♡ Jessica Woods ♡

The first period bell rang but still neither Jace nor principal has arrived.

"Jessie. Look there." Louise hissed, staring down at the hallway window. I moved closer to the window and looked down what it was.

Natasha was splashing water on Samuel's face using her water bottle and he shook his hair like a puppy before chasing Natasha. Before she could run away from him he gripped her small waist and pulled her back to his chest harshly and they both spun around, laughing loudly and he lifted her up a little which made her squeal.

It was happening in the locker room where no one was around except them and they were having fun there without going to their classes and I didn't think anyone would complain about this if they witnessed what I was seeing right now. I pulled the curtain little and turned away from the window.

"Cute."

"Crap."

Louise and I muttered at the same time and we both looked at each other which made her giggle. I wished I could be like Louise.

No crush. No love. No worries.

I understood that my ignorance didn't affect him and he needed only the ignorance from me.

"Guys! Attention!" I heard Jace's voice and I noticed he was waiting impatiently to get our attention, standing between Oliver and a brunette girl.

Now he was in his white sleeved shirt with a blue tie and a pair of blue trousers. His wet hair was unbrushed and he was chewing something on his mouth which I assumed as a bubble gum.

Bubble gum? It's against the rules.

"That gum is so lucky." Louise whispered, drooling over him and I shook my head in disbelief at her.

"What? Even you checked him out too." she shrugged and before I could reply, Jace cleared his throat.

"Uh, I apologize for the delay. I actually met the principal now and he said he couldn't be able to come as he was in a meeting with the students development society. Hey! you." he snapped his fingers at Louise who was standing beside me. "Come to earth."

Everyone turned towards her and she blinked and ducked her head down when some girls started to giggle. I groaned mentally and squeezed the back of Louise's palm before shooting daggers at him.

He doesn't have any rights to insult my bestfriend.

"..today y'all will be having a rehearsal for the upcoming prefects investiture so come to the auditorium now without wasting any time-"

"What about our studies?" a dark curly haired boy asked, interrupting his speech.

"Don't worry about that. I got the permission from the Principal to skip the first three periods only for today." Jace assured and the boy nodded.

"And we will be having some more afterschool classes hereafter as we don't have much time and the teacher in charge of the Prefects board will be handing over the oath to y'all." he told and everyone nodded.

"So, any questions?" he asked, glancing all of us.

Ask Jessie. This is the correct time.

No Jessie. Please don't. You would be embarrassed.

Arguing with my mind, I raised my hand slowly which got Jace's attention.

"Yeah?" he asked, glaring at me and everyone turned their gazes towards me and I moisturised my lips with the tip of my tongue before speaking.

"Can we break the rules if we become prefects?" I questioned innocently.

"What? No." he scoffed. "Don't you think it's a silly question?"

"So you can't break the rule too right?" I asked cautiously and everyone gave me some weird looks.

"Yes." he said through his clenched teeth. "Either you or I can't break the rules."

"So throw the gum away from your mouth." I ordered, crossing my arms over my chest and I heard soft gasps around me and everyone looked at Jace and me, back and forth in surprise.

He sticked his tongue out and we all could see the tiny piece of white coloured gum and he rolled his tongue in and started to chew it again.

How dare he?

"It's marshmallow." he told calmly.

Marshmallow?

"Huh?"

"You don't know marshmallow?" he scoffed. "The sweet thing which is very soft and which is not against to our school rules." he emphasized the last sentence, tilting his head slightly.

Everyone started to laugh and my cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

"Well well, hurry up guys. She already wasted our five minutes." he gestured towards the auditorium's direction and everyone walked past me, giggling and my face turned even more red and my eyes caught the self-satisfied smirk playing across Jace's lips as he mouthed at me, before leaving. "Get a egg on your face."

Oh gosh! He ain't wrong.
-----

For the twentieth time, Jace Parker reread the vote of thanks standing on the stage and even Louise started to yawn, leaning back on her seat. But much to my surprise I actually found neither bore nor sleepy by listening to his speech.

Actually his accent was very strong and his voice was as silk as velvet and that made me forget the embarrassed moment I had a few hours ago.

I didn't know whether it was hallucination or I was the only one who was listening to his speech but most of the time his eyes locked with mine.

When Jace finally finished it, we all clapped our hands and he gave us a small smile, waving his hand at us to stop.

The official prefects started to do their allocated works and the choristers were practising their choirs in the back of the stage and we, the newly appointed prefects, sucking with the oath which has given for us to memorize before tomorrow.

I folded the oath sheet and let my mind wander a little about Samuel thoughts.

He wasn't a prefect and that really made me sad. The prefectship would be no fun. At all.

Our school had four houses and they would select seven students per houses and twenty eight in total excluding the officials and head prefect.

Louise and I were the same house which was purple colour and Jace and Samuel were the same house which was red colour.

Friendship goals.

Jace was talking with Leah who was Natasha's girl bestie and she was far better than Natasha for Jace. Leah and Jace would be cute couple.

Later, Jace assigned some duties for the newly appointed prefects which we should do on the prefects investiture ceremony.

Everyone got to make themselves busy on that day except me, a dark-skin tone girl and a nerd one who reminded me of Ryan whenever I see him.

Jace glanced at me and I looked at him in hope but he quickly turned away and left the auditorium to meet the principal.

"Jessie.. Shall I?" Louise gestured towards the stage hesitantly where she was assigned and I shrugged.

I sighed after she left as I really felt bad for somewhat which I didn't know the correct reason exactly.

Maybe I was sad because he was planning to take revenge on me.

I guess, I shouldn't have stood against him. I did a big mistake. I should apologize to him.

Or.. I was sad beacuse everyone was considering me as a trash and useless. Couldn't I be able to adjust the stage stand as my duty atleast?

I leaned back on my seat and read the words of oath again and again while most of the students were doing some works to leave a good impression of them to Jace.
-----

When the lunch break's bell rang, I grabbed my English textbooks and descended the downstairs, making my way to the canteen.

I saw Jace and Samuel talking something, closing the library door behind them and I smiled when Samuel rubbed his jaw while listening to Jace. It was my favourite body language of him.

Yes! This is the correct time to apologize to Jace.

"Your girl is a prefect too." I heard Jace say and I stopped in my tracks and hid behind the locker, eavesdropping on their conversation.

His girl? Samuel's girl?

"She's not my girl, dude. Stop saying that." Samuel ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "She's a pain in my ass."

Jace chuckled and patted Samuel's shoulder. "She seemed to be less trouble though."

"You don't know her." Samuel told.

"Neither do you."

Samuel rolled his eyes. "I'm completely sure that she's an annoying brat."

Realization dawned on me when I heard the last sentence. An annoying brat.

"And a bossy too." Jace added and Samuel teased him.

"I feel pity for you, man."

Yeah. For the whole time, they both were talking about me and I guess, Jace might be told about our incident that happened in the morning, to Samuel.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of her." Jace informed and Samuel nodded.

"Just be careful with her. She'll ruin your reputation as she did to me." Samuel warned and Jace swung his arm around Sam's shoulder.

"It's impossible, because I'm the one who's planning to ruin her reputation. Sounds.." Jace trailed off, raising his eyebrow.

"Avenging." Samuel beamed. "For me, huh?"

"Kinda. But I hate her too." Jace admitted and I didn't know I was crying until I tasted the salty flavour in my lips.

The flood of adrenaline rush hit my body when they started to move towards my direction and I dropped my books on the floor and the loud thud echoed the hallway which made them to look at me in surprise.

"Woah, this clumsy must be eavesdropping our convo." Samuel mumbled, loud enough for me to hear and turned his gaze away from me.

But Jace was looking at me in widen eyes and his lips were parted slightly. I averted my gaze and bent down and grabbed the books from the floor and about to leave but stopped in my tracks and turned around to see them standing there like statues. Especially Jace.

I set my gaze on Jace and spoke shakily. "I c-came to apologize for what I did in the morning.." my lips quivered and his eyes softened a bit. "..but now I think, there's no point in that."

With that I darted off, pretending not to hear the curse Jace muttered underneath his breath.
----

"What are you thinking?" Louise asked, sipping her coffee but I couldn't be able to reply as I was too busy in my own thoughts.

I never thought Jace would talk like this behind my back and try to ruin my reputation.

Jace and Ryan were the only persons I assumed that they have good hearts but I guess, I was wrong as always.

"Jessie. Are you crying?" Louise exclaimed, pulling her chair closer to me and I sniffled, staring at my cheese burger which was giving me a pity look.

"Jessie. Answer me. What happened?" Louise asked continuously, squeezing my arm and I exhaled.

"Louise. I'm not in the mood-"

"Hey." we heard Jace's voice behind me and my body stiffened.

He sat across us and I didn't take my gaze away from my cheese burger.

Why was he even here?

"Hi.." Louise drawled.

"Uh, well, I.." Jace cleared his throat and I looked up at him slowly to lock my eyes with him. "I'm really.." he trailed off, gulping audibly as my eyes were challenging him to continue.

"You really.." Louise urged him and he averted his gaze away from me and turned to Louise.

"I'm really.. um, happy to tell that our prefect board has organized an apologize club." he sneaked a glance at me and I kept a blank expression on my face.

"Apologize club?" Louise furrowed her eye brows at him and he nodded at her and stared at me again.

Was he trying to apologize to me? In an indirect way? Seriously? Such a coward.

"Uh yeah. Because I should apologize for the earlier thing." he scratched the back of his neck. "But.. don't you think eavesdropping is not a good thing?" he raised his eye brow at me and before I could reply, Louise interrupted.

"I'm sorry for interrupting you Jace but I don't understand what you are talking about." Louise admitted and Jace looked at me and when he realized I wasn't going to explain anything, he sighed and turned his gaze to Louise.

"Well.." he began. "We are really organizing an apologize club.."

I'm done with his corwadice attitude.

He paused when I stood up and I glanced down at Louise who was looking back at me in confusion. "Lou. I've got some work to do." with that I turned around to leave.

"You can't go away like this when I'm speaking." Jace announced and I turned back and slammed my hand on the table and Louise jumped in surprise while Jace was giving me an unamused look, laying his intertwined hands on the table.

"If you don't have the courage to speak to me directly, then I don't have the ears to listen to your stupid stuff." I said calmly, shooting daggers at him and he clenched his jaw and before he could argue, I marched towards the exit, leaving my cheese burger and Louise alone with him.

The hallway seemed to be less crowded than usual and that made me so easy to walk away.

"Hey!" I heard Jace calling out but I didn't stop walking. Suddenly I felt the footsteps behind me getting closer and before I could blink, he gripped my wrist and spun me around and my chest collided with his well toned abs.

I looked up at him and his eyes searched something on my face and my heart beat rapidly by his close proximity. I cleared my throat awkwardly and he stepped back, letting my hand go.

"Here." he handed me my Geography book. "You dropped it on the floor." he informed and I nodded, taking it back hesitantly. Then I turned around to leave but he stopped me again.

"Wait. Just let me speak." he almost pleaded.

He's behaving like we didn't have any heated conversation a few seconds ago.

I nodded, staring at his white sneakers and he cleared his throat.

"Look, I apologize for the earlier thing. I didn't mean it okay?" he told and I scoffed.

"You didn't mean it? You egoistic ass." I stepped forward to poke my finger at his chest but he stepped back.

"Mind your language." his intimidating voice warned me and I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

"How could you not mean it when you say as strong as you said before?" I asked, tilting my head.

"We were just kidding." he explained, rubbing his temples.

"Kidding? Ruining my reputation is just kidding?" I knot my eyebrows together and he opened his mouth but closed it as if he couldn't give me a proper reply to my question.

"I seriously don't know why you're hating me this much. We actually don't have any grudge or anything except the morning thing and if you have any problem with my prefectship, I'll resign it." I said honestly and he shook his head.

"No, no, no. Don't do that." Jace protested. "I'm sorry okay? Sam always makes fun of you and we go along with him just to make him happy and I didn't know you were eavesdropping our conversation."

"I couldn't just go away when I heard my name in some strangers' conversation." I defended myself.

"I'm not stranger." he muttered and I looked up at him. "Uh, I mean.. I'm your head prefect. Right?"

"Yeah. But still we barely know each other." I admitted, hugging my book to my chest.

"So what? We could get to know each other after this prefectship." he suggested and I snorted.

"So you could ruin my reputation, yeah?"

"Damn Jessica." he spat, clenching his fist as he was going to punch me. But I couldn't help, my cheeks blushed as I smiled widely.

"What?" he grunted, furrowing his eyebrows in irritation.

"Y-You never called me by my name. I thought you don't know my name." I almost whispered, grinning at his sneakers.

"Neither do you." he told and I glanced up at him. "You always call me boy or else you'd never call me anything." he frowned but his eyes were smiling at me back.

I recalled every moment I spoke with him and realized that I never used to call him by his name. Gosh, he noticed it.

"Is it obvious?" I asked and he nodded.

"Sort of. But I don't know your name until you applied for the prefectship." he told honestly and I nodded slowly and we didn't speak anything for a good ten seconds.

"I'm sorry." I broke the silence and he looked down at me.

"For.."

"For ordering you around." I whispered.

"That's okay. But I hate people who misjudge me and dominate me, so don't do that again." he adviced and I nodded.

"Look Jessica." I never knew that my name could pronounce in a sexy way until he said it. "I swear, I didn't mean anything when we were talking about you and no offence but Sam really doesn't like you." he confessed and I bit my inner cheek.

"And I don't have anything against you and I don't want my prefect board to lose a good leader." he explained and my heart did a quick flip. "So it would make things sense if we forget the past and move on?"

"What do you mean by the past?"

"The terrible moments we had for the past couple of years. I mean, you and me." he cringed a bit and I held back the smile that was fighting to show up on my face.

He remembered everything.

"Okay."

"And.. I promise that I would never do anything that makes you cry." his voice turned to soft and I could see the honesty behind his blue piercing eyes.

"I don't trust you until you pinky promise me." I pouted playfully, waving my little finger in the air and he tried his best not to smile.

he nodded, stepping forward until his tall frame towering over me. He slowly entwined his pinky finger with mine and announced.

"Pinky promise."

Oh my Gosh! Could anyone believe that Jace Parker, the head prefect of the school, made a pinky promise with me.

He pulled his finger away after that and tucked his hands in his pant pockets.

"But don't think I'll be lenient to you hereafter because that's not fair right?" he asked.

"I understand." I nodded in agreement.

"See ya." he said, turning around and walking away.

"See you." I smiled a little at his backside and mumbled the last word to myself. "soon."

Hey Lovely Readers!

A bit long chapter. Hope you enjoyed it.

What's your opinion? Do you ship her with Sam or Jace?

Vote and Comment.