"What are you doing here?" I asked, surprised.

"I missed you too." He said sarcastically. "Now where's my hug?"

"See, my mom told me this..." I said, "She said to keep a distance away from stupid people."

I know it's a little too late for that, but...

"That's too bad," He shrugged, "I already know you, so I can't really stay away from you."

"Yes, you can." I rolled my eyes.

He mockingly put a hand over his heart. "Are you implying that I'm stupid? Come on, I didn't fail any classes when I was in fifth grade." He said proudly.

I didn't buy it. "What about when you were in sixth grade?"

He chuckled nervously, "You see... you don't need to know that. The information is top-secret."

"You sure? I know your sixth-grade homeroom teacher and I'm sure she wouldn't mind telling me your grades."

"Nah, she'll never tell you. She loved me." He huffed.

So that's why, sixth months later after all the chaos, we were sitting in Lysander's sixth-grade homeroom teacher's classroom.

"Hi, Mrs. Hill." I said, "We have a few questions to ask you."

She smiled a huge, warm smile. "Sure."

Lysander coughed. "Actually, she's the one with the questions, I'm the one that is here to watch you guys talk trash about me and all that good stuff."

We both ignored him. "Okaaaaay then." He said to himself quietly.

"Before we start," The teacher said, "You might want to add this to your list because I'm assuming this has to do with school." We both started coughing because it had nothing to do with schoolwork.

"Yeah," I coughed, "Of course."

She patted both of our backs. "Do you two need cough drops? You don't seem alright."

We both started coughing again. "No thanks." I wheezed while trying not to laugh.

"You sure?" She asked while she raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah," I coughed one last time, then cleared my throat, "Positive."

"Lysander found it funny doing a TikTok trend in the bathroom." She sighed. "My, my, I can't even remember how long he had detention for it."

"From September to the end of the school year," Lysander added.

I gaped at him. "...maybe I shouldn't have added that?" He laughed nervously, "Now start ignoring me again. It's fun."

"While you're at it, Mr. Spooner, please don't tear apart the ceiling and take pieces of it."

"Wait," I laughed, "He tore apart the ceiling?"

"Don't even get me started on it," She sighed again, "He did something and, one day after the next, one by one, removed all of the tiles from the ceiling in the boy's bathroom. He distributed them out to all the boys in the grade."

Tell me again, why did he take tiles from the ceiling anyway? Is there something super important taking ceiling tiles from the bathrooms? No wonder he didn't get good grades.

She sighed. "If only he put as much effort he put into that into his schoolwork, he wouldn't have gotten a C minus or below in every class." I grinned at him, who shrunk away in embarrassment. So much for Mrs. Hill liking Lysander the most.

"Your highest score in FIFTH GRADE was a C minus?" I asked, covering my mouth to hide my laughter.

His "shut up" confirmed that it was true.

"Watch your language, Spooner." Mrs. Hill said. She sighed. "If only I could meet the better Lysander Spooner, an American individualist anarchist. From the 1700s. Oh, how I'd love to meet him. Why did I have to meet this one with grades lower than my basement?" She asked herself, shaking her head in disappointment.

Then she finally noticed we were still there. "Oh. Y'all are still here? Leave, then!"

I like this Mrs. Hill lady. She was way better than my fifth grade teacher and the only thing she actually taught us was that Christopher Columbus was a spotlight-stealing brat.

It was rude how she worded it, honestly.

After we left, we headed back to Lysander's house. Correction: he went back to his house and dragged me. That's the truth.

The rest of the school year flew by, and before I knew it, we were graduating.

I remember clearly, that year when I graduated senior year with an ACT score of 35, that I felt very accomplished.

That's exactly what I said to Lysander, and he arrogantly replied, "Yeah, that's because you met me."

I didn't bother telling Lysander that I'd feel more accomplished not meeting him because he dragged me into a whole lot of drama.

"Uh-huh, whatever you want to think." I sighed. "I can't believe we're graduating today."

"I can," He chirped excitedly, "I wanna get out of this h*llhole."

I gasped. "You did not just say that."

"Oh, yeah. Yes I did. Wait, which word? Is it h-" He stopped himself from continuing. "Oh. I know now."

"Uh-huh. You know you're not allowed to cuss around me." I crossed my arms.

"But I just did! And other people don't mind..."

Wait. He cusses around other people? That's it, we're bringing this to the boxing center (not that I'll win or anything, but it sounded cool, so that's why I said it).

"That's other people. With me, no cussing."

"Today's the last day of school for the rest of eternity-" I cut him off.

"We have college after this." I cut in.

"-way to ruin the moment. I need to feel happy for a minute-"

"Sorry to blow it for you." I cut in again.

"WILL YOU JUST STOP CUTTING IN?"

"No." I laughed, "Yeah."

"ANYWAY," he said, "Today's the last day of HIGHSCHOOL, just let loose a bit! Like, I'm going to receive a scroll thingy from the president-"

I cut him off again. "You mean the principal?"

He shrugged, "Whatever. And I'll be receiving a fancy roll thing-"

"You mean a diploma?"

"Yeah. That." He agreed. "And I'm even going to wear a dress! That's probably the only dress I'm ever going to wear without people laughing at me because they're probably wearing the same thing."

"Don't worry," I said, "I'll laugh at you."

"Please. Don't." He begged. This is going to make me want to laugh at him more.

"I'll think about it," I replied, giving him a bit of mercy.

As we heard everyone else's speeches, I was waiting for my name to be called so I could embarrass myself and lower my social status more than it already was.

"Julia Robins," The principal called up.

It was time. I took a deep breath, and walked up to the stage.
_

Hi, guys! So here's the thing- the Wattys entries close in a week,s o this chapter had a huge time gap and I'm sorry.

Even more bad news- there WILL BE TWO MORE CHAPTERS. Plus some extra stuff I'm going to add at the end when I have time.

Thanks for reading so far! I love each and every one of you guys who've read this, are reading this, or silent reader. I appreciate you being here are reading.

I have a question: on a 1-10 scale, how cliche do you think this book is? Like, really, I wanna know.

(Cliche is basically you expected everything to happen because the storyline is so predictable. EX: Bad boy fell in love with nerd.)

Have a nice day and thanks again!

Somerandomhuman88