"Par! Par! Par!" I look up and see Katie running towards me. "Katie. What's up?" I ask while putting my pen down. She is panting a little so I let her cool down first before asking the question again.

She stands up straight and puts one of her hands on her hips. "Have you done your Science homework?"

I give her an are-you-kidding-me look. "Do I look like a person who has done their homework?" I ask while pointing to may own face. She takes a second to look at my face before nodding. "Sort of, I guess."

I tsk. "No, I have not." I utter as Zach appears in the corner of my eye. "And I think you should go now." She arches one of her eyebrows, trying to ask why. "The person you hate is coming this way." She takes a few seconds to process what I just said before giving me a small nod and walks away.

Zach drops his bag beside me. "Why was that skank here?" He asks while showing a grimace face. "Hey, whoa, take it easy now. No calling her names. She just asked me about homework. Take a chill pill and calm down." I clarify.

It's hard being friends with people who hate each other. You have to be the middle one who always needs to think before speaking about the other person. If you say something wrong, you're dead.

"Sorry. She just gets on my nerves sometimes." I mentally roll my eyes and continue to sketch. Sometimes? More like every time.

Just like me, Zach has the same interest as me -which is kind of a shocker - and that is drawing. I can sense him staring at my hand as I continue to sketch random pair of eyes. "That looks cool." He beams. I fake gasp. "Zach Johnson saying Paradice Newman's art is cool? Wow, this shit only comes once in a lifetime!" I state while making hand gestures and faces at him. He rolls his eyes. "I swear you are the weirdest kid I know, Par." He says and ruffle my hair. I swat his hand away. "I know."

"Paradice." Someone whispers behind me. I wear my glasses and turn to see Cara waving at me. I did a head gesture, trying to say 'what?'. "Can I see your Geography book?" She asks politely.

Trust me, don't be fooled by her politeness, cuteness and all things Cara because I swear sometimes she's cool but most of the time, she just makes you want to jump off a cliff and into a field full of insecureness and self-consciousness.

"Why?" I ask while taking my bag from the floor so I can search for it. The perfect student wants my book, how unusual. "We needed to do pages 30 until 35 so I wanted to check my answers."

Immediately, I stop searching and turn to face her again.

"We had homework on Geo?!" I exclaim and frantically search my book in the bag so I can do it as fast as I can. After the next 2 periods is Geography and dammit, if Miss Francesca knows that I didn't do my homework, might as well just fuck myself.

I take out my book and lay it on my desk, forgetting about my art. Why didn't you say that earlier, you two-faced bitch? I mentally curse Cara. "Never mind then." I hear her mutter under her breath.

"Dun dun dun dun." Zach sings after he looks at the empty pages in my book. "Stop it." I grit between my teeth as I take out my textbook and search for the answers.

All of a sudden, I stop and turn to Zach. He raises an eyebrow at my sudden moves. "What?" He questions. "Can I borrow your Geo book?" I plead, feeling my laziness coming out. He shrugs and takes out his book. "But I'm not sure if the answers are corre-" I cut him off by snatching the book out of his hands. "Thanks." I say and copy the answers as fast as lightning.

I see someone standing in front of me but I didn't care. I didn't stop writing but it's kinda hard to concentrate as Tucker keeps calling my name in front of me.

"Par." Ignore.

"Par." Just keep writing.

"Paradice!" He yells and I just had enough of it.

"WHAT?!" I shout. I didn't mean it, he is just being so annoying. This better be important. "Remember what Miss Francesca always tells us?" He questions and I arch an eyebrow. "Erm, shut up?" I guess, wondering why is he asking me this at a time of crisis.

He slaps his own forehead. "Look at your book." He orders. I give him a look and did what I was told. "I see words full of shit. Happy?" I state while rolling my eyes. Then, he points at my pen. "Now look at your pen." He says. I shake my head and look at it.

After a few seconds of staring at it, I gasp.

"Fucking hell!" I yell as I throw my trusty black pen into my pencil case and take out a blue pen.

"Shit, thanks Tucker. If Miss F sees this, I'm f-ing dead." I thank him and cross out all the black ink that filled my workbook before.

Quick fact: our Geography teacher apparently hates black. That's why she wants to write with blue pen instead of black. But it's really hard to remember that as I always use black.

"Good morning everyone." Alyssa chirps and plops down onto her seat.

How is she so cheery on a Monday morning? Plus, if it's a good morning, I'd still be laying on my damn bed.

"Morning, Al." Tucker says to her while pretending to tip his hat. She giggles. "Tucker." She curtsies. I laugh at the cute sight. Alyssa has only been here for a month yet we all act like we've known each other for a lifetime.

"Shit, is that Geography?" She asks and eyes my book. "Because I did not know we had that homework."

Well, here we go again.

~~~

I couldn't help but notice how down Austin has been as we wait for the driver.

"Hey what's wrong?" Henry asks as he stands in front of him. He looks at him with dull eyes. "It's Miss Cox. She's making the whole class write her 20 essays just because Kevin didn't do his homework." He explains.

Everyone has that one teacher that they hate so much, they just want to tie them up and throw them into the bottom of the Mariana Trench and hope that piranhas will eat them on the way down.

In this case , it's Miss Cox; the English teacher and also my gym class teacher.

"Well that's stupid. She shouldn't punish the whole class by writing essays just because someone didn't do their work. She should punish the person and not the whole class." Austin nods in agreement.

He then turns to look at me. Those eyes were always filled with excitement and happiness, especially when he's playing badminton but now there's nothing inside.

I frown at the sad sight. "Don't think too much. Maybe she'll forget or something. Miss Cox is like that. She loves to make people write essays even though she doesn't want to mark them." I try to cheer him up but he only sighs.

God, I feel so disappointed at Miss Cox. She can make other people suffer except for Mr. Nike.

"Miss Cox is a bitch." I mutter to myself.

Then, surprisingly, I hear his amazing laugh. "Yes she is." Without looking at him, I smile to myself, proud that I made him laugh even though it's not intentionally.

"Hey, where's Cara?" He asks. I'm guessing that he's asking about the Cara which is our van-mate. "She decided to stay back to practise her swimming." I state as we both walked into the van without waiting for anyone else. He just gives me a nod and I could sense that his mood has changed back to sad.

I sigh as we climb into the van. "Stop thinking about it. You should think positive; maybe she will forgot about it tomorrow." I keep trying my best to lift his spirits but what can I lift when there's no spirit left in him?

"But what if she remembers? If it's just one or two, I could still do it but twenty is just too much. There goes my sleep time." He affirms sadly. "Don't be too hard on yourself. You can always just do a little and left the rest behind. Honestly, sleep is more important than homework." He did a 'tsk' sound and lays his head on the window.

It pains me so much to see him like this.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Austin." I give him a sympathetic smile. He lifts his head from the window. "I'll try, Paradice. She's just such a dog." He huffs. I shrug, trying to say 'what can we do?'.

The journey to my house is silent, not really loud like usual. It is only filled with a few curses Austin throws at Kevin and me telling him to calm down.

When I am getting down from the van, he did something unusual.

"Bye." He says softly. Usually, he shouts, full of enthusiasm but now, all that's left is sadness and disappointed.

To be honest, that broke me.

I wave while giving him a sad smile.

I open the front door and starts screaming in my house. I am alone so it isn't a big deal. "Fuck her!" I shout over and over again. Then, I take a deep breath and try my best to cool down.

I took a quick shower and then start to scream again. But then, I control my temper and decided to pray.

"God, please let Miss Cox forget about the punishment so that he can get the sleep that he deserves." I pray as his face hopeless face keeps popping up in my head and I can't seemed to let it out.

"Please let her forget about it and let him sleep." I pray again and again. It seemed like the only I could do for him at the time.

I decided to put my tasks away for awhile and let my anger out on Facebook.

Paradice Newman thinking about homework.

Doing more doesn't make you smart, it makes you tired, annoyed,

sleepy, angry and stressed

And post.

I hope that Austin doesn't realised that this post is actually related to him because that would be both weird and amazing at the same time.

I log out and start to do my own homework, cursing the teacher at the same time too.

~~~

The next day...

I got out of the car with a sigh. "Bye dad." I wave and close the door. When I turn around, I see Austin hoping off the van with Henry and Sam. He looks over and glances at me.

He seems to be in a better mood than yesterday.

I smile at him and he did the same. He lets me go through the gates first and I blush a little at the small yet meaningful gesture.

Talk about a gentleman.

As I walk to my classroom, I couldn't help but thought about Austin's face. His poor face just won't leave my mind.

God, help me.

"Damn, it's the third time this week." Alyssa groans as she puts her bag down beside me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"What happened?" Katie asks her. She wasn't too keen on Alyssa but she tries to be friends with her for the sake of school assignments.

Alyssa shrugs. "I told my brother that he should really stop dumping his laundry in front of my door but he doesn't listen. Now, my door is jammed and I had to use the window to get out of my room."

I give her a gloomy look and adjust my glasses. "Tough call." I state. "No, I think it's alright for that to happen to her." Amie teases while giving her a smug look. Alyssa shrugs again. "Oh well. Shit happens in life, right?" She states as a matter-of-fact as Mr. Chang comes into our class.

Oh what the hell does this old man wants now?

"Par, please go to the office and report the attendance today." He orders. I mentally roll my eyes. Why must it be me every single time? It's getting annoying but there's a good side of this...

Who knows, maybe I'm lucky enough to bump into Mr. Nike later.

God, I am starting to fall for him but I haven't even know him better yet.

"Okay." I walk out the class. I sigh to myself, laziness running through my veins. When I walk pass the staircase, I can see Austin running up the stairs.

Looks like I am lucky enough to bump into Mr. Nike.

He suddenly stops and looks up. We make eye contact and he smiles when he sees me.

Why does this reminds me of the famous 'balcony scene'?

He runs up the stairs, probably wanting to tell me something.

Shit, I can't breath.

"Did you do the essays?" I ask him when he stops and stands in front of me. Bold move, Par. He shakes his head. "Fuck it. I'm not that crazy to do 20 essays in one night." I couldn't help but laugh. He did the same.

I give him a thumbs up. "Not bad. Trust me, she'll forget about it." He did likewise and nods. Then, I see Mr. Chang coming out from my class.

Fuck, if I don't go now, he'll question me.

I wave at Austin and continue walking to the office, hoping that Miss Cox will forget about the damn punishment on the way.

~~~

"God, I'm starving." Amie announces while rubbing her stomach. "Me too." Ray agrees. "Me three." I add on. We all laugh as the line moves a little. It is lunch time and not to sound stalker-ish but Austin is standing 3 people away from me.

He looks more brighter than before and I hope it's because of Miss Cox did not scold him. After all, he just had her class. Hopefully she's forgotten about it and Austin is safe from her nasty hands.

I take my lunch and I expect him gone to his seat as he took his food earlier than me. "Wait for me, Par!" I hear Ray shouts behind me but I didn't put on much thought on it.

Mr. Nike is standing there, as if waiting for me to walk to his side. It was like he knew that I'm going to ask him about the punishment.

"Did she-"

"She didn't-"

We both say at the same time. We guffaw and smile to each other. "She forgot about it!" He declares happily. My prayers are heard. I smile wider. "Yay! You're safe from her." I state excitingly.

We continue smiling at each other and god dammit, there's that spark again!

Then he shakes his head and grins. "Thank God Miss Cox took her medicines today." I giggle. "Yeah, she finally followed her doctor's orders." I say while smiling, glad that he's got the sleep that he needed and he wasn't scolded by her.

Dammit, I care so much about him.

And somehow, I think that he is glad that someone cares about him too.