𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒂 𝒃𝒆𝒕?

Chapter 3

Patrick's in detention, so I decide to go and sneak him out. I walk into the detention room and my eyes meet Patrick's, his eyes light up the minute I walk in. I smile at him and walk over to Mr. Chapin.
"Mr. Chapin, can I talk to you for a second?"

"What can I do for you, L/n?"

"Um, I have some ideas on how you can improve the girls' soccer team."

"Great! Let's talk about it later." He turns to his desk and I look over to Patrick he hasn't stopped smiling since I walked in the room. I mouth "the window." And he makes a very confused face at me.
"The window." I whisper and point over to the window. Obviously I was a tad loud because Mr. Chapin turned to look at me.

"As you know, the girls have a really big game with Hilcrest High..." I put my hand on his arm and gasp. "Your bicep is huge!" I grab the other one, distracting his attention from the running Patrick Verona. "Oh, my God. The other one's even bigger." I chuckle "you don't take steroids do you? because I've heard steroids can severely disintegrate your..." I point down. "Package... i mean, not that I'm thinking about your package... uh, that's not the point."

"Let's hope not." The floorboard creaks and Mr. Chapin tries to look behind him. I distract him again.
"The point is, they kick your butts very year.. and I was thinking, I decided a plan that will enable us to finally defeat them."

"Which is?" Patrick is being super loud, how long does it take to climb out a window?
"That thing that you taught the soccer team."

"What thing?"

"Misdirection."

"I taught them that?"

"Yeah, you or Siegfried or Roy? Anyway, that's not important." Patrick keeps creaking the floorboards, but at least he's actually at the window this time. I grab Mr. Chapin's chin.
"The... think about it. Um, they're looking left" I move his chin to the left. "and you're running right. Bang, you score, you win." I move his chin to the right.

"Okay, but how do we get 'em to look left?" There's a bang behind Mr. Chapin and he's about to catch Patrick.
"Um, like this." I lift up my T-shirt and flash Mr. Chapin. Oh, God, that's gonna be awkward when I next see him. The class cheers, and Patrick quickly got out the classroom before he could see what I did, or did he?
"Okay. Well," I put my top back down.
"Now that you've seen 'the plan.' I'm gonna go and show 'the plan' to someone else." I back away and start walking to the door. "Okay... hi." Everyone starts clapping at me, even though I had just totally embarrassed myself. I guess it was worth it.

...

Patrick and I are on the paddle boat, laughing our heads off.
"I can't thank you enough for helping me sneak out of detention... very cool."

"No problem."

"I thought for sure I was busted when I was climbing out that window, I tell ya... so, how did you keep him distracted?"
I pause , widening my eyes a tiny bit.

"I, uh.. dazzled him with my wits?" We both snicker and there's a short pause, before Patrick breaks the silence.

"So, what's your excuse?"

"For?"

"For acting the way we do?"

"I guess I just don't like to do what people expect... why should I live up to other people's expectations, instead of my own?"