"Please tell me we have lunch now," I groaned.

"You're in luck. We do," Isla laughed.

We were packing up after chemistry class. All we did was safety instructions and nothing else. At. All.

"Yes! Let's go!" I yelled and grabbed her arm. I dragged her out the door and then stopped. I had no idea where the cafeteria was.

I turned to Isla. "Uhh..where--?"

She laughed. "Follow me."

This time she's the one to grab my arm and drag me to the cafeteria. We walked down the stairs again and pushed our way to through the crowds.

"People still have class right now?" I asked when I saw students walking into classrooms.

"Yeah, the freshmen and sophomores have lunch after us because otherwise there would be too many students on lunch break."

"Huh. I guess that makes sense."

We walked through the doors of the cafeteria and a lot of people looked our way. Some started whispering and Isla looked at the floor.

I nudged her with my shoulder. "Keep your head up," I instructed.

She nodded and looked up. Her eyes scattered over all the students. This must be giving her major anxiety.

"I'm gonna get some lunch, you coming?" I asked her.

"No, you go ahead. I'll wait back there."

"You're not gonna eat?"

"I brought a sandwich from home."

"Okay, if you say so.." I said and eyed her warily.

She smiled at me reassuringly and walked over to the corner of the cafeteria. She leaned against the wall and motioned for me to go.

I made my way to the line to get food. There were just a few people infront of me.

"Well, who do we have here?"

I turned around and see Ryder with his group of friends.

Why was he suddenly talking to me? Not even two hours ago he wanted nothing to do with me.

"Well, it looks like a very eager creature begging for attention because he doesn't get any at home or in school and me!" I told him and rolled my eyes.

His friends started laughing. "Oooh, burn!"

What a bunch of immature children.

"You've got quite a mouth on you, darling," Ryder said.

"Tell me something I don't know," I said and smiled sweetly at him. I rolled my eyes again and turned around.

"You know, I like it when a girl plays hard to get," Ryder said in my ear.

I elbowed him in his stomach and he let out an 'umph'. He staggered back a bit, not expecting me to hit him.

"Personal space, buddy," I called over my shoulder.

His friends laughed again. By the now, almost the whole cafeteria was watching us.

Don't they have anything better to do?

"I'm afraid I don't know what that means," he said, standing up straight again.

I scoffed. "Yeah, you can tell."

I heard him step closer to me and then somebody talk.

"Ryder, you coming?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there. I've got to go, darling. Hopefully I can talk to you later."

"I wouldn't hold my breath," I told him.

It was my turn to get food. They were selling pizza and pudding cups.

"Could I have two pizza slices and a pudding cup?" I ordered and handed over my money.

"Well luckily for you, I have a strong pair of lungs," Ryder said.

I took my food and walked over to a nearby table, knowing he would follow me.

He did.

"What's wrong? Don't have any more comebacks? Run out of ideas?" he taunted.

I put down the plate with the pizzas and opened the pudding. I licked off the pudding from the top wrapper thing.

"I don't need any more comebacks," I told him.

He gave me a confused look and opened his mouth to say something.

Before he could speak, I dumped the pudding over his head. It ran down his hair and over his face. A drop ran down the middle of his forehead.

I wiped it away with my finger and then licked my finger clean.

"I hope you like chocolate," I said and then walked away, remembering to grab my plate.

The whole cafeteria erupted into laughter.

I smiled to myself. I did a good job.

I walked over to Isla who was staring at me in awe and her mouth hanging wide open.

"That was awesome!"

"Why, thank you," I said. "You wanna eat outside?"

"Sure, come on." She waved for me to follow her and we walked out of the cafeteria. Hundreds pairs of eyes following us.

We walked through the halls and stepped outside into the warm air. The sun was shining brightly and there were no clouds in the sky.

Isla tilted her head up and closed her eyes. "This is my favorite type of weather."

"Really?"

She opened her eyes and looked at me.

"Yeah. Yours isn't?"

I shook my head and walked over to an unoccupied table.

"Nope. My favorite weather is when it's raining but the sun is still shining. So basically it's bright and sunny but it's still raining so the rain is warm too."

"I have never heard an answer like that before," she told me and sat down.

"Well, I do like to think I'm special," I said and smirked at her.

She laughed. "That you are."

I sat down too and picked up a slice of pizza. I pushed the other piece that was still on the plate towards Isla.

She looked up at me and raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"It's for you," I told her.

"No. You bought it. It's yours."

"Incorrect. I bought it for you."

"Why?"

"You might be the one who can read a person like an open book but I had the feeling that you wanted pizza, but you didn't want to stand in line with all of the other students."

"Looks like I've got competition," she joked.

"I know. I think you're already rubbing off on me."

____________________

"What do you have now?" Isla asked.

The bell just rang, indicating that we had to go to class.

"Uh, let me check."

I took out my schedule and looked at it.

"I have P.E. Is that even healthy? Having it right after eating lunch?"

"I don't think so. But yay! We have P.E. together!" she cheered and shook me by my shoulders.

"Why are you so excited?" I asked her, laughing.

She stopped and we walked back into the school.

"Are you kidding me? You should know how horrible it is to have P.E. without anybody to talk to, considering that's like half of what the people do in P.E."

"You're right."

We walked through a door and into the girl's locker room. There were already girls changing and talking. Some of them being Ashlin and her friends.

We made our way to some unoccupied lockers and put our backpacks in there.

"Anybody else in our class I should know about?" I asked Isla and nodded at Ashlin who was currently whispering to her friends and looking at us.

"Umm, kind of," she said and took off her shirt.

She looked at me apologetically.

"What does that mean?"I asked her and took my own shirt off.

"You see, boys and girls have P.E. combined and Ryder, Blake and his friends happen to be with us."

My eyes widened. "Are you kidding me?!"

"No, sorry," she laughed, trying to soften the news.

I groaned. "This is just great."

I put on my gray racerback tank and some black volleyball shorts.

Isla was wearing a light blue tank and some black sweatpants.

"You do know how hot it is outside, right?" I asked her.

"Yeah, but I don't really like showing my legs that much," she quietly whispered.

"Alright, step one of getting some confidence: be comfortable in your body. So take those of and put these on."

I handed her an extra pair of volleyball shorts I had with me. They were just like mine except they were gray.

"Are you crazy? Everyone will laugh!"

"Just put them on! If it really looks that bad I'll let you change," I said.

"Fine," she grumped and changed. Once she's finished, she looks at me.

"Wow.. you have an amazing figure!" I told her while putting my hair in a ponytail.

"Uh, thanks," she blushed and also put her hair up.

"You're gonna wear those from now on," I toldl her.

Isla looked at me horrified. "What if they do laugh?"

"Then I'll punch them," I said and smiled at her.

She nodded unsurely but followed me outside. We made our way to the track, where people were already stretching.

I see Ashlin and her friends standing up and reaching for their toes, showing off their asses more than they actually needed to.

The guys were checking them out and hollering. The girls either winked of blew them a kiss in return.

I looked at Isla an pretended to gag. She laughed, showing me that she also saw what I saw.

"Is it like that every time?" I asked.

"Pretty much. But it's even worse now that we're all juniors."

"Oh god!" I groaned.

We got closer to the group and they saw us. We got a few wolf whistles and Isla runs bright red. I laughed at her.

"Don't worry about them. They're just hormonal crazed teenagers," I told her.

She chuckled and nodded.

I saw Ryder and Blake coming over with their friends.

"What?" I asked, already annoyed.

I looked at Ryder and saw that he tried to wash out the pudding out of his hair. It didn't really work though. There was still pudding here and there.

I bit my tongue, trying not to react because I know I'll get in even more trouble than I already am but I fail.

I bursted out laughing and pointed at Ryder's hair. I bent over and tried to control my laughing to no avail.

"Oh...my...you're..hair," I said and kept laughing.

He just watched me with a pissed off expression.

I took a deep breath and stopped laughing. I stood up straight again but started laughing again once I saw Ryder.

Isla was stifling her laugh pretty good, unlike me.

Once I calmed down, I directed my attention to them and wiped away a tear.

"Okay, what do you want?" I asked, still slightly chuckling.

"I just wanted to tell you to watch your back," Ryder told me and crossed his arms over his chest.

I laughed. "You think I'm actually scared of you? Think again, pretty boy."

"Thank you for noticing the obvious."

I rolled me eyes.

Egoistic jerk.

Then, the coach came and blew his whistle. It was another man.

Why were all my teachers so far male?

"I'm coach Sanchez. For the first few weeks we will be playing basketball. At the end, you will be playing in teams and one on one, where I will be grading you."

Isla got an excited look on her face. She was even bouncing a little bit.

"Something tells me you like basketball," I whispered to her.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Well, you're basically jumping up and down and if you smile any bigger your face will stay like that," I joked.

"Everyone head to the court and stand off to the sides," coach ordered.

We headed to the court and stood at the sides like we were told.

"We're going to do a practice run so that I can see what you all need to work on. Okey, Richards and Romero, you're on first."

"Um, why are you starting off with R?" Ashlin asked.

Idiot.

Doesn't she know not to question a coach's decisions?

"Because I feel like it. Now drop and give me 20. Richards, Romero, on the court!"

Ashlin's jaw dropped. I chuckled and turned to Isla, expecting her to laugh too. But she was just standing their with a worried look on her face.

"Now, Collins!"

Ashlin got on the floor and started doing some really bad push ups. If that doesn't embarrass her, I don't know what will.

"And for the last time, Richards--" Blake stepped out onto the court, looking quiet sure of himself.

I hope whoever's against him will beat his ass.

"And Romero!"

I turned to a pale Isla. "Who's last name is Romero?"

Instead of giving me an answer, she walked out on the court.

Oh my god...her last name was Romero!

The class started laughing quietly. They all thought that Blake was sure going to beat Isla.

"Okay, first person to get the ball through the hoop two times wins. Doesn't matter how many points. You both know the rules?

They both nodded.

"Aright then. Let's begin."

He threw the ball to Isla, who didn't catch it. The whole class snickered and she ran after the ball.

"Looks like there won't be much of a game," coach muttered.

I thought Isla was good at basketball...

She got into position and coach blew his whistle.

She stood there awkwardly and dribbled the ball. Blake easily stole it from her and shot the basketball. It went through the net and the class cheered.

Come on, Isla.

Coach threw the ball at Isla again, who this time barely caught it.

"You're not giving me much competition," Blake said and smirked.

She gulped and started dribbling the ball.

Coach blew his whistle and Isla ran around Blake. She ran towards her hoop. She would definitely make the shot like this. But then, she tripped and stumbled forward. She threw the ball before she fell to the ground so she could catch herself.

The ball flew through the air and through the hoop.

The whole class gasped. So did I.

I knew what she was doing!

She was pretending she couldn't play so that she could trick Blake into never expecting her to be any good.

I stared at Isla, with my jaw dropped, just like the rest of the people.

She smiled at me, knowing I figured out what she was doing. I laughed and shook my head in disbelief. She shrugged her shoulders, pretending to be totally innocent.

Blake glared at the group of students. "It was a lucky shot," he grumbled.

Yeah, not really.

They got back into position and Blake got the ball.

He looked mad at the fact that the girl no one notices just scored a point against him.

She pretended to look scared.

She pulled it off really good. No kidding, she could be a professional actress.

Coach blew his whistle.

Blake ran around her and dribbled to his hoop. He was about to shoot but then Isla came up behind him and stole the ball. She took it and twisted around quickly before he had time to react.

She ran down the court to her hoop with Blake hot on her heals.

She got close enough to shoot but Blake was to close to her. If she shot now, he could steal the ball. She knew this because suddenly, she turned around, confusing Blake.

As he realised that he had to turn around, Isla shot the ball and it went through the hoop.

Everyone's jaw dropped to the floor. Except mine. I knew this was going to happen. I just smiled proudly.

The only sound was the basketball bouncing on the concrete. That is, until I ran up to her and started cheering.

I hugged her and screamed. "You did it! You did it! You beat that motherfucker!"

She laughed and shook me off.

She looked happy. She was proud of herself.

Blake stalked back to the group. He was really mad.

"Wow, I did not expect that," coach said.

Don't be sexist, dude.

___________________

"You were amazing out there!" I excitedly said as we walked back to the locker rooms.

"Thanks. But I would never have been able to do it if you weren't there," she gratefully said.

We changed back into our clothes and walked out of the locker room.

"Do we still have class or are we through with today?"

I really hope we were done. I was tired and just wanted to sleep.

"No, we can go home," she laughed.

"Thank god!"

We walked out to the parking lot.

"Okay, I've got to go. I'm parked over there," Isla said and pointed in the opposite direction that I had to go.

"Alright. Give me your number real quick before you leave."

We exchanged numbers and then said goodbye. I walked to Dylan's car and saw that he was already waiting inside. I got in and buckled my seatbelt.

"And? How was the first day?" he asked me as he pulled out of school.

"It was fine. I think I made a friend," I told him and smiled.

"Really? That great," he said and smiled too.

"How about you?"

"It was good. I also made a few friends."

"That's cool."

"Yeah, two of them are in your grade. Do you know anyone named Ryder and Blake?"