? Um, whoever you're talking to."

"That's still a little up in the air," I said, glancing across the table for Daniella's name and her class.

"Really? I haven't figured out a date either."

That gave me pause. I glanced at Penelope before begging my search again. "I'm surprised too. I'm sure whoever you ask will definitely say yes."

"You really think so?"

"For sure- Oh! Hey, do you mind if I do these classrooms?" I asked and the bell rang, forcing both our heads up. I'm already grabbing the pile with Daniella's name.

"Uh, sure."

"Thanks," I said and rushed out of the room. My heart was fluttering, desperate to know what Daniella had planned or if Daniella was going to have to grovel and admit she couldn't do it.

Knocking on Mrs. Murphy's door, I slipped inside, and her brows raised. "Oh, hi Zoey—" A few girls from soccer started hooting and hollering my name, which sparked a bigger roar from everyone else. Daniella shook her head and rolled her eyes. I bowed for my people and Mrs. Murphy sighed. "Settle down. Settle down. Zoey, what can I do for you?"

My eyes immediately pinned Daniella in the middle of the classroom, sitting right next to Mona, who waved when she saw me. Daniella wore the biggest, most smug face I had ever seen. I could envision her black tail whipping back and forth like a cat that caught its prey. The back of my neck already felt hot. I'd only realized I had been staring at her when Daniella winked.

I snapped my attention at the teacher and explained, "I just have some dance tickets to hand out."

"Okay, make it quick," Mrs. Murphy said and motioned me into the room. "Everyone else, take out the worksheet from yesterday. We're going to finish watching The Inner Life of the Cell, then discuss our answers. We only have twenty minutes left..."

Like that, the lights dimmed and a documentary started to play. God himself, Morgan Freeman spoke to the class and I appreciated some of the attention being lifted from my shoulders. Alphabetically, I gave out ticket after ticket, totally on high alert. Every millisecond, I prepared myself for Daniella to reach out, to call my name, or reveal her big favor. It didn't come. Not when I handed Mona Fabray her ticket or even when Daniella got hers.

"If you got a ticket," I announced, returning to the front, "and I didn't give you one, please go to the front office after school and Penelope will sort it out there."

A murmur of recognition echoed back to me. One step towards the exit and a chair squeaked against the linoleum. Turning around, I watched Mona touch my arm. She leaned in close and whispered, "Hey, I just wanted you to know Daniella already told me your plans for our date."

I blinked. "What?"

"I know! I know! She thought I already knew."

"Did she?" I glanced over Mona's lavender head at Daniella too busy jotting down answers to watch us.

"You didn't have to go out of your way to find a showing of Casablanca. I would've been happy just going to see any movie."

"Well, you know me. I'm a little extra."

"Mona," Mrs. Murphy called her out and motioned her back to her desk. "Sit back done."

"I will." Mona nodded. She did give me one last look, touching my arm. "We'll talk later."

"Yeah. Of course..." I said with a smile, but the moment her back was turned, I shot Daniella an eyeful of daggers. Raising my hands, I wanted to know what the heck was going on. Daniella smiled with her cheeks full of dimples like she was eating her full of all of this, but she rolled her eyes and lifted her phone, waving it, and then, pointed at Mona.

Was she asking for my number?

Was I willing to give my mortal enemy my phone number? Something she could just have and sign me up for a thousand spam text messages and scams? Then, an even worse situation landed at the pit of my stomach like a trillion-pound dumbbell. If we were going to text each other, would she be able to detect the way I write? Could she hear my voice against the page...? But that was only if she wrote me back.

And there was no way Daniella James was going to reply to my letter. 

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hello! If you're reading this later in time, I actually forgot to upload this chapter, which is a shame because I LOVE this chapter and I think it's really important. I've been a mess overall writing this book. I'm planning a big rewrite/edit before I continue, so stay tuned!

But questions first! How do you think Zoey and Daniella's relationship is evolving? Who do you think is weirder: Zoey, Allison, or Daniella? And what movies have you watch in Science class? Lol. 

Also! If you missed it, I started a NEW BOOK called "Frog Kisser"! It's my first New Adult book. It's a magical romcom that's Scott Pilgrim meets Practical Magic. Read now