Alley-Oops I Think I'm Falling in Love (With the Wrong Guy)

The repercussions of Mr. Kekoa's serenade were swift and sharp. Random boys would pretend to sing to me in the cafeteria.

That sucked.

Girls from his fan club insisted on grilling me about every single detail, but not because they were excited for me. It was more like they couldn't fathom how I'd done it, so they wanted more facts to rectify the dissonance. There was just a malicious undertone to their questions and it made me inordinately uncomfortable.

I wanted everyone to forget about it.

A few days later, Mr. Powell told the class to split into groups. Even though we had a pretty reliable system going, my stomach still lurched every time I heard these words.

Taylor grabbed my shoulders and squeezed, "If you'll be my superstar, I'll be your groupie baby."

It was so trite, I actually laughed.

"Never say that to me again." I cringed, shivering away from his touch.

Taylor smiled and I knew it wasn't going to be the last time I heard that.

Roscoe plopped into Preston's vacant seat which was adjacent to mine, smelling strongly of Old Spice deodorant. He invited himself into our group without a word. Apparently Whitney and Allie weren't pulling their weight anymore.

Ugh.

I started on our assignment. I hated when Roscoe joined us. The sooner I finished, the sooner he could leave.

Inevitably, in a few minutes, Mr. Powell would tell Taylor to shut up and get to work or—if he were in a particularly bad mood—he'd ask to see Taylor's (blank) worksheet. He'd chastise him and return to his desk. That's when Taylor would cozy up to me, copy my notes, and continue his conversation in a whisper.

I usually finished around the time Mr. Powell got pissed off. So, I'd pull out a book for the remainder of class, while he scribbled down my answers.

Clearly, Whitney had nothing to worry about, I was such a freaking nerd.

Like clockwork, that's exactly what happened. As Mr. Powell waddled back to his desk, breathing hard from all the yelling, the boys towed their chairs to either side of me for optimal cheating speed.

"Nah, Preston's going to Indian Hills." Roscoe insisted, hunching over his paper so that he could see past me.

"He's not dude. I swear. I just asked him."

Roscoe clicked his tongue at this, "I thought everyone from Sprucefield went to Indian Hills. We gotta talk him out of it."

Taylor stretched, knocking me in the back of the head with his elbow. He loved doing little things like that—deliberately annoying people in ways that he could claim plausible deniability. It could have been an accident, but it wasn't. Just like it wasn't an "accident" when he knocked over Shui's water bottle this morning and spilled it everywhere.

How did I know this? Because I did this to my siblings all the time, and I kept doing it until they snapped.

Whenever he tried to use my own spells against me, I reverse uno'ed that shit. I pretended not to notice. It drove him crazy.

I innocently flipped the page of my book, leaning forward in my seat, resting my chin on my hand.

With a furrow in his brow and a brief pause, Taylor continued, "If you live on the other side of the railroad tracks you have to go to Crestwood now. He doesn't have a choice. I don't know anyone else that lives over there though."