Chapter 5

His hard gaze, pierces stright through me, causing a shiver to run down my spine. I'm forced to look away again almost instantly, now fixing my gaze on Tessa, who is busily leafing through one of her folders. I nudge her arm and she looks up at me with a questioning raise of the eyebrow.

I raise both of mine, nodding towards Aaron. She glances at me, then back to Aaron with her mouth in the shape of a 'O' as she gapes in realization. "Oh yeah! I forgot to introduce you to Aaron." she nods her head awkwardly in his direction. "Aaron this is Charlotte. She's new."

Aaron Johnson.

He doesn't respond back or nod his head. Not even suppressing the simple 'Hello'. As soon as he removes his gaze from mine, he instantly decides to ignore my existence, merely suppressing an uninterested grunt. Tessa just shrugs, turning back to me.

"We've already met. He's my neighbour." I say, keeping my voice low just in case he hears. "Hey... what is his problem?"

"It's not you." Tessa says quickly, both her eyes widening. "It's just how he is... Aaron is just a natural Scrooge, but you'll get used to him soon enough. He can be a right ass-hole sometimes but he's not that bad..."

I raise an eyebrow disbelievingly, and Tessa just smiles, shaking her head. "I've known Aaron since elementary school. He wasn't always like this. He's a good guy, but it was just due to some... issues a few years ago."

I'd really like to ask about these 'issues', but I keep my mouth shut, figuring that it was possibly a personal subject, from the way Tessa described it. Tessa and I steer right off to a different topic, almost immediately, and I almost forget that Aaron is sitting merely two metres away from me, helping himself to Ian's lunch. It's only when the bell rings, signalling the next lesson, that I snap to my senses once again.

"C'mon, we've got Maths now. What room have you got?" Tessa asks, peering over my shoulder as I switch on my phone to check. "Aha, unlucky, Room 77 with Mr Noakes. I've got Miss Penny, and she's a right softie."

"Ugh." I scowl, placing my phone away. "So I'm going to Maths on my own? Seriously?" I feel a presence behind me as someone's hand snakes their way around my waist. "No worries babe, we've got the same class."

I recognise Daniel's voice, and instantly jerk my elbow sharply, targeting his ribs. He releases a pained grunt, pulling away, and I mentally high-five myself. Daniel starts massaging his wounded rib-cage, muttering a string of curse words under his breath.

"Keep it in your pants, Daniel." Ian warns with a smirk, ruffling Daniel's hair before taking Tessa by the waist, and steering her out of the cafeteria. She gives me a cheery wave, over her shoulder, before disappearing through the double doors.

I scan the cafeteria, but Aaron had already disappeared. It's only me and Daniel.

"I'll lead the way." he grins smugly, striding straight ahead. I mutter under my breath, gathering my books before hurrying after him as he kicks his way through the double doors. As Daniel starts to stride down the school corridor, with me by his side, I feel all eyes on us. Well specifically, all eyes on him. There's the adoration, and the looks of hunger from every female within a close range. Daniel moves with confidence in his every step. I receive a few looks of jealousy and frustration, but I try my best to just stare them down.

The attention Daniel receives, is not quite the same as Aaron's. When Aaron enters a room, not only did he have girls drooling all over him, he also creates quite an additional, tense atmosphere. Daniel is hardly as intimidating. Almost like a cute, irritating bunny rabbit.

We finally stop outside Room 77, and just as I expected, we're late. Later than I was for Mr David's lesson. Usually, I wouldn't mind as much, but I'm supposed to have a better performance in school. I've already been late for two lessons!

Daniel enters the classroom, and I follow behind. The room is silent, with an elderly teacher hunched over his desk with a menacing look in his grey eyes, much like Mrs Lockwood. Mr Noakes jerks his head at Daniel's entrance, before releasing an agitated sigh, slowly rising to his feet. Miraculously, this man doesn't even reach Daniel's shoulders. I bite my lip, in an attempt to hold back a snort of laughter.

"You're late again, Mr Coleman." he grumbles, not even taking notice of my existence. I use this as an advantage, and slip into a seat near the front.

"Huh?" Daniel blinks, turning slightly. He offers the teacher a dashing smile, raking a hand through his brown hair with a sheepish grin. "Yeah, my bad. Traffic."

Mr Noakes just shakes his head and sinks back down to his armchair, without bothering to interrogate him any further. "Sit down. There are instructions on the board, carry on with your work quietly."

Without a moment of hesitation, Daniel slips right into the seat, next to me. I open my mouth to protest, or tell him to get lost in the most kindest way possible, but Mr Noakes is looking in our direction with a raised eyebrow. I press my lips together and duck my head, flicking through the pages in search for the right one.

After about 15 minutes, Daniel has completely given up with the work altogether and starts balancing his ruler on his pencil, constantly failing and dropping the ruler with a loud clatter onto the table. This repeats over and over again, until I finally snap, losing concentration. "Can you stop that?!" I hiss angrily.

Daniel pauses, and I release a satisfied sigh, continuing with my graph. But just as I start shading again, there's another loud thump on the table. This time, Daniel is attempting to flip over his bottle, on the table.

"For goodness sake, what on earth are you doing?!" I grumble, placing my palm on my forehead with a sigh. Daniel smirks, flipping his bottle upwards by the lid, and it nearly falls off the table.

"The bottle-flip challenge. Haven't you heard of it?" he answers with a raised eyebrow. I just shrug, watching him flip the bottle upwards so that it lands on its side again with a loud thump. Daniel curses under his breath, before grabbing the bottle again.

"Stop it."

"Give me one good reason why." he replies with a cocky grin. I narrow my eyes into slits, gesturing towards the teacher's desk. He shrugs his shoulders, flipping the bottle once again.

"It's not like he cares. I could walk straight out of this classroom, right this minute, and he wouldn't notice. But of course, nerds like you would still worry."

"I'm not a nerd." I deadpan.

"Sorry, my bad. I hear you prefer the term: 'geeks' these days, right?" he flips the bottle again and this time it falls right off the table. Mr Noakes looks up at us with a warning glare. Daniel swiftly picks up his bottle, placing it on the table before holding up both his hands, as a sign of innocence. "It just fell right off, Sir."

"I hardly doubt that." Mr Noakes mumbles, before shaking his head. "How many equations have you completed so far, Mr Coleman?"

"So many of them!" Daniel exaggerates, leaning back in his seat comfortably. I shoot him a questioning glare, but he ignores it. I haven't seen him pick up his pencil once, during this whole lesson. Unless he needed it to balance his ruler on top of it.