The Girl Next Door

Part 10 - Pierce

Part 10 - More Chocolate Covered Cones

✾

"Basic proportions," Iris starts, sketching a light circle at the top of the page, "are really important. You know how you'll be having a test on this?"

"I'll be having a test on this?" I echo with disgust. "Never mind, just cancel this, I'm ditching the class from here on out." I go to stand up, but Iris takes my shoulder and shoves me back down on the couch beside her without even looking up from her sketch.

"You're not backing out now, bud. This is important — what's your grade in that class?"

"We get it, show-off, I need to stay in school."

"No, actually, I'm not being a show-off. What's your grade? It's important to see how high you should have to score to maintain your current grade."

"Like a 73 or something. I get it, hilarious, I'm barely passing. Save the laughter for later though. I'm just—"

"I wasn't gonna say anything, chill out and listen," Iris says, but it's easy to see that she's focused on the sketch. "This test is worth about 150 points, yeah? So to get a B you'd have to get about 120 or 130 or something. Let's aim for 125."

"Uh," I laughed with a roll of my eyes, "That's kinda high. Don't you think we should lower it a bit? By like... thirty points?"

She looks up to give me a dirty look. "No, that's a D-. The last time I checked, we're trying to bring your grade up, not down." She looks back down. "We have studying to do, so list your grades for me and I'll help you. And, Pierce, don't make me regret this."

"You don't have to—"

"Don't make me regret this."

✾

"We just spent hours studying," I say, rubbing the sides of my temples and pretending I have a headache. "I'm pretty sure all I can see is skeletons now, wherever I go. I'm not gonna have good dreams tonight. Right now, all you look like is a skeleton. If I looked in the mirror all I'd see is my skeleton. I'd make a better x-ray than all those actual x-rays, which are wannabes at the same time."

"What time is it?" she asks, looking over the skeleton she finished drawing a while back. She then sees the mess of papers all over the floor and furrows her eyebrows at them.

"Like eight, I think," I vaguely answer.

She starts to pick up the papers as if she's in a hurry, so I ask, "Princess, what's the rush? I'll clean it up, you don't have to."

"I don't mind," she says. "After all, I'm Cinderella, aren't I?"

I go over to where she's at and start to pick up the papers too, and once I finish gathering the rest, I take the stack in her hands and slide it over mine. "Not here, you aren't."

Her stomach growls, and she sighs. "We forgot to eat."

"How about ice cream?" Ruby pipes up while I throw the papers away. "I've had too many sandwiches for dinner tonight."