L A N A

"IS HE ACTUALLY TAKING... notes?"

I glanced to my left where Carmen was seated next to me, eyebrows raised at Everett who sat on the front row by the window, taking notes as if the analysis of the poem the English teacher was making us sleep through, was actually going to be valuable to him throughout his entire life.

"Lana, maybe you should do that too if you want to get into college next year," she added, shoving her hands in the pockets of her green military pants and leaning back in her seat.

Yawning, I leaned down and rested my face on my notebook which caused Carmen to grin before she went back to texting on her phone again. English Lit and history weren't subjects I particularly enjoyed. Those subjects didn't always have a straight answer. There was more to it. More to write, more to wonder, and more to reflect on. I was more of a math and science girl. That area had one straight answer and there was a guide, usually a formula to solve the problems. You either got right or wrong. No between.

Suddenly, the slightly cranky but all too familiar voice of Miss Judy caused us both to jerk our heads up. "Carmen, you didn't send in your essay yesterday."

"You didn't finish grading my last essay yesterday."

Her brows furrowed. "I have many tests to grade."

"I have a lot of essays to send in."

She rolled her eyes. "Stop looking at memes at 3 AM."

"Stop reading historical romances at 3 AM," she retorted, lips forming a smirk as Miss Jude's pale-skinned and freckled face flared bright red and she blew an exasperated sigh before stalking back to her desk in her tight pencil skirt and her curly red hair pulled into a bun that made her seem two heads taller than her normal petite frame. Meanwhile, everyone laughed in their seats and I even caught Everett turned around to us, cackling as Miss Judy stormed past him towards the blackboard.

I looked at Carmen who grinned at me and I failed to hold back a small, amused smile.

After the bell rang and the students hurried out of the classroom causing total chaos outside in the hallway, Carmen and I lazily shoved our things in our backpacks. Moving from one classroom to another was the biggest downside of every school day apart from the horrific fact that nobody really thought about that we all showed up at school at 8:15 and left 14:15 and nobody seemed to wonder what the actual hell just happened.

"Hey." My head jerked up and I was met with a pair of soft brown eyes looking into my own. Everett wore dark blue jeans and a turquoise colored hoodie. His chocolate brown hair was patted down while the same chunk hung slightly over his eye right eye. He looked like a tall middle schooler with his hands clutching his backpack straps.

"Morning, easter bunny. Do you need anything?" Carmen asked.

Everett's brows furrowed together and his face clouded of confusion before his cheeks caught a pink blush. He cleared his throat and answered, "We have a student council meeting. Lana hasn't joined the group chat so I just thought I could let her know in person."

"Why haven't you joined the group chat?" Carmen asked. They were both looking at me now, questioningly.

Fuck. I knew I was forgetting to do something when I went to bed last night. When I started forgetting things, it was another clear sign of another spiral getting worse. So this was strike two. I was literally stumbling on thin ice right now.

"I forgot. I'll do it know," I murmured, unlocking my phone and tapping on Facebook.

Fucking hell. I should've just accepted it when he first sent that friend request to me.

Carmen touched my shoulder and I could feel Everett's eyes on me when she asked, "Hey, are you okay?"

I nodded briefly and my voice came out small and quiet. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Carmen turned her gaze to Everett. "What are you still doing here?"

Everett cleared his throat. "Uh, nothing. I was just leaving. See you during lunch, Lana, and good luck on your assignment, Carmen."

By the sound of the last part, Carmen's brows shot up, her expression radiation of something between bafflement and surprise. "Uh, thanks."

After he left the classroom, Carmen glanced at me as if I knew the answer to the confusion clouding her face. "Why is that guy so polite?"

The only thing I was sure about was that the word polite was beyond foreign in this town because polite got you in trouble. Politeness was a weakness around here that was easily taken advantage of. Honestly, a guy like Everett Weston was beyond foreign in this town. I was surprised he still hadn't gotten his ass beat up yet by Arjun or anyone from his gang.

I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder before we started heading out of the classroom, stepping out in the hallway that was now less crowded than earlier. Carmen and I walked alongside each other and I know it was kind of stupid but Carmen was my favorite person to walk with. The girl was a slow walker and didn't care at all if she got late to wherever she was heading as long she got there at one point. She walked according to her own speed and her physique was so poor, she had to take breaks in between when climbing stairways. I didn't mind though. Because of my cerebral palsy, stairs weren't the easiest to climb, and that's why I liked having Carmen unintentionally matching my slow pace.

So while she walked and I limped along with her, we took breaks in between to climb up two of the longest stairways to exist to get to maths because the elevator was of course broken. For being a poor ghetto town, its only high school sure had the size of a mansion. A mansion with everything jacked up in it.

It was just yesterday, the whole school was surprised when they returned to school after the weekend to find all the trashed chairs and desks replaced with new ones, and all the smashed and vandalized lockers completely fixed and cleaned up.

"When did Isha say that party we're going to tonight starts?" Carmen asked, crouching down to tie the shoelaces of her black and white converse.

"Around seven, I think."

She sighed. " I don't really feel like partying tonight. Just wanna go home and sleep all day."

Now that was the most relatable thing I had heard all day.

"I'm just going for the food," I said. And I knew she was too and thus, that was probably the most relatable thing she had heard all day.

Carmen grinned at me. "I feel ya. Wanna get there the latest and jet the earliest with me?"

This conversation happening between us right now was exactly why I considered Camren my "I am you. You are me."

"Okay."

When we were about to start on the second stairway, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Carmen and I both groaned. Picking up phone calls was the biggest chore in the world for the two of us. Texting was way easier.

"I bet it's the easter bunny," Carmen said, unwrapping a gum and pulling it apart in two halves, shoving the one half into her mouth and the other half into mine.

Lazily, I pulled out my phone from my pocket and glanced down at a message from Everett in the student council group chat.

Everett: change of plans, guys. The student council meeting is going to be held right now instead of during lunch. I hope that's okay with you guys😃

Lily: Okay☺️

Ali: 👍🏾

Sonya: Sure. I'll be there.

Show other replies...

Me: it's not okay☠️

Peeking at my screen, Carmen's amused laugh filled my ears. "You savage hoe."

However, when it actually hit Carmen that I had to climb the stairs all the way back down because the student council room was located on the first floor while we were on our way to the third floor, she cursed. "Fucking hell. Screw him. You climbed all those stairs for nothing."

While I put my phone away, Carmen sighed and motioned to her back with her hand. "Here, get on."

"But then you have to go up again. You hate stairs too," I pointed out.

"Exactly. We both hate the stairs. I give you a ride back down and I ditch math so I can go home and sleep. So I'm actually doing both of us a favor."

I smiled briefly and Carmen grinned before she let me jump up on her back. Wrapping my legs around her waist, I let her carry me down and all the way to the student council room. After letting me down in front of the door, she waved before leaving. "Okay, have fun socializing. See you later, Lee."

As much as I wanted to just leave with Carmen and take a long nap with her, I also really wanted my allowance. Funny, I never imagined I would land a job in my second senior year, and that also in the student council. What an unexpected twist.

To visualize it as a job, Everett was my angsty and too nice for his own good boss and the other students were my colleagues who secretly hated me, the grumpy intruder among the council who their boss was too nice to for no apparent reason. Today was day two of my job and I already had the whole picture figured out for myself.

Curling my hand around the doorknob, I was about to pull open the door but Kevin's voice from inside the classroom made me remain still. "So far nobody's vandalized any part of the school property."

To my assumption, Everett didn't hesitate to speak up. "Actually, they have."

"What?"

I could hear him sigh even through the door. "Yesterday, when I was going home from school, I happened to walk past a locker which was covered with some pretty shitty words again."

"Do you know who did it and who's locker it was?" Lily questioned.

"I don't know who did it, but I do know that it was Lana's locker," Everett answered.

Someone snorted but I didn't realize it came from Kevin before he started speaking. "Lana's locker? Dude, that's no big deal. We don't have to go on with the punishment."

True. Nobody could argue with that.

"Wait. Hold on. What do you mean by it's no big deal? Someone vandalized her locker. Of course, it's a big deal."

Except for The President, Everett Weston himself, of course.

"It's not. You've probably figured out that The Sirens are violent, rude, and disrespectful as fuck. Of course, people are going to write on their lockers," Kevin said.

Everett didn't hold back. "All the gangs in this school are violent, rude, and disrespectful. It's not just The Sirens. Lana is still a student at this school and we can't just ignore that her locker was vandalized. Do you guys really think the students will like the new student council when they discover that a gang member's locker was vandalized and we just let it slide? Would they listen to us and respect us if we do that when legit 80 percent of the students in this school are gang members?"

"Everett's right," Ali agreed.

I could hear the others agree to Everett's words, but I was still confused. Why was this guy standing up for me?

Pushing the door open, I was faced by the whole student council seated around the usual large table in the center of the room. Everett's eyes caught mine first,  but Kevin spoke first. "You're late."

"I know."

"Why are you late?"

I raised my gaze to his. "Are you my boss?"

Embarrassment tinted his cheeks bright pink followed by the muscle in his jaw twitching briefly. "No, but-"

"-Kevin, It's fine. Lana's injured. It takes her longer than us to get to places. So it's fine. It's not her fault," Everett cut him off.

Slightly surprised, Kevin blinked twice. "Uh, she's not injured. She's disabled."

Awkward silence instantly filled the air in the room. Everett's gaze darted to me and when his brown eyes locked with mine, I caught a glimpse of sympathy in them.

"Fuck you," I quietly snapped at Kevin.

Offensiveness drew his brows together. "What? Seriously? You're the one who-"

"Come on Kevin. Stop it. Lana is here now and disabled or injured, they're both valid reasons to be late. So just drop it."

"Yeah, okay. Whatever," he muttered, folding his arms across his chest and turning his annoyed gaze away.

With a friendly smile, Everett turned to me and took a step back to let me pass through to get to my seat. "Lana, sit down and we'll start."

After taking my seat, Everett put his hands on the table and leaned down a little, glancing right and left to look us all in the eye as if he was about to share his bulletproof plan with us. Admittedly, he reminded me of Jada when she was ready to share the plans she had made for our hunts, but they actually were bulletproof. I realized that the excited glint in the center of his eyes mirrored hers.

"So today I was thinking we could discuss tutoring and outdoor activities."

"Tutoring?"

"Outdoor...activities?"

"Where are we going to get money for that?"

The corners of Everett's pulled up and his lips formed a smile as if he expected all these questions to be thrown at him. Just like that, he also had an answer planned out to those questions. "We can put recycling bins around the school for bottles and cans and recycle them every month and use that money to pay the tutors. As for the outdoor activities, I was thinking we could have sports matches two or three times a week during lunch breaks."

"The outdoor sports thing sounds cool, but I don't know about the tutoring. Do we even have people at this school who are interested in helping out others with their grades when they barely care about their own?"

Everett raised his hand. "I can."

Sonya raised hers. "I can too."

Lily did too. "Me too."

Ali. "I can too."

"And Lana too," Everett added.

My gaze jerked up from my laptop up, causing an amused smile to tug on Everett's lips.

"She hasn't said anything," Kevin said, bitterly.

"I'll convince her."

My gaze sharpened. "You will?"

He gave me a win-win smile before saying, "You'll get paid."

"I'll do it." The words flew out of my mouth before Everett even blinked.

The others exchanged astonished glances while Everett chuckled and continued sharing his plan. "Great. We already have six tutors."

While Everett rambled for some time, and I typed all the numbers into the budget on my laptop, I couldn't stop thinking about the boxes of pizza on the table.

Was nobody going to eat?

Well, fuck it. I grabbed the biggest pizza slice and bit into it while leaning back into my seat.

And just like that, another student council meeting passed by with Everett suggesting ideas that sounded normal for him but too bizarre for the others and me putting all the expenses on the budget on my laptop.

After the meeting was over, the bell rang to signalize that the last period was over, which meant the hallways were probably a sea of people bumping into each other.

"Not a crowd person?" Everett smiled at me while shoving his laptop in his backpack as he watched me remain in my seat and eat some more of that delicious pizza.

I could read this guy's face so easily, it was kind of funny. He was probably expecting a thank you but instead, I gave him the truth. "Baka."

His face contorted into a frown and almost a pout even. "What? Why?"

"Defending me will give you trouble. So stop it."

"But you'll respect me right?"

"What?"

"If I defend you when someone's being ignorant and straight-up rude about you and your disability, I'll stand up for you and I'll gain your respect, right?"

Leaving me flustered, he opened the door and glanced left and right before turning his head to me and jerking chin towards the hallway. "It's cleared out. Let's head to physics."

So before following him, I only sighed and said what came to my mind first. "Baka."

***

Author's note: Hi, guys! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. More chapters are coming soon:)

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