As Grant and I enter the lunchroom, I can't stop thinking about what just conspired. Why were Josh and Ashton even talking to each other, when I know for sure that they can't stand each other? More importantly, where the hell did they go?

"Evie, hurry up." My thoughts are cut short as I hear Taylor call to me.

"Hey." I respond to Taylor as I sit down.

"Where's Katherine? Doesn't she usually walk to lunch with you?" Taylor asks me as she takes a bite of her sandwich.

"She's not here today." Grant answers. It's good she wasn't, I don't know what she would have made from the confrontation in the hallway. It probably would have gone way different because Katherine would have said something to the two boys. I laugh quietly to myself as I picture Katherine telling them to 'shut the hell up and get out of the way of her food.'

"Did anyone think of texting her?" Taylor's question pops up. Of course, how stupid can I be? I quickly whip out my phone and send a quick 'are you okay' text to Katherine.

"That's why I'm the smart one." Taylor says smugly. I roll my eyes at her and she responds by sticking out her tongue.

"So you guys will never guess what Evie and I walked into." Grant's excited voice cuts through the murmurs of the cafeteria. My eyes immediately cut to him.

"What?" Taylor asks in a bored tone. I try to catch Grant's eyes before he starts talking about what we walked into. I know it had nothing to do with us, so it shouldn't be our job to spread rumors about it.

"Josh and Ashton were in a heated argument right in front of the cafeteria doors. Evie and I were walking around the corner, we probably interrupted their argument-"

I interrupted him, "Grant, we don't know what was going on. Stop talking about it."

Grant scoffs at me, "Calm down Evie. I'm not spreading anything about it. It was just weird," Grant turns back to Taylor, who still looks bored but seems to have a little interest, "Ashton growled at me."

Taylor, who had just taken a sip from her water bottle, starts to choke on her water as she presumably tries to control her laughter. I pat her back until she stops coughing. Laughter immediately bubbles out of her mouth.

"He growled at you?" Taylor laughs out the question. Her laughs are contagious and I find myself starting to chuckle.

"Don't laugh," Grant exclaims with a light link blush coming to his cheeks, "it's true. He growled at me. Tell her Evie, I know you heard it too."

My chuckle stops immediately. Grant is looking straight at me and I can see his pleading in his eyes. He wants me to confirm what I already know. Ashton did growl at him. I glance at Taylor, who is still mildly laughing, as she looks at me with a disbelieving look.

"He's not an animal, Grant."

Grant looks down and grumbles under his breath. He knows I'm right, but probably doesn't want to admit it. What he did say was true, to a point, but I know I'm right. Ashton's not an animal and it probably wasn't a growl. People can't growl anyway.

"Time to move on from this strange conversation." Taylor starts a new conversation by telling us about a substitute that was in her earlier class.

All too soon, the lunch bell rings and we have to go back to classes. I walk to French class quickly. I've decided I want this day to end, and I want it to end quickly. I reach French and immediately go to my desk. I sit down and get out my French stuff. As I lift my head to look towards the front, I see Delilah come in. She also looks to be in a rush.

"Hey Evie," she says sounding out of breath, "could I see last night's homework please? I did some of it but then fell asleep."

"Yeah, sure." I respond, opening my binder to get the worksheet out.

"Thanks." Delilah responds, taking the worksheet and quickly starts to fill in answers. I again look to the front and wait for the bell to ring.

Right before it's about to ring, a paper flies onto my desk. I look over to Delilah and see her mouth a 'thank you' and I respond with a nod. We both look to the front as Madame Cooper comes in and the bell rings.

French flies by pretty quickly as I get wrapped up in relearning French. Half of the class was spent listening to a lecture, half in the language of French and half in the language of English. Then the class got time to practice, or in my case, sit and listen quietly because my partner happened to be gone today. Lastly, Madame Copper handed out our homework for tomorrow and allowed us to start working on it.

Walking out of French, I realize that my next class is science with Josh. My stomach starts to roll in nervousness. I don't really want to ask him what the hell happened but I have a feeling that it involved me, whatever it was. Or maybe he didn't even come back to school. He ran off into the forest, he might of just stayed there. Part of me hopes he did because I don't want anything to be awkward between us, and I have a feeling that things might become awkward.

I walk into science and see Josh already at his seat. I hesitate at the doorway. I really don't want to confront him about what happened in the hallway, but I'm too curious as to what exactly did happen between him and Ashton.

I walk slower towards my seat. When I reach our lab table, I see Josh glance up at me and give me a small smile. I return the small smile with one of my own. I sit down and an awkward silence falls over us.

"Why are you here?" I blurt out, unable to handle the silence anymore.

Josh laughs, "I go to school here, Evie." He says sarcastically.

I huff, "Well I know that. I mean, why are you still here? You ran off into the forest." I leave my question hanging, hoping Josh will answer it.

"I forgot my stuff." Josh responds, no longer looking at me. I look at him expectantly. I want him to answer the unspoken question of why the hell he ran into the forest. I look at Josh, waiting for him to say something else, when I notice he's wearing new clothes. Why the hell did he change? I open my mouth to voice my question, but Mr. Koll beats me to it.

"Alright guys," Mr. Koll starts class, "we're going to get started on something new." A chorus of groans fills the classroom.

"Hey now," Mr. Koll continues, "we're going to be starting our projects on alternate energy. I have the rubric right here and I'll pass it out today and you guys will start planning today."

"Do we get to work with partners we choose?" I think his name is Joey, calls out.

"You will be working with your lab partners." Another chorus of groans fills the room, but not from me. I turn to Josh and give him a smile. He gives me a smile in return. I know he's not too upset about working with lab partners.

"Don't be rude to your partners," Mr. Koll reprimands the class, "anyway, on to the project. Each group will choose an alternate energy, such as solar, water, or nuclear, and research it. Only one group can do each alternate energy. For example, only one group can do solar energy and only one group can do wind energy and so on. These are due in two weeks. Discuss with your partners and then one of you come up here and tell me what energy you are doing and grab rubrics for the project. You get the rest of class to start your projects."

As soon as Me. Koll stops talking, talking erupts from the class. Two people from two groups have already gotten to Mr. Koll's desk to tell him what they want to do. Josh turns to me quickly, "Are you okay with doing nuclear energy?"

"Yeah."

Josh stands up with a smile, "Then I better go reserve it before someone else does." Josh quickly walks to Mr. Koll's desk to tell him what we are doing. I see Mr. Koll nod and write something down, Mr. Koll then points to a stack of white papers. Josh picks up two of the sheets and starts walking back here.

"We got it. Here's the rubric and on the back of it is what we have to do for the project." Josh says as he slides one of the rubrics to me.

I look it over and it confirms what I already thought we would have to do for the project. A poster or power point that explains what our energy is, we have to give a presentation with our poster or power point, and both of us have to each turn in a paper. It's a pretty basic project, but it reminds me of the project Ashton and I had to do. A flash of anger runs through my body as I remember how he handled that this morning.

"What's wrong?" Josh asks. My expression must have been showing my anger by accident. I quickly smooth out my expression into one that could be considered as neutral.

"Nothing. I'm just thinking of the project."

"Okay," Josh looks skeptically at me, "well, I was thinking that you could come over this weekend and we could start it, and probably finish it too."

"Then we wouldn't have to worry about it later," I agree with him, "and I'm sure it will be fine. I can probably come over. What's your address."

"Here." Josh rips off a part of a piece of paper, writes his address down and hands it to me. I take it and put it on top of my binders in my backpack so I won't lose it.

"Why did you want to do nuclear energy?" I ask Josh suddenly when I remember his excitement to do nuclear energy.

Josh chuckles, "I find it interesting that if one thing goes wrong, the whole thing blows up."

I join Josh's laughter, "Well that's a happy way of looking at it."

For the rest of class, Josh and I talk about our project. There's still a hint of tension between us probably due to what happened. But I'm willing to ignore it if he is, and Josh seems to be ignoring it. We made our plans for Saturday. He will pick me up at eleven and I'll stay until three. We will probably have our project done during that time.

The rest of the day passed quickly, as if the day was excited to be over with. Gym was an utter bore with no Katherine. Mr. Guy had us play soccer again, and as I predicted, I was one of the last to be picked, but I didn't mind. We played, and lost by two, and soon enough it was time for the final bell to ring. Looking at my phone, I realized that I never got a text from Katherine. Briefly, I wondered what she was doing and if she was okay.

The bell rang and I walked out of the gym. I made my way through the rushing students, getting bumped by quite a few shoulders and backpacks, but I eventually made it to the front of the school. Mom's car was already there, sitting by the curb, and as I approached, she waved.

"How was school?" She asked as soon as I was in the car.

My mind flew through the day. From an infuriating Ashton and his stupid idea to finish the project, to the fact that Katherine wasn't here and never responded to my text. From the strange conversation I walked into between Josh and Ashton, to Josh and I's plans to meet on Saturday.

"It was fine."