Confiding in You ϟ a.i.

Chapter 10

I hurry to the classroom and once I'm just outside the door, I try to pull myself together considering what had just happened. Why did guys have to do that? What ever happened to asking permission to kiss someone? I mean, clearly Luke didn't have my permission anyway...

"Excuse me? Miss?" What I assume is my chemistry teacher calls from inside the room. I hadn't realized that I was just standing there. I finally am back to reality, and of course the entire class has turned to stare at me.

"Uh, yeah," I clear my throat, stepping into the room a bit, "I'm sorry, I'm kind of new here. I got lost."

"What's your name?" She smiles at me. Really? I had been expecting her to yell at me and send me to the principal or something. Well, that was way easier than I thought it would be. If only the rest of this whole mess was that simple.

"Madeline Arkwright."

"Right," She looks down at a binder of hers. I'm unsure of exactly what to do at this point. Do I sit where I want or is there a seating chart? My feet stay planted exactly where they are until I can be 100% positive I won't screw up. "You've got a seat next to Mr. Irwin, right there," she points, answering my thoughts. Not exactly how I'd hoped, though.

I meet eyes with Ashton, who smirks at me, patting the spot next to him at the table. Great. Chemistry with Ashton to top off the wonderful day I'm already having. This can only end in two ways: acid in his face, or acid in mine.

"Sup, gorgeous?" He says once I unwillingly sit down.

"Shut up," I groan, resting my head on the table. It was true that I would rather be here listening to the rules again than talking to Luke, but I wasn't exactly in the mood to listen now. Not to the teacher or Ashton. "Just last week you were calling me hideous."

"Well, today you're gorgeous. Tomorrow you'll be hideous. You should probably enjoy it while you can."

I sit up just to give him a dirty look, which he returns with a crooked grin. And just like that my head is down again. This isn't any better than California. In fact, it might be worse. In California, I was alone. Here, I have to deal with Luke and Ashton.

"What's wrong?" Ashton chuckles, nudging my shoulder. I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of telling him anything, so I stay silent. "Hey," his voice softens as he nudges me again.

"What are you doing in here anyway? It's a junior class," I say, attempting to change the subject. My head is lifted now and I suppose I intend to keep it that way, just so Ashton won't ask anymore questions.

"I failed it last year," he shrugs like this kind of stuff happens to him all the time.

"Of course you did," I breathe, ready to lay my head back down. If he wants to ask me what's wrong, that's fine. I just won't answer. He stops me before I can even move, though, resting his hand on my arm. I look up at him, emotionless.

"Oh, not because I'm dumb or anything," He laughs lightly, looking around before he whispers, "I made a fountain out of a Bunsen burner."

"You what?" A smile breaks out onto my face, despite my foul mood.

He starts laughing even more and it's contageous. I'm starting to think we're about to disrupt class, but no one has seemed to notice yet. "I put that tube onto the faucet instead of on the gas. So the water came up through it. And that automatically caused me to fail the course. I guess I wasn't supposed to do that."

"You're an ass," I giggle, resting my chin down on my arms.

"So," He jabs my side with a pencil, "What's wrong?"

With that, my bad mood that had only disappeared slightly is back and I frown. I didn't want to think about it, damn it. There were so many times people should have shown concern, but they didn't. Now when I didn't want them to, they were. And Ashton, of all people.

"You know, I'm not supposed to be talking to you," I change the subject once again, tilting my head to the side so that I'm looking up at him. He grins down at me, flicking his hair out of his face.

"I'm not supposed to be talking to you either."

"Then why are you talking to me?"

"I like misbehaving," he winks and my stomach churns just as ideas of what he could be suggesting run through my mind. A paper gets passed our way, thankfully disrupting the conversation. Ashton looks down at it and smirks, "Want to be my lab partner?"

"No way," I answer without thought.

"Why not?" he pouts, setting his pencil down. He apparently had already been in the middle of writing my name.

"I don't want you causing me to fail this class."

"I won't make any fountains, I promise," He gives me another crooked smile, continuing to write, "Plus, who do you know in here besides me that would be willing to be your partner?"

He's right. As I look around the classroom, there are quite a few familiar faces, but none of them are friendly. They either didn't like me to start with, or I'd come to be on bad terms with them due to the array of calls I ignored while in California.

"I have friends." Maybe if I say it, it'll come true. It doesn't matter, though. Ashton knows the real truth and he'd passed the list to the next person long before the lie escaped my mouth.

--