I was on the verge of giving up, my patience waring thin. Maybe I had that womanly time of month to blame. Or maybe it was that my cat puked on my bed at four o'clock that morning, giving me a bad start to my day — whatever it was I agitated to no end. And the one person I wanted to hold responsible was Lincoln Pierce.

Next week's term paper was sprawled out across a table that had the capability of seating four people. For the last two days I had taken up the same location in the library and like always, my assignments were spread out in a disastrous jumble— yet all I could do was tap my ball point pen and stare into the vacant front foyer.

Ms. Scott shot looks of irritation at me from behind her desk. I was surprised the middle aged woman didn't remove me from the library, considering I could only pause my fiddling for minutes at a time before picking up the annoying habit again.

With the glare she was sending me I was sure she would end up shooting me in the face with her stapler.

Lincoln Pierce hadn't shown up since our first session last week. And to be honest it was starting to get to me. The fact that he was avoiding me like the plague, however, just irked me even more. Especially, when I had some target on my back.

The 'pranks' hadn't ceased in the slightest. I was still having invisible people chucking things at me in the hallway and booby-trapping my cafeteria lunches. Never again was I buying lemon poppyseed muffins from the cafe, not unless I was on a suicide mission.

I knew it was Lincoln behind my harassment. And I wouldn't have been the slightest bit surprised if his group of friends were in on it too. There was no way Lincoln had the brain capacity to forge a way to be drenching me with Kool-aid and freezing cotton balls to my car at the same time. There was no way.

The exaggerated stapling being done by the librarian pulled me from my thoughts. Her eyes were narrowed, her nose plagued with wrinkles as she looked at me, fastening sheets together in exaggerated motions. I dropped my pen to the table top. With my head down I returned to my assignment sheet, trying my hardest to focus.

Letting out a huff of annoyance I turned my gaze to the all-too-familiar clock that hung over the green prison-like double doors of the library. I had been reading the same line over and over — reading the words but not understanding their meaning — all because I was too preoccupied thinking about a certain brown eyed boy who wasn't going to show up.

A moving figure popped into my peripheral vision, causing my eyes to flick over. Making his way across the foyer and towards the front entrance of the school was Lincoln Pierce himself.

His hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his faded blue jeans, the muscles of his back straining against the leather of his jacket. It wasn't until he was almost out of my line of vision that I got this maddening urge.

Almost knocking my chair back I stood from my seat. My hands flew everywhere, grabbing papers, pens, books, and tossing them into my bag at lightning speed.

Pairs of eyes watched my frenzy from every direction. The attention I was receiving usually would have made me want to curl up in a hole. At this point, however, I had a certain delinquent I had to confront.

Gripping the strap of my bag I charged for the exit only to pause when the wailing of an alarm emitted throughout the library. I backtracked four feet to Ms. Scott's station and tossed the unchecked book on the wooden surface.

"I'll be back for that!" I shouted, sprinting through the detectors for the second time.

I speed over the linoleum floor, pushing through two sets of doors before I made it outside. Doing a quick survey of the front portion of the school I noticed Lincoln's heavy stature making it's way towards his outdated vehicle.

"Hey!" I hollered after realizing how far he'd gotten. To my utter frustration, I was too short to really keep up.

"Lincoln!" I called in one last attempt. I dashed along side the front football field, my bag jiggling and making a ruckus as I went.

Lincoln stopped in his tracks, his left hand resting on the rusting handle of his car. Even from my distance a few feet away I still registered the ticking of his jaw.

Three feet of distance, that's all I dared before putting my hands on my knees in an attempt to catch my breath. The frigid winter air nipped at the inside of my throat as I panted, causing me to wince.

By the time I was able to pull myself together I figured Lincoln was going to be long gone. To my disbelief however, Lincoln was still in front of me when I rose to my full — unimpressive — height.

"Hi," was the first genius thing to come out of my mouth.

He didn't answer.

Being grateful that he hadn't taken the opportunity to run me over with his car I decided to approach the situation lightly. Maybe he was in a good mood today.

"You haven't been showing up for tutoring. You haven't been sick or anything have you?"

Lincoln just stared. If looks could kill I'm sure I'd be dead. He turned back to his beat up Volkswagen and made a move to open the driver side.

"If the time doesn't work for you we could always change it around? You probably don't want to give up your lunch hour. We could—"

Lincoln finally uttered words but I was too busy working through a mock schedule in my head to pay attention.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Do I have to say it in some other language for you to understand? Fuck. Off."

It's like someone flushed the thoughts from my brain. Lincoln's harsh words had the contemplation of new meeting times spiralling out of my head.

"For someone supposedly so smart you really are a dumb shit, aren't you?" He continued bluntly. "I don't fucking want your help!" His large hand slamming against the open car door caused it to shut with a bang.

The force was so great even the smokers on the far edge of the lot turned in our direction.

Lincoln's eyes were furious and in that moment I realized why the last of his eight tutors ran for the hills. He was intimidating as hell.

And I thought Ella had a temper...

A stare-down occurred between the two of us and I could have sworn steam was bellowing from his ears. I was silent as his stared me down, replaying images of him hanging me somewhere from my hair.

Moments passed and my staring contest with a bull-like Lincoln came to a stop once he turned his back to me. The leather wearing boy left me in a state of shock as he stalked back to his car mumbling something under his breath.

"Stupid bitch."

Storming towards him I pushed the car door shut with both hands. A resounding bang shook the lot for a second time.

I ignored the complaints from the edge of the lot and shoved my index finger into Lincoln's unfazed looking face.

"Look. This 'bitch' here has been running late for work for the past week because of your ungrateful ass." I stated shoving my finger in his stone hard chest. "And Mrs. Lake has been working her butt off to make sure your incapable self graduates. So instead of chasing anyway anyone willing to help you with dead rats and stink bombs why don't you take the opportunity and, I don't know..." I trailed off pretending to think for a moment, "open a damn textbook!"

Lincoln gazed right at me, unaffected by what came out of my mouth. That didn't help my overflowing furry.

"Instead of avoiding something you don't want to do," still feeling riled up I let my thoughts pour from my mouth like a broken dam, "maybe you should confront it and stop acting like a spoiled brat. I babysit children more mature than you."

I was feeling proud of myself, exhausted but proud that I stood up to someone like Lincoln Pierce. Sadly, that feeling sank back when the corner of his eye twitched.

Maybe I wasn't brave, maybe I was just stupid.

Lincoln stepped up to me, like one fighter sizing up another, and caged me to the side of his car.

"Fine." Lincoln bit out. "You want me to confront my issue?" He paused, searching my brown orbs and probably relishing in the fear he found there. Without hesitation Lincoln brought his strong jaw down to my level and tilted to whisper in my ear, "You're fired."

"Fired? You can't fire me!" I stated once he backed away and opened his car door for the third time.

"Just did, sweetheart." His tone was full of smugness and that just cheesed me off even more.

He slid behind the wheel and went to wrench the door shut. Stepping within the door's path I kept it open, glaring at the idiot inside.

"Wow, your mother must be so proud to have such an overachiever as a son." I said, sarcasm dripping from my lips.

Something sparked in Lincoln's usually cold eyes. His strong features lost their fierceness for a moment. He flinched as if I'd physically hurt him. Lincoln Pierce was upset over what I had said.

I stood there, mouth open, the need to apologize overcoming me. But there was no time for that. It didn't take Lincoln very long to recover. As soon as his wall came down, it came right back up. He jerked the door shut, almost amputating four of my fingers in the process, and with a rev of his engine he was gone.

Anger was still surging through me as I watched Lincoln run a stop and shoot down the street. Stomping my way back inside the school I ignored the shivers that wracked my body.

Just as I made my way back inside the ringing of the bell sounded drowning. I stomped by the Guidance Office as the halls filled with students. There was no point in any of this anymore. With only a week left, there was no way I had enough time to find somewhere else to volunteer and get forty hours out of it. I would be returning for an extra year of high school.

I was able to blend in with the familiar strangers that swarmed the once desolate halls. Familiar strangers who didn't have to deal with Lincoln Pierce. Stomping through the flow of people I cursed his name. I hadn't been so frustrated with someone in a long time, yet he makes his grand entrance into my life for a brief moment and manages to uncover all the right buttons to make me want to boil over.

The closer I got to my locker the more the extra weight in my bag annoyed me. I'd been carrying the damn biology textbook around, waiting for a session where he would showed up. However, with the new knowledge of never hearing from him again I wanted to be rid of it now more than ever. The stupid thing would just be a reminder of something I failed at. Not exactly something I wanted to keep.

Feeling as if though the book was burning a hole in my bag I dug in and took it out, bumping shoulders with someone in the process. I kept my eyes opened for the nearest garbage can on the route to my locker but I ended up finding something better.

Down the hall, huddled around a couple of lockers, were a group of familiar looking boys. Lincoln's goon squad, as Harper referred to them. Andrew Bryan stood among them, laughing along to something.

He was just the goon I was looking for.

Cutting across the hall, I tapped Andrew's trembling shoulder. Sobering up he turned to me.

"Here." I thrusted the hardcover into his chest, causing a couple of his friends to peer over.

"Thanks, but uh... this isn't mine, sweetheart." The similarities between him and his best friend forced a glare on my face. I wasn't in the mood to deal with Lincoln Jr.

"Look. I know your idiotic best friend probably won't come within ten feet of this thing for the rest of the semester, but I'm tired of lugging it around. Burn it at one of your bush parties for all I care. That's just about the only use that asshole will ever get out of it anyways." I was prepared to take my dramatic exit and run when another thought came to mind. "Or, you know, you could always throw it at the next poor soul that offers to tutor him. You can chuck it at them from the roof after you stun them with a bucketful of freezing, cherry Kool-aid."

Not caring for what he had to say I went to go grab my stuff so I could head to work.

Never, was I ever, going to be tutoring again.