*NOT EDITED*

Chapter 49

---

"So, why do you think the Mona Lisa was one of the most famous paintings in the world despite her bland smile and colors?" The AP history substitute teacher paced between the desks. She seemed to be around in her early thirties with pretty features—makes me wonder why she's here teaching a couple teenagers.

"Because Leonardo Da Vinci drew it?" someone offered from the back for the class.

Miss. Campbell stopped for a few seconds before pacing again. "Not exactly."

When no one else suggested and answer again, she took the chance to explain it herself. "What most of you don't know is that Da Vinci was a homosexual."

A couple shocked murmurs and gasp rose around the class when she stopped for a second.

"No wonder why he chose that Mona Lisa chick to make his best painting ever."

She laughed before shaking his head. "That's not the reason. Back in his days, Da Vinci was what you'd call now a feminist. He saw that women were supposed to be the greater power and not men. And that they could've been the priests and not men—that's a reason why Catholic Churches didn't really like him. Because the Catholic Church back then shunned the women. They were thought of as evil ever since Eve took the bite out of Adam's apple.

"The female were associated with left—the left side of everything and anything in general—and male of the right side. The word righteous is just one of the many examples of what I'm talking about.

"Now, Amon was the Egyptian god of men fertility and reproduction. Lisa was for the female fertility and reproduction."

She turned to the board and wrote down their names. Then under it, she wrote down Mona Lisa. She turned back to us and stepped aside to give us a better view of the words with an expectant, knowing smile; the same smile every teacher had when they showed their students something spectacular.

"The words were arranged to spell Mona Lisa," a girl said in amazement.

"Correct. Now, if you looked closer to the painting," Miss. Campbell said, her voice rising in excitement, "you'd see that the left side of the painting in the background where the grass was, was not leveled with the left side. It was slightly higher. And as I've mentioned earlier, the left side was associated with female. So, that was Da Vinci with showing the right side as the better side. He was known for that—amusing himself with symbolism in his paintings to tease people."

"But I still don't get it, why was the Mona Lisa one of the most famous paintings to this day?" I asked.

She turned to me and locked her ice blue eyes with mine. "It's because of her bland smile,"—the bell rang—"I'll leave that question for you to ponder over."

The class erupted into low chatter as they all discussed today's lesson and got ready for lunch. I don't think anyone has ever been this interested or attentive to the lesson as today. Even before the lesson started, the boys were all ears as soon as the hot teacher walked in.

I stepped of the class with the unused book in my hand as I walked to my locker. It has been a week and half since I last talked to Ryder and I didn't know how to feel about it. There was some peace and relief, but another emotion that I couldn't quite put my finger on was also evident.

I shut my locker's door and walked to the cafeteria, my eyes targeting the table Emma, Drake, Damon, and Ryder were sitting at. Yes, I haven't been talking to Ryder, but seeing him was unavoidable. I share three classes with him and during lunch, he'd have no option but to sit with us in order to avoid Bex. She was sitting at the 'popular' table with all of Ryder's jock friends and the cheerleaders.

Emma smiled at me when she saw me walking over to her and I sat across her, next to Damon.

"Have you heard of the new girl?"

I raised my eyebrows. "New girl? The semester's almost over."

"I know! That's why everyone's so hyped about her."

I scoffed. "Everyone here will be hyped if they added a new cafeteria staff. They have nothing else to do with their lives than to gossip and talk."

"That's not the only reason they're hyped," Damon said with his mouth full, "the new girl's smoking hot. She's from Miami."

"Is she here now?" I asked, looking around, popping a fry into my mouth.

"Yeah, she's sitting with Bex and all the others." Drake pointed to the table.

I turned in my seat to get a clear view of the table. I scanned the table with my eyes, looking for an unfamiliar face . . . there she is.

Her skin was a very tanned shade, probably because of the Miami sun that was slightly similar to Arizona's. She had green eyes, straight, dirty blonde hair, and a genuine smile that showcased her pearly whites.

"It's a shame that she'll be ruined by Bex and the others. She seems like a nice girl," I said.

"We should invite her over," Damon said.

"Is she the girl that you went out with when I was stuck with the uber driver and his rats?" I asked.

"Uber driver and his rats?" Drake and Emma asked with confusion clear on their faces.

"It's a long story," I said.

"I'll go invite her over." Emma stood up.

"And what if she rejects us?" I ask.

"It's worth the risk. We don't want more people to be poisoned by Bex," Ryder said, making my attention snap to him. We locked eyes and I instantly looked away.

"I'm going, then," Emma said, breaking the awkward silence. That's how it has been going for the past week: weird, shared looks followed by awkwardness.

She walked away and we watched as she approached the table. Almost all the table greeted her excitedly—Emma was still the queen of the school, a change of her seat in the cafeteria wasn't going to change anything.

I saw her mouth move, but couldn't hear what she was saying. The new girl shrugged and stood up, following Emma back to our table. It was a mistake doubting Emma.

I smiled to the girl as she took the seat next to me.

"Hi, I'm Naomi," she grinned.

"I'm Ash," I returned the smile.

Drake smiled. "Drake."

"Ryder." He raised his hands in a sort of half wave.

"I already know you," Naomi laughed to Damon, "he showed me around the town in his amazeballs car as a sort of welcome gift."

"You mean my amazeballs car," I smiled smugly, earning a glare from Damon. Naomi looked between us confusedly. "McMoron over there wanted to impress you so he took my car. I had to take an uber and it was one of the worst experiences in my life. He gave me the very back seats because the other seats were occupied by his rats."

She threw her head back and laughed. "Damon, that was so sweet yet mean of you to do that."

"It was more of the latter," I grumbled before sipping on my milkshake.

"He was really nice, though, and a gentleman," she added.

"How'd you make her agree to going out with you?" Ryder asked.

He mumbled something incoherent under his breath and Naomi giggled.

"What?"

He continued to talk in an incomprehensible way and Naomi rolled her eyes.

"Oh, for Pete's sake. We hooked up."

Drake burst out laughing as I gagged.

"I really didn't need to know that while I was eating."

"We were drunk in a party, one thing led to another, and we ended up in a room. The next morning he showed me around Fairbanks." She shrugged.

"That's totally not a strange way to start a morning after a hook up," Ryder said, whilst rolling his eyes.

"But then again, these two are probably the weirdest beings I've met in my life," Emma stated.

"We're not that bad," I said in defense.

They all raised their eyebrows at me and I crossed my arms.

"Remember that time when you were crying so hard and I thought it was something serious, but it turned out to be over a book?" Damon asked.

"Or that time when you made Ryder fake a heart attack in the middle of the class," Drake said.

"Which almost gave Mrs. Johnson an actual heart attack."

"Oh, yeah! And when Damon stole Ash's toothbrush to  clean up what he vomited after getting wasted," Ryder said with a chuckle.

I laughed, but stopped short when I realized what he actually said. "Wait, what?!"

"Do you hear that, guys?" Damon asked nervously, "yeah, me too. That's the bell. Toodles!"

He started to get up but I pulled him back down. "You did what?"

"What did I do?"

"With my toothbrush."

"With your toothbrush."

"Yeah, with my toothbrush! What did you do with it?" I narrowed my eyes, making him visibly gulp.

"Haha," Emma said lightly, "I forgot. Damon and I were supposed to finish our volunteer work in cleaning up the library. Catch you later, guys."

Before I could say anything else, Emma stood up and pulled Damon away from my grip.

"I'm not done with you yet!" I called behind them. "I'll get him in the house."

"Are they always like this?" I heard Naomi whisper in Ryder's ears as I fumed and stabbed my fries with the plastic fork, snapping it in half.

"Yes," he replied with a smile.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Note:

Hey, guys! I hope you enjoyed reading the chapter :)

For those of you who have been asking, SD will not come back. I think I've said that before, but she just couldn't write anymore. She quit at around chapter 8, and it was no problem. The book did not turn out as planned as all, but it was better. I'm more satisfied and pleased with this ending.

Anyways, I made a twitter account so it can be associated with my Wattpad account. This is the link: https://twitter.com/sadreadingchick

I also made an Ask.fm so you can ask me anything you'd like there. I'll answer to all. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a website/app where you make account and ask other people questions. The questions will be posted on my profile along with my answers. link: https://ask.fm/sadreadingchick

That's all for today, folks!

Don't forget to VOTE, COMMENT, SHARE, and FOLLOW!