As me and Lia were walking towards the class I heard a high pitched voice. "Oh My God! Carter baby! What happened to you? I told you not to fight didn't I? Look what they did to you now!" Without looking I knew it was Maddie talking to Carter.

Lia shifted herself and faced them. "This is new...." she said. "It might be new for you but not for us... I see Maddie throwing herself at boys 24/7 " I told her.

"Are they a thing?" She asked.

"I don't know.... maybe. I don't pay mind to all that. But I don't really think so. Maddie can't keep her hands off of other guys. And Carter's kind of involved with Bella."

"You know what Maddie is referring to, right? I never thought you had it in you. I would have never been able to slap Carter. Half of the time he looks like he could just bite you. I'm surprised he didn't do anything to you for your little stunt."

It made me realize how big of a mistake it was to slap him. "He hadn't just let that go. Do you think he'll spare me that easily? I'm sure he has something evil planned against me. After he dropped you, he demanded me to be ready at 8pm on this Friday.... I don't-" I started to rephrase the whole story to her but she stopped me.

"What? He is taking you to a date?" Lia asked, her eyes wide.

"No! No, No! Don't say it! It sounds so bad to ears. Yucky! And personally I think there is nothing more to this 'taking me to a party' than humiliating me somehow and taking revenge for what I did the other day."

The thought even sent shivers to me. What if he just humiliates me in front of everyone or worst do something to me like.... that! What bad guys do with girls.... I gulped at the thought.

"He wouldn't humiliate you Sophie! I'm sure about it!" Lia intervened my thoughts.

"How so?" If that was possible for him to not humiliate me there could be nothing better than that. "His heart won't allow him to do that when he sees you on Friday all dolled up." Lia said making me laugh out falsely.

"You really don't know him, do you? He has been bullying me since childhood and not even once in all those years he spared a chance to torture me. And if out of the blue he asks-demands me to accompany him to a party it could only mean one thing.... he has something planned."

"But it's not like you have a choice. I mean god knows what he'd do if you didn't show up." She said as we walked towards our art class. Lia quoted the obvious.

"Yeah. I really feel like crying at the moment. I don't want to go there with him. Wait- Lia, why don't you come with us too. That would be great." The hole this hole situation had created in my heart was being filled with hope.That someone would be there with me if Carter plans to do something extremely drastic.

She tapped her index finger on her chin as she spoke, "I'll have to think about it...."

"You know, you can take Isaac too." I suggest, making her smile widely. She really must like him a lot! "I'm definitely going to come then!" She squealed and I hugged her. "You are the best Lia!"

"I know, I know! You are ruining my dress girl!" She pushed me back. I rolled my eyes as we entered in our class. Instantly my mood took a three sixty degree turn. Did I tell you how much I love arts? It's a stress reliever trust me! "What's the reason for this wide smile on your face Soph?" Lia asked as she examined my face. "I love art! And I'm going to draw something really beautiful today."

"Oh, wow! I'd like to see it too!" Her words reminded me the last time's art class with Carter. No! This time I won't show my drawing to anyone. Not even Lia.

Grabbing all the art stuff I needed I went to the most lonely corner of the room and decided to draw a flower. After wearing my apron I started mixing colours.

I added purple. Then a little of baby pink. It looked too bright for a flower so I added a small amount of white to it too.

This colour is best!

I started to paint a flower onto the canvas. It was great drawing and painting alone at the corner. There was no chance of people seeing my work and criticising it. Or interrupting me in between.

When I was done with the flower I made its stem with brown paint. It went a little extra broad but it didn't looked bad.....I guess.

Then came the leaves, which I made a little more shaded. I heard Lia laughing when I was admiring my work. "Really, Sophia? Arts is really not your field. Just look at it. Even a 5 year old kid could have done better than this!" She started laughing again. My face fell completely but I tried to laugh it off with her. She seemed to register it because then she spoke,

"I did not mean to offend you Sophia. It just is really childish painting...." She hugged me. I pushed her mimicking her words from earlier. "Get away! You are ruining my clothes."

******

In lunch when Lia couldn't find Isaac even after the research of fifteen minutes we finally sat down to eat. "Where do you think he might be?" She asked talking a bite of her hame burger.

I shrugged but a second later she threw the burger in her tray and marched towards god knows where. My eyes were sticked on her as she ran with a huge bite of burger in her mouth. Did I tell you earlier, she eats like an animal! Literally!

She disappeared from my sight and I sighed. Lia is crazy! Minutes later she came back dragging a pissed of Isaac with her. He caught my eye and I smiled lightly at him. His cheeks turned red. He might be feeling embarrassed to sit with the two craziest girls of the school.

We can be enemies in class. But if he was acting nicely, why shouldn't I? They both sat at the table and we ate in an awkward silence when suddenly Isaac coughed loudly. Lia passed him the water bottle and he drank it. "So Isaac, do you like to go to parties?"

"Parties? No? Why?" He answered not looking anywhere else than his food. "There's a party on Friday. Will you come with me?" Lia finally asked.

He stoned and his eyes widened. "Me?"

"Yes, you. Please? Please? Please?" Lia insisted. "Okay, I'll-I'll see..." He nodded and Lia smiled at him. She hugged him as she said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!" They were very cute together. Really.

After that awkwardly weird lunch I went to my literature class with Lia following behind. We sat in the middle row because Lia didn't want to sit on the front seats. Apparently, the teacher seemed to be on our face if we sit on the starting rows.

The teacher started the lesson but I couldn't concentrate because a certain somebody was throwing notes at me.

Yes, you are right. Carter, the great was. He threw the first note just when the class started but I ignored it and continued with my work. He sent another and another and another and another. Catching each one of them I threw them on the floor.

I didn't want to be caught passing notes in class by the teacher and destroy my reputation.

He threw another one.

What is his problem? Why wouldn't he let me study properly?!

Being good at sport helped me to catch his flying notes with one hand while the other one was busy in writing. I looked at his direction and raised my eyebrows but sank into my chair as soon as I saw his horrific glare. He had a scowl on his face, a clear sign for me to just stop with the attitude and read his notes.

I waited for the teacher to turn towards the board and as he did I reached out to pickup all the notes. I opened them one at a time.

- I swear to god if you threw this one too, I will kill you!

- Hey Sparky boo!

Sparky? Boo? Sparkyboo? It's so disgusting! God!

- Sparkle, don't forget about our tutoring session today!

- Fucking answer me nerd!

-You'll pay for this Sophia!

The last one made me shiver. I took one of his notes and started scribbling on the empty side of it,

- Sorry Carter, for not replying earlier. From next time I'll leave my all lectures to talk to you and reply to all your questions. Is it fine? And I won't forget your tutoring session. Can I study now?

I threw it at him and he smiled at the note, shaking his head. I looked at the front continuing my work when something hit my head. Turning around in my seat I looked straight at the culprit.

"After school." He mouthed, using his hands to explain. I sighed and nodded.

*****

I was staring at the blue mark on his cheek, waiting for him to solve the question I gave. But all he did was stare at the questions. I felt guilty everytime I saw his face.

"This, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and..... all of this!" Carter told me examining all the topics from the index of the book.

"Okay, I'll change the question....Which topic you find most, most difficult?"

"Ummm....I don't understand a single thing in trigonometry. Geometry.... angles.... in short. And now that it has advanced this year in the calculus it just goes above my head." He told me.

Okay, that topic is difficult.....

How do I explain it to him?

"For basics that we did last year you need to learn the ratios."

"That's the problem teacher. I don't remember them. And I can't learn them either." Carter said. He has been calling me teacher ever since we came here. "Okay, I can't t-teach you like that. I -I can't believe my slap caused this bruise to form on your face."

"Carter, I'm sorry for slapping you that day. I didn't mean to do it. I was just angry because you didn't come and you could have died. I was just getting worried. I really didn't meant to slap you.....that hard. I feel very guilty when I see that mark on your fface.......it might hurt really bad. it's- ssorry"

"It's okay. You slapped me pretty hard but this is not caused by you. Jack punched me, when we were....playing. And yeah it hurts like a bitch." He referred to the blue mark on his face.

"Oh..." I said. It was silent for a minute before he started, "so, there's no need to be worried teacher. Focus on explaining me."

"So you said, you can't learn the ratios right?" I asked earning a nod from him. "What I did last year was somewhat helpful."

"Sine is equals to opposite upon hypotenuse. So I've learnt it by SOH. Getting?" I worked on his copy as I explained. "Then there's cosine which is adjacent upon hypotenuse so it goes by CAH."

"Wow, it's easy." Carter smiled at me. "Yeah, and the last one is Tangent that is equals to opposite upon adjacent so I call it TOA."

"All you gotta learn is-" I started to say but Carter stopped me by answering, "SOH, CAH and TOA!"

"Yeah!" I couldn't help but smile at him. "Now that was easy but what about those graphs we are doing and then those identities where you have to put squares and those new ratios?"

"We'll go slowly Carter. From basic to advance. And graphs are the most easiest thing in this whole chapter."

"The new ratios you're talking about are nothing but the reciprocals of these. Cot is reciprocal of tan, cosec is reciprocal sin and sec is cos's."

"Oh!" Was all he said as he stood up and walked out. He came back a moment later and we began with the study.

I thanked god! He knew some of the basics but were still a little unclear to him.

"Come again." He said.

"Oh god, Carter. How difficult is it to learn the difference between the quadrants? In the first quadrant all of the three ratios are positive. In second quadrant only sin is positive. Got it?" I sighed.

"Yeah. Little bit."

Little bit?

Little bit?! I've been screaming the same thing since so long and he still couldn't catch it.

"Carter, this is what we studied in grade months earlier. And you don't know it. You are in your senior year now. How do you even passed the tests?"

"I cheated" he shrugged.

I looked at him wide eyed. He was accepting it like it was something he was extremely proud of. "Look, you said it yourself. We studied it last year. It was so long." He gestured with his hand."And, Mr killer is the worst teacher ever. It's like he doesn't even know how to solve half of the questions. He pretends like he knows and asks us to solve them for him. And I'm like, hello Mr, I have answers at the back of my book too! I want solutions!"

Killer?

Oh yeah! Killer.... Miller...

I started laughing. "Yeah....you are right. You could've seen his face that day when he asked Isaac to solve the question and he couldn't...." I started laughing at the memory but when I caught carter he was looking down in his book and doing a random question. "We must focus on the topic." His mood changed in a split second, it felt as if I did something wrong.

Did I do something wrong?

No I didn't. He's just one bipolar guy!

"Uh-ummm yeah.... so, when we have this kind of question we use calculator?" Carter asked showing me his notes.

"Yeah, Let me just check......." I said checking the question. I explained him again that we didn't have to use the calculator in such questions directly but he looked distracted. I could see him clenching and unclenching his fists. It was clear that he was angry. But I knew he wasn't angry on me.

What had I possibly done to cause his mode to change so drastically?

Standing up abruptly, he walked out of his room leaving me there alone to spend an awkward time in his room. He came back ten minutes later with the same harsh expression dominating his features, holding a pack of chips.

He sat down beside me and placed the packet beside the books, I sat their suddenly feeling un-welcomed at his place. "Teach!" He demanded.

"You won't get a single thing when you are angry....." I tried to cheer him up. Maybe he will tell what's bothering him.....

Why do you even care Sophie?

He just raised his eyebrows and I sympathised my poor attempts of cheering him up. "W-we should drink water when we are angry." I tried again.

"Yeah?" He asked as he approached for the water bottle that was kept on his table, looking at me with amusement.

"Yeah, it works. Trust me."

He drank the water and smiled removing the bottle from his mouth. He nodded. "It works." He chuckled.

Okay, guys! Good Carter is back again!

I taught him and we decided to leave the questions for the next day. After forcefully cramming my stomach with loads of chips, he took me home.

I wouldn't say we had a great time but It was better than I've ever spent with anyone. Even Lia. Rebecca and Josh doesn't count. But I had the fear of him anytime exploding on me. And the fear that I wouldn't be able to handle myself if he did.

He stopped the car beside my house and spoke, "Thank you Sparky for tutoring me. It means a lot to me."

"It's okay, I don't have a choice anyway. But can you please not call me Sparky? It sounds like I'm a candy." He chuckled at that and said, "Okay, Sparky boo! I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Yeah, bye!" I rolled my eyes, getting out of his car and went to my house. He isn't going to stop calling me that.

Sparky boo is even worst. It's so weird. Sounds like farty poo.....

Urghh!!!!

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