Mom woke me up early today, seating herself on the side of Chelsea's bare bed.

"We need to talk about whatever's happening in school, sweetheart," she says, her voice stern. I sit up and stretch out my limbs.

"We've already talked about this yesterday. I didn't do anything, mom," I say, my voice sounding raspy.

"Amelia, if you're in love with your sister's boyfriend then—"

I send daggers through my eyes.

"I'm not, mom!" I cut her off and she just sighs.

"I just wanted to say that it's fine. If you love him then go for it. I'll support you with all my heart," she adds.

"Mom, I swear to god if you don't shut up right now," I threaten but then I realized that it's disrespectful so I stopped.

She just stands up to leave and pats me on the head.

"Alright, alright, now, get some breakfast," she says, finally leaving the room.

I get out of my bed and suddenly I became dizzy. I struggled to walk to the restroom and wash my face. I brushed my teeth, showered, and dressed up before going downstairs to eat breakfast.

I seated myself in the dining room, grabbing a bowl of oats. I ate all of it in just five minutes and stood up to grab my backpack and leave. Paula told me that she'd pick me up every morning already so I no longer have to endure the morning car rides with that Mr. Popular.

Paula arrives fifteen minutes late from the time we agreed on but I don't mind at all.

"Mornin'," she greets, smacking a gum.

"Hey," I simply say as I get inside her wrangler jeep.

"Not a morning person, huh?" she says, continuing to smack her gum.

"You got it right," I reply, my voice still raspy. I clear my throat as she lets out a small chuckle.

"You and Chelsea sure are different," she remarks.

"Please decide on your partners right away," Mr. Schuster says, being grumpy as always. I just stay seated, waiting for anyone to pick me as their partner when Cole suddenly taps me on the shoulder from behind.

"No," I immediately say.

"What! I haven't even said a single word," he huffs. He stands to go to the seat next to me which was already vacant since the girl sitting there already found her partner and transferred next to her.

"I said I don't want to become your partner," I say and he just scrunches his face.

"Okay, if no one else asks to become your partner then I'll be your partner," he challenges, sticking out his hand as if we're making some kind of deal.

"Deal," I accept, not bothering to shake his hand.

"You better shake my hand," he says and I just do as he says.

A girl wearing thick ass glasses soon appeared in front of me, fumbling her side braid nervously.

"Do you already have a partner, Amelia?" she asks and I can feel Cole's defeated gaze. I was about to answer her but Cole butts in.

"I'm sorry, Emma, but she already has me," he says, winking at the timid girl.

"Oh, okay!" she says, blushing. She turns to leave and I give Cole a dirty look.

"You're unfair!" I shout at him and that's when everyone's heads turn to me. I swallow nervously and just look at Cole. "You're so unfair," I repeat, softer this time.

"I'm sorry but I just think we'd make a good pair," he says. I just ignore this as Mr. Schuster finally claps his hands, asking us to settle down.

"Does everyone already have a partner?" he asks and everyone nods. "Now, let's talk about your actual project."

I can feel Cole looking at me so I glare at him and he just looks away, laughing.

"Since you guys are already in senior year," he stops to cough for a good one minute and I can hear someone groan. He grabs his water bottle and gulps half of it before continuing. "The principal asked me to give this project to you."

"Just get on with it," I heard Cole whisper under his breath. I can't help but giggle. Cole looks at me, surprised, but soon laughs along with me.

"Beckett, what are you laughing about?" Mr. Schuster points out.

"Nothing, sir, I'm sorry," he confidently responds. Could this guy become even more socially competent?

"Okay, moving on," Mr. Schuster says and I can hear someone say "Finally" from behind. "You are going to make a scrapbook."

I can almost hear everyone groan and I can't help but groan myself. Who does a scrapbook in senior year? Is this guy even serious?

"But here's the catch. You'll do this scrapbook for a whole year," he says, scratching his bald head. "With your partners of course."

I throw Cole a sideward glance and he notices this so he winks at me. I look away instantly and returned my eyes to Mr. Schuster who was scratching his mustache furiously. I look away in disgust and decided to just look outside the window.

"So, there are five main things I want to see in your scrapbooks," he mentions, grabbing the marker and opening the lid. "Why do markers smell like this," he says as he sniffs the marker's tip.

"You smell worse than that," someone mutters and everyone who heard it snickers. Mr. Schuster shoots a look at the people who were laughing and they all forced their mouths to stop.

Mr. Schuster writes the first main thing.

"Pictures of you together," he reads aloud. "By this, I really need to see pictures of you together. Those pictures should be taken within this whole school year and not from some time ago, okay?" he says.

I continue to stare outside the window, watching the leaves fall down from the trees. It'd soon be winter again.

He writes the second main thing that should be included in the scrapbook.

"I need to see every stage in your senior year life. From the midterms to the senior ball and even the graduation," he says, tapping the marker tip against the board aggressively. I can almost feel the pain of the marker.

"So, the third thing would be the description of those events. For example, midterms," he clears his throat once again before turning his back against us, drawing something on the board. He drew two stickmen inside a rectangle which I think is supposed to be a "picture" and wrote "Midterms" underneath the supposed to be "picture".

"It should somewhat like this," he explains, scribbling something underneath the title. "There should be a description of whatever is in or happening in that picture. The description should at least two to three sentences. Like, let's say "We really had a hard time during midterms. We thought we'd fail and not graduate". Something like that."

Cole taps me on my arm and I didn't bother looking at him. He shakes me lightly and I turn my head to finally look at him.

"What?" I whisper.

"I'm excited about this shit," he says and I can't seem to feel the same. I just looked away and rested my chin on the palm of my hand.

"For the last two things," Mr. Schuster continues, putting up two fingers. "Your scrapbook should be made only if the two of you are together and," he puts down one of his fingers, "The design should be unanimous."

He puts down the final finger and gulps down the remaining water in his bottle.

"So, everything's settled then?" he asks, clapping his hands. Someone raises his hand to ask a question. "What is it, Rogers?"

"Where do we start?" he says.

"Start with the upcoming Halloween festival," Mr. Schuster answers, and the Rogers guy just nods. "Any more questions?" he says and everyone stays silent. "Everything's settled, then," he repeats.

Soon the bell rings to end the class. I can't believe I'm stuck with Cole for this stupid project.

"I almost forgot to tell you but the deadline would be a week after the graduation," Mr. Schuster finalizes before we all leave the classroom.

Wow, great, an after-graduation project.