Twice The Trouble

Chapter 8: Stacy Meets A Twin

On that same sunny Tuesday, but in the Fine Arts Building..

Our forty-something widowed teacher, Mrs. Forbes, had just finished her lecture, but there were still twenty minutes left before dismissal, so she permitted us to go or stay and chat.

Immediately, the sound of wooden chairs scraping against the white tiled floor made some students wince, but they shrugged it off and created small and multiple huddles of chairs.

"God, am I glad I'm in the same class as you guys. Especially you, Ace," Miles Martinez breathed out while she gave me a pointed smile.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Selena Castro griped, her long bronze hair swaying behind her.

"It means," Dylan Alonzo said with an eye-roll, "She's going to mooch off Stacy."

Miles pouted her lips. "You guys are mean. But seriously, her nickname is Ace for a reason! She's our best card, you know? She's got looks, brains, and we'd be nothing without her."

"You flatter me, Miles," I told my brunette friend.

"It's so noisy in here," a girl snapped loudly, the raised volume intended for me to hear.

My wavy blonde hair followed my movement as I shifted in my seat, looking annoyed.

"What's your problem, Alison?"

Alison Rivera. Tall, sexy, and spoiled rotten by her parents, she was also an 18-year-old freshman and claimed herself as the Queen Bee of the campus. With her family's wealth, her long and luscious butter-colored locks, and her proud sense of entitlement, she was the type of girl who notices other people only if they were useful or a threat.

She was still examining me, contemplating whether I was the former or the latter.

"Don't call me Alison. We're not close," the gorgeous teen snapped in a cold tone.

"Whatever. Just mind your own business," I sighed irritably before swiveling to face her three friends. A fortunate coincidence that three of her closest buds from high school were enrolled in the same section and course as her? Talk about luck. She didn't have many female friends. Almost all of them hated her, out of envy or spite, because she was naturally beautiful, likable, and the guys in Pines Academy all had a crush on her, including those with girlfriends, so practically all the females in her batch had despised everything about her.

Miles and Selena were my only true and faithful girl friends. Dylan used to be my ex, but out of the dozens I dated, he was the one guy I couldn't help part with. The feeling was mutual.

"Excuse me?" Alison hissed while shooting daggers at me.

"Excuse you," I replied, and my group burst into snickers.

"How dare you talk to Alison like that," Barbie Aquino, one of Alison's cronies, lashed out.

"Do you even realize who you're speaking to?" Heather Salazar chimed in, scowling.

"Uh, Alison Rivera?" I sarcastically asked, and my friends dissolved into chuckles.

"That's right, Rivera. As in the Rivera Group?" Alison's poise was still there, but the way her nostrils flared and her jaw tightened showed the shortness of her temper.

"I'm aware," I responded, sounding bored. "And it's 'to whom you're speaking to'."

Alison's face went red with anger. "Don't correct me, Sta. Ana," she fumed.

"I wasn't mending your error. It was Heather's mistake," I coolly responded.

"Just shut up!" Alison nearly growled.