“Okay! Operation plan for safely delivering Aaron to the police department today after school is now in conduct!” Casey chirped as she nearly burst Chris’s door off the hinges in her entrance into his classroom.

      He looked up at her from his desk, the corners of his lips turning down. “I have to finish correcting these tests. Have a seat and keep it down.”

      She blinked at him. “Eh? You’re doing something teacher-ish for once?”

     “What do you mean for once?”

     “I never see you doing anything teacher-ish except for in class!”

      “That’s because he’s always with Holly,” Jeremy pointed out from his seat next to me in the front row of desks. “He shirks his responsibilities.”

      Chris scowled at him. “I do not! Whatever I don’t finish because I go to hang out with Holly gets finished when I get home.”

      His eyes lit up in amusement. “Even when you bring Holly home with you?”

      “Well, no, but…”

     “You shirk,” he and Casey decided together.

      Chris sighed, shaking his head at them. “Whatever.”

      “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Jeremy continued, sounding scolding. “You shouldn’t put off work for hanging out with Holly.”

      I dropped my gaze to my desk, where my homework for Spanish lay. Well, more like the Spanish homework and the math homework and the history homework from the past couple nights that I hadn’t done. Luckily I’d received extra time on all of it because I said I’d had to visit a relative in the hospital and couldn’t find time to do it. It was partial truth at least. I was visiting Aaron… But the main reason for me not doing it was because Chris had been there the whole time. He was too distracting to do work around. Apparently, the feeling was mutual.

“Just shut up so I can work,” Chris ordered, focusing on the pile of papers in front of him.

     “Are you sure you have to work? Could it be you don’t want to help Aaron out because you’re afraid he might steal Holly away from you?”

He glowered at her. “That has nothing to do with it. Compared to me, that boy has no chance.”

I rolled my eyes at his cockiness. He was right though. There wasn’t a single ounce of romantic feelings for that boy in me. Especially since he’d tried to trick me into believing he was starting to like Chris. Why did he have to be so confusing? Couldn’t he just decide on what gender he liked?

“I think you’re scared,” Casey challenged. “He’s pretty cute.”

     “I’m cuter though, right?” Jeremy inquired casually, pretending to exam the top of his fingernails.

       She stared at him for a moment, screwing her face up in concentration. “Umm…”

      He gave her a mock-offended look. “Hey!”

      “You’re cuter,” she concluded, “but Holly isn’t interested you. At least I don’t think she is.”

       I decided to ignore her. It was best to hold my silence in cases such as this.

“She’s interested in Aaron. And that’s why Mr. Heywood doesn’t want to help out.”

 The teacher in question let out a small, frustrated groan. “I told you that isn’t it. I have to finish these tests for next period.”

 “They belong to Holly’s class?” Jeremy questioned him.

He didn’t respond.

“Did you grade Holly’s already?”

Now I glanced up from my paper, focusing on Chris’s face. It was blank. Narrowing my eyes, I waited for him to look up. “Yeah, what’s my grade?”

Pity was in his eyes as he finally turned his attention to me. Immediately I knew I didn’t want to know the answer, but he was too quick to tell me before I could protest. “Fifty-eight.”

“Fifty-eight?” I repeated incredulously. “What? No way!”

“You got the lowest score so far.”

“B-but! I knew my stuff!”

Casey laughed. “Maybe you were too focused on the teacher…”

Shame burned in my cheeks. Fifty-eight? I failed one of Chris’s tests? How embarrassing was that? At least it was only me. I didn’t want him looking like a bad teacher. He was a great teacher… Just a little too handsome. However, I still failed that test!

“It’s okay, Holly, I’m not mad…”

“That’s not it,” I muttered, dropping my head against my desk. “I just can’t believe I actually failed a test…”

Jeremy slapped me on the back, causing me to wince. “Don’t worry about it, Holly! Everyone fails a test once in their life!”

“I give up on school work,” I sighed, pushing the stack away from me. “I’ll do it Thursday and Friday.”

“Ah…”

“Yes, that means I’m not going over to your house, Chris.”

He did his best to keep his face straight, but I could tell he was trying not to frown. “Right, okay. I guess I’ll catch up on my work too...”

“You guys are too cute!” Casey gushed. “I can’t believe you guys can spend every waking moment together and not get sick of each other!”

“That’s what we call a match made in heaven,” Jeremy told her.

    I cocked my head to the side. “Actually, there has been times where we’ve… er rather I have gotten sick of Chris. Cranky moments.”

     “Let’s not talk about that though,” Chris interjected, setting his pen down. “You guys go over what’s happening after school today while I continue correcting and try to listen. Holly, you’ll recap it for me after school on the way to the hospital.”

     “Okay.”

    “I thought Lance was supposed to be here? Don’t we need him?” Casey wondered out loud, furrowing her eyebrows.

      “Present!” a breathless voice said from the door. “Sorry I’m late,” Lance apologized, jogging over to us. “Lexi felt sick so I took her to the nurse. Then I had to get my backpack from—”

      “Have a seat,” Casey said, cutting him off. “We’ll start planning now then. We have fifteen minutes.”

       He nodded, taking the empty desk to my right and pushing it over so he, Casey, Jeremy and I made a table of desks. “Right. So we all go to the hospital after school, or what?”

      Jeremy shook his head. “No, Lance, you’re going to take Lexi on a date.”

    “I am?”

    “We can’t have her going home,” Jeremy told him. “That would be dangerous.”

     He nodded. “Okay. I’ll take her out then.”

       “Try staying in the downtown area where there are lots of people too,” Chris added.

       “Work!” we all chided him.

       He grunted.

       “Okay, so then Chris and I will head straight to the hospital to pick up Aaron,” I started, drumming my fingers on my desk. “Casey, do you mind going with Jeremy?”

        She beamed at me. “Nope! Not at all!”

       Grinning, I nodded. “Good. Then you two will go to the police station.”

        “We will?” Jeremy questioned, cocking an eyebrow. “Why?”

         “Well I was thinking, Shawn’s good at throwing surprises at us, right? What if he guessed that we’d bring Aaron to the police station?”

        Casey’s eyes widened. “Oh my God! You’re right! That’s some smart thinking, Holly!”

        Feeling rather brilliant, I allowed myself to give her a cocky smile. “Thank you.”

       “Smart coming from a person who got a fifty-eight on a test…”

        My smile dropped. “Chris! Shut up!”

         The corners of his lips twitched into a small smirk, but he nodded, keeping his eyes glued to the paper he was working on. “Yes, Master.”

        “I haven’t got to punch someone in a while,” Jeremy commented thoughtfully, flexing his muscles. “I hope I still have my strength…”

       “Don’t sound so eager,” I responded flatly. “We don’t want you to have to fight. That would be the least wanted outcome. Hopefully if you catch some fishy activity, we can hold it off.”

       Casey put her hand up in the air. I raised an eyebrow. “Can’t we just call the police? Have them come to Aaron?”

        Lance rolled his eyes. “Because that’s not suspicious right? We can call them up and be like, ‘hello! Our friend Aaron would like to inform you of something, but we can’t come up to the station nor have you come to the his house to talk to us’.”

         “Lance is right,” Jeremy agreed, turning to frown at her. “We want to keep ourselves out of it as much as possible. Especially Chris and Holly.”

       Her shoulders sagged a little bit, but she nodded. “I understand. So we’ll bring Aaron to the police station and then… then what?”

       “They’ll keep him in custody,” I told her. “They’ll make sure he stays safe and hopefully send someone after Mikey.”

         “Hopefully?” she echoed.

          Jeremy frowned. “As tough as it is to believe, sometimes cops don’t believe people… As far as I know though, they don’t know about Aaron telling the school Holly and I were dating, so they shouldn’t think he’s a liar.”

       “I wouldn’t believe him,” Lance muttered.

        I cupped my elbow, suddenly feeling nervous. They would believe Aaron right? There was no reason not to. If they didn’t… Shaking my head, I forced the negative thoughts away. There would be no if. He’d been in the hospital, after all. There was no faking injuries like that.

        “Anyway, stay away from Aaron’s house at all costs,” Jeremy concluded, his tone serious. “Especially you, Lance.”

       Lance blinked. “Me? Why?”

      “You shot him,” Chris interjected, sounding like he wanted to add duh to the end of his sentence. “He’ll definitely recognize you.”

       “Oh, right,” Lance responded lamely. “I forgot that happened.”

     Casey pouted. “I’m the only one who’s never shot someone!”

      “That should be a good thing,” Jeremy commented, grinning and lightly slapping her forehead.

      “I’ve never shot anyone,” Chris declared.

      Her eyes widened. “What? Really?”

    Even I was surprised. “You haven’t?”

    Glancing up from his work, he placed his pen on the desk, and gazed at me. “Nope. I don’t like guns.”

    “Wait, I knew that,” I responded, blinking. “You’ve told me that before.”

     He nodded. “And so I’ve never shot someone.”

    “He hasn’t,” Jeremy agreed. “He was a pretty clean fighter.”

     “Funny though,” Lance started, smirking, “that our innocent Holly has shot someone and her monster of a boyfriend hasn’t.”

   Chris rolled his eyes, picking up his pen again. “I’m not a monster.”

     “And I was only doing it in self-defense!” I added quickly.

    “Whatever,” Lance said, shrugging.

    “Have you ever shot someone Jeremy?” Casey asked, tilting her head to the side and looking at him.

     He nodded. “Yeah, but not with a killing intent.” Pausing, he smiled a little bit. “It’s just fun to watch people dance.”

      Confused by his comment, Casey, Lance, and I stared blankly at him. Only Chris seemed to get it because he snorted. Figuring I didn’t want to know what he meant by that, I decided to change the subject. “So, um, what day do we get out of school? And what day do we graduate?”

      “The last day of classes for seniors is the fifteenth of May and you graduate on the six of June,” Chris informed me, never looking up for his paper.

     “Only a month and a half more of school,” Lance sighed dreamily. “Then I will be free!”

    “Until college starts,” Casey pointed out. “Speaking of which, where do you plan on going?”

    He pursed his lips. “I’ve applied to a few places here and there. I’d like to go to college in California—”

    My eyes widened. “What? California?”

   “Yes?”

    “Why so far?”

    Shrugging, he leaned back in his seat. “I think it’d be cool to get out of this state for awhile.”

     My heart began to sink in my chest. “But I won’t ever get to see you!”

   “I’ll come back to visit,” he assured me, grinning. “And it’s only a maybe, Holly. I might not go.”

    “Okay,” I mumbled, lowering my gaze. Somehow the thought Casey and Lance might want to go to faraway colleges hadn’t crossed my mind. It was a depressing thought. Just because I wanted to stay close to Chris didn’t mean Casey and Lance were planning on staying close. “Casey, where are you going?”

     She scratched the back of her head sheepishly. “Well, actually, I don’t want to go far. I like it here… and the people here,” she added after a moment, more quietly. “I was thinking of Western New England—”

    “University?” I cut her off excitedly. “Me too! Me too!”

   Her eyes lit up. “Really? You’re going to stay close?”

   “Well…”

  “Oh,” she said in realization, her eyes flickering to Chris. “Right. Well that’s good to know. At least I’ll still have one of my best friends… Lance.”

He flinched. “Sorry, Casey. If I decide to stay WNEU was my first choice too. We’ll see though. If things go well—”

“With Lexi you’ll stay?” she guessed.

“Er, yeah,” he responded, an embarrassed expression crossing his face.

Unconsciously, my eyes went to Chris. He seemed completely absorbed in grading the tests, but I wondered if he was listening. I wasn’t the only one who wanted to stay close for loved ones. There was nothing he could say against it now! There was no reason for me to go far away when I could get a good enough education right here.

“Hey! That means you guys will be in your first year of college while I’m in my last!” Jeremy said excitedly. “That means I get to go to school together with you!”

“You go to college?” Casey and Lance chorused, startled.

For some reason I felt smug already knowing this bit of information.

“Yeah! I go to WNEU too!” he told them, nearly shaking with elation. “We might take classes together!”

“I can’t imagine being in a class with you, Jeremy,” I told him, wrinkling my nose at the idea. “That would be awful.”

He feigned a hurt expression. “What? Why?”

“I just can’t imagine you taking school seriously.”

“I’ll have you know my personality is completely different in school.”

I stared at him.

He grinned. “Kind of.”

Chris suddenly stood from his desk. I glanced up at him, but he avoided my gaze. “I’m going to use the bathroom.”

“I’ll come with you,” I offered, jumping up from my spot. “We’ll be right back, guys.”

The trio still seated waved us off, Casey shooting me a sly grin. Ignoring her, I hurried after my boyfriend, making sure the hall was empty before falling into step with him. All the students on the first floor had first lunch, so hopefully they were all in the cafeteria and not roaming around. The science teachers, except Chris, all had lunch duty too, so they should’ve been in there as well. That meant the hallway was to ourselves.

“Are you annoyed?” I whispered, reaching for his hand.

He frowned down at me. “No, why?”

“You just seemed annoyed.”

“But…?”

His lips formed a half-smile and he mussed with my head. “Don’t think too much into what I’m about to say.”

Knitting my eyebrows, I waited for him to continue speaking. Was that supposed to mean whatever he was about to say wouldn’t be good? Or what?

“It’s just… I’m… I’m jealous of Jeremy,” he admitted quietly, setting his jaw. “Don’t laugh,” he added quickly.

Surprised, I came to a stop, making him come to a halt as well. “Jealous of him? Why? If I seemed like I was flirting with him, I wasn’t—”

“Not that,” Chris interjected, rolling his eyes. “About college.”

“What about it?”

“Didn’t you hear him? He’s still in college, which means he gets to be around you more often than me next year if you do choose to go with WNEU.”

As his words registered in my brain, a smile slipped onto my face. “I’d prefer you to go to school with me over Jeremy.”

He grunted. “Too bad I already graduated last year.”

“Look at it this way. If you hadn’t graduated last year, we wouldn’t have met,” I informed him, squeezing his hand, “and that would have been awful.”

“I agree,” he murmured, bringing his head down so it was only inches away from me. “But I still won’t be able to see you during the day.”

Doing my best to resist the urge to kiss him, I brought my head closer and rubbed my nose against his. “We’ll you’ll get to see me every night.”

He pulled away. “Aren’t you going to live with your mom?”

“Well your house is closer to the college,” I told him, chewing on my bottom lip. “So if it’s all right with you I was thinking I live with you during the week and then spend weekends with my mom.”

“Of course it’s okay with me,” he responded immediately, flicking my forehead. “I’m the one who asked your mom if it was alright in the first place. Are you dead set on going to WNEU?”

“If I get accepted, yes.”

“You’ll definitely get accepted.”

I grinned. “Well, you never know. My biology teacher might cause me to fail…”

He snorted quietly, moving forward and gently brushing his lips against mine. I pulled away immediately, scouring the area around us for anyone. No one was there. He cocked an eyebrow.

“We have to be careful, remember?” I scolded him.

Gesturing for me to follow him, he headed around the corner to where the water fountain was before capturing my face in his hands and kissing me deeply. The familiar feel of his chapped lips made me smile and return the kiss enthusiastically. It felt like we hadn’t kissed in forever.

After a few moments he pulled away, a smug smile on his face. “You always get more excited when we kiss in school.”

My face warmed and I glowered at him. “I do not!”

“Yes you do,” he said, quickly pecking me on the cheek. “Don’t worry, it’s cute.”

Glowering, I tried to move away from him, but he easily caught my elbow, spinning me around so that he could trap me against the brick wall. Smirking, he placed his hands on either side of my head. My heart stuttered in my chest at his actions. Almost agonizingly slowly, he brought his lips to mine again. Just as they touched, the overhead bell rang. I cringed as I felt a pain in my lip.

“Ow!” I cried as he pulled away. “Why did you bite me?”

“What do you mean why?”

“You do it all the time! It hurts!”

“It’s a sign of affection, Babe,” he added with a wink.

Ignoring the term of endearment, I quickly lifted myself onto my tip-toes and nipped his ear. A small gasp left his lips and he jerked away, stumbling back a few steps. With a triumphant look, I put my hands on my hips. “Too bad I know your weak spot.”

He glared at me, but it wasn’t having any affect. On his face was a fine blush. This caused me to beam at him. “You look cute when you blush!”

“You’re going to pay for that,” he growled, taking a menacing step toward me.

Laughing, I ducked under his arms and jogged back toward the classroom. “Your class will be coming soon! Did you finish those tests?”

I heard him swear under his breath. As I turned around to stick my tongue out at him, the biology room door suddenly swung open, causing me to run smack into it. This time Chris was the one laughing while I rubbed my forehead.

“Holly!”

“Lance,” I snapped, narrowing my eyes at him. “You should look before opening a door!”

He grabbed my hand and began tugging me down the back exit of the school, a serious expression on his face. “We need to go! Now!”

My heart sunk in my chest, a feeling of unease seizing me by the beck. “Why? What’s wrong, Lance?”

“Hey,” Chris stopped us, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

The stairwell door opened at that moment and a bunch of giggling girls came through, sending flirtatious greetings at Chris as they walked by. Lance gave us both an urgent look and lowered his voice. “Kim just came into the classroom and told me Lexi went home sick ten minutes ago!”

“What?” I cried.

“Let’s go!”

“Wait,” Chris demanded, holding onto him tighter. “You can’t just blindly run into this—”

 Lance jerked away from his grasp. “You’re one to talk! Just because you let your old girlfriend get caught by the bad guys, doesn’t mean I’m going to let the same thing happen to mine!” With that, he shoved Chris aside and sprinted toward the double doors.

“Lance!” I called after him, shooting Chris a worried look. “He didn’t mean that—”

“We have to stop that brat,” he scowled, “before he gets himself killed.”

Nodding, I started running to the door. “I’m going after him!”

“No! Holly, wait!”

Ignoring his command, I burst through the doors and caught Lance just getting into his car. Cursing under my breath, I sprinted to my car, unclipping my keys off my belt loop. This was not going to end well.

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Ah, writer's block sucks. And I'm tired. Blahh. I hope you guys liked this chapter though! :D 

Today's song is... Killer Likes Candy by I Am Ghost! 

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