Between Love And Hate

Chapter Two

Janelle

It had been two days now, Raven had not been around to say anything about the project. I knew this would come out bad, since technically, me and Raven were enemies.

I slammed my head on the desk, it made a little metallic sound which I presume Montgomery, our annoying calculus teacher did or did not hear. And I kept my head on the desk until the bell rang for lunch.

When it was lunch time, everyone left Montgomery's classroom, but stupid as I am, I stayed there, head on my desk until Montgomery asked me to leave his classroom, which was fine by me.

The lunch room was quite full when I got there, and as usual, my closest friends were at our table waiting for my arrival.

I walked to the table, sat down next to Ren, resting my head on the table and ignored them.

If my day had started terrible, it would end terrible. Ren kept giggling and gossiping with Marie, another one of my friends.

"Is that Raven?" Marie asked. I ignored her, "Janelle, she's coming this way, or so I think."

This time, I lifted my head and funny enough, the popular Raven Grey was walking towards my table.
And I wasn't bothered about what she'd say, instead I got bothered about the bags under my eyes.

I suddenly pulled Ren's food tray in front of me and I had to pretend that I admired the redness of the apple, it was weird.

"Urhm hi," Raven started talking when she reached our table,
"sorry to be a bother. But if you don't mind," she paused and seriously stared at me, "can I borrow Janelle for a few minutes, she'll be back, I won't keep her long."

Marie was so quick to answer or maybe I was still in shock trying to understand what Raven had said, "sure..." Marie chimed in,

"you can take her, and keep her as long as you want."
And then she winked when she was done talking. Why was I surprised, we all knew she had a massive crush on Raven.

We ended up in the library. It was quiet and almost cold inside. Raven tried to smile, I say tried because it was her signature fake smile and I knew it was fake because she smiled that way the last time she spilled ice cold slushy on me.

I tried my very best to smile back, but the useless strings of hunger pulled at my stomach. Right now, I was their little puppet. So I frowned instead.

"So, why'd you bring me here?" I finally asked. She shrugged, digging her hands in her skinny jeans pocket.

"Well, we both know we're paired for Applebottom's photography class until the end of this school session."

She stared at me as if asking to continue, I didn't look back at her and so she continued to talk.

"We both know that we hate each other, but I want to get over this project Asap. Which means, we both ignore our personal issues so we can do the project. I'm sorry if I'm rude or something, but I'd not want to be responsible for murder or something like that."

She paused and looked at me again,

"so, we forget our issues so we can do the project. Deal?"

Her question hung in the air for a few seconds, her hands outstretched for a shake, I took it and gave a firm reply,

"Deal."

She pulled out of the handshake and left the library, I wasn't surprised. But for a minute, I'd thought about how strong but firm and soft her hands were.