Scenario: Chris, an average 19 year old highschooler is sitting in the classroom and is forced to pair up with the popular girl, who bullies him but secretly has a crush on him.
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Chris, an average 19 year old highschooler is sitting in the classroom and is forced to pair up with the popular girl, who bullies him but secretly has a crush on him.
I’m in 10th grade, and I’m not exactly a popular kid.
So, you can imagine my surprise when my teacher paired me up with Emily Thompson—the most popular girl at school—for a class project.
It was as if my teacher was setting me up for failure.
I didn’t have time to protest, though, as Emily’s blue eyes bored into me.
“Fine,” she said, voice dripping with annoyance.
“We can work together.”
Our classmates exchanged looks, followed by whispers and chuckles.
Emily was the type of person who was nice to everyone.
Well, except me, that is.
She had a reputation for being one of the kindest people on the face of the earth, but that wasn’t what I thought of her at all.
When our teacher finally pulled up two chairs for us to sit together, Emily gave me a condescending look.
She was clearly unhappy about this turn of events.
I couldn’t blame her—I was too.
But I wasn’t going to make it obvious like she was.
When we finally sat down, she turned to me.
“So, what are we supposed to do for this project again?”
She acted like this was the first time she’d seen me in months, and not the same girl who’d been tormenting me since middle school.
I huffed, trying to keep my anger in check.
“I know how much you love to bully me, but you could at least try to pretend that you want to work on this project with me.”
Emily plastered on a fake smile and turned toward me.
“Aw, look at you getting all upset over nothing,” she cooed.
I could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears as she tried to keep her temper under control.
This was one of her favorite games—pushing my buttons and then acting like I was the one with an attitude problem.
I wasn’t going to let her get to me this time, though.
I’d learned long ago that trying to fight with her only made things worse.
A few minutes later, our teacher handed us some worksheets and then walked away with a smile on his face.
He had no idea what he’d just done—and if he did, he wouldn’t be so happy about it.
As Emily and I worked on our project together, we could hear the class clown laughing loudly from across the room.
A few minutes later, he yelled out, “You guys are such a cute couple!”
This was followed by even more laughter from our classmates.
I rolled my eyes while Emily simply smiled at me as if that was the best joke she’d ever heard in her life.
“Great,” I mumbled under my breath as I continued to fill out my worksheet.
I’d already lost count of how many times she’d made me the laughingstock of the class today—and we’d only been partnered up for ten minutes!
This was just another example of how two-faced she was when it came to dealing with me in public versus in private.
In front of everyone else, she was sweet and kind, but when it was just the two of us…well, let’s just say she wasn’t exactly a fan of mine.
“Do you think they’ll invite us to their wedding?”
I looked up from my paper and saw that Emily was giving me a knowing look.
That was weird… What the hell was that supposed to mean?
I could feel my cheeks getting hot as I tried to figure out what she was getting at—could she know that I had a crush on her?
I mean, I wasn’t exactly subtle about it… But there was no way she could have found out—she would never talk to me again if she knew I liked her that way!
I forced myself to stop overthinking things and gave her a puzzled look instead.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly as her face turned red and she looked away from me.
It was probably nothing… But it was hard to ignore the flirty smile on her lips and the way her eyes seemed to sparkle with interest as she looked at me just now.
Usually when she looked at me, her eyes were full of scorn and disgust—but right now, they were anything but.
Maybe she really did have a crush on me!
I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much—especially since she’d been so cruel to me in the past—but it was hard not to let myself dream about what could happen if she really did have feelings for me.
“So…what exactly are we supposed to do for this project?”
she asked as she turned back to me.
I could tell by the look on her face that she was struggling with what we were supposed to do next.
The project our teacher had given us involved creating a presentation on the environment.
We had to start by researching some facts and then writing a script for our presentation before finally putting it together.
It wasn’t hard at all—but it was clear that Emily was going to need my help if we were going to get anything done on time.
“I can take care of the research part,” I told her.
“And then I’ll write out a script for us.”
I’d always been pretty good at schoolwork—and while Emily wasn’t dumb by any means, she wasn’t exactly the best student either.
That said, she looked a little startled by my words.
It was obvious that she was used to being the one in control and the one who didn’t need any help.
So, hearing me offer to take care of everything for her was probably a surprise.
I could see the wheels turning in her head as she thought about my offer.
“Sure,” she said finally.
“Let’s do that.”
I could tell that this wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do—but at the same time, I knew that she didn’t really have a choice in the matter either.
As I am doing research for our project I couldn't help but look up at you and I quickly look back down at the computer as so you don't notice me blushing.
The thing is…I’m pretty sure that Emily Thompson has a crush on me.
Now, I know that sounds pretty crazy considering how mean she is to me all the time—but there’s no other explanation for why she would be acting this way.
She has a boyfriend and plenty of friends—there’s no reason for her to try to get closer to me if it’s not because she likes me.
But it doesn’t make any sense.
If this is true and Emily really does like me then why does she always act so mean around me?
I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since we were paired up for this project and I just can’t seem to come up with an answer that makes sense.
If it’s true that Emily likes me then I want nothing more than to be able to like her back—but at the same time, I still can’t forget about everything that she’s done to me in the past.
It’s not easy to forgive and forget after all the things she’s put me through—and it’s not like I haven’t tried before.
After everything I’ve gone through with her, I just can’t believe that there’s anything more underneath that pretty face.
But what if there is?
What if all this time, she’s been putting on an act and I never even knew it?
What if there’s a sweet side of her that no one else gets to see?
I had so many questions for her and I knew that I needed to find some answers if I ever wanted to feel less confused about how she treats me all the time.
Now was my chance and I wasn’t going to let it go to waste.
I’m not sure if Emily knows this or not—but the thing is, I’m not actually as dumb as she thinks I am.
I mean, it’s not like I’m some kind of genius or anything either—but I definitely wouldn’t say that I’m stupid by any means.
I’ve always tried really hard in school and I’ve always managed to get good grades—even if most people don’t actually know how smart I am.
I know that Emily has never really seen my grades before because she’s always seemed surprised when I get answers right in class or when a teacher calls on me for something.
And while it doesn’t really bother me all that much, I can tell that it bothers her for some reason—probably because she doesn’t think that someone like me should be able to keep up with someone like her when it comes to schoolwork.
The way I see it, her bullying me all this time has been her little way of trying to remind me of my place in the world and make herself feel better about being so perfect all the time—but now that we were working on a project together, I had a few ideas of my own for how things were going to go down between us from now on.
Emily
I’m not sure what it is but there’s something about the way that Chris is looking at me that’s making me feel a little bit uncomfortable and I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is.
It’s true that I’ve always had a crush on him but now that I know that he’s gay, I’m not sure what I can actually do with these feelings.
I guess it’s not like it matters anyway though because I probably wouldn’t have ever had the guts to tell him how I felt in the first place.
I mean, it’s not like he would have ever liked someone like me anyway.
I want him to like me so badly that I can almost taste it but at the same time, I’m not sure if I can actually handle all the pain and heartache that would come with it.
So maybe it’s for the best that he’s gay after all.
But at the same time, I can’t help but wonder why he’s looking at me the way that he is.
It almost seems like he’s waiting for me to say something or do something—and I’m starting to get a little bit nervous.
The last thing I want is for him to think that I actually like him or anything like that because then he might start getting the wrong idea about what all of this is actually about in the first place.
I just don’t want things to end up getting ruined between us before they even have a chance at getting started.
So I try my best not to overthink things and instead I just focus on what I’m doing so that I don’t have to worry about anything else around me right now.
It’s a little bit hard since he keeps looking up at me every few minutes and I don’t know why—but there’s nothing I can do about it.
And while I’m trying my best not to let all of this get to me, I can’t help but wonder what it would actually be like if Chris liked me back.
What would life be like without all of the pain and heartache that comes from not being able to tell someone how you really feel?
It seems like such a simple thing to ask for but at the same time, I know that it will never be that easy for someone like me.
Someone who has always been so popular and had everything handed to her on a silver platter.
Someone who has never had to work for anything in her life and has always been so used to getting whatever she wanted without having to put in any effort at all.
At the end of the day, I’ll never be good enough for someone like Chris.
And that’s just the way that it is.
“Why are you always so mean?”
I ask him and he looks up at me with his big brown eyes—almost like I’ve caught him off guard or something.
“Do you have any idea how much you hurt my feelings all the time?
It almost makes him jump out of his chair or something, his eyes going wide with shock before he quickly looks back down at his paper.
I don’t know why I said that.
It just kind of came out and now I wish that I could take it back.
Because there are people watching us, of course, and they’re all wondering what we’re talking about—and I don’t want them to know about how much he actually means to me or anything like that.
It’s not important, anyway, because he’ll probably never feel the same way about me that I feel about him in the first place.
But still, I don’t want him to think that this is some kind of joke or anything like that either.
It’s not fair for him to think that I’m only pretending to care about him when he knows just how much of a jerk I’ve been in the past.
He probably thinks that I’m just messing with him or something, too, but that’s not true either.
“I don’t know,” he replies with a shrug of his shoulders, “because maybe you deserve it.”
I roll my eyes at him and then get up out of my chair so that I can go to the bathroom without having to worry about what he might say next.
Not that it really matters anyway, though, since he probably won’t even realize that I’m gone to begin with.
He’ll probably just sit there in his seat and wonder why I left without saying anything to him since we’re supposed to be working together on this stupid project whether either one of us wants to or not.
But it’s not like he really has a choice in the matter, anyway, since we were assigned partners by our teacher and we have to do it whether we like it or not.
It’s just too bad for him, I guess, because now he’s stuck with someone like me and there’s nothing he can do about it.
I take my time going to the bathroom and then walk around the hallway for a while before going back to class, trying my best not to think about anything else as I do.
I know that people are probably talking about us while I’m gone, but it doesn’t really bother me that much anymore.
Let them think whatever they want to think because nothing is going to change what is actually going on between us right now anyway.
When I finally get back to the classroom, Chris is sitting at his desk with his headphones on, listening to music or something like that while he waits for me to come back from wherever it was that I went while he was gone.
“So what have you come up with so far?”
I ask him when I sit down beside him again and he looks up at me with a small smile on his face, taking his headphones off before answering my question.
“Not much,” he admits with a shrug of his shoulders, “but hopefully something better than what you’ve got.”
I roll my eyes at him again, trying not to laugh this time as I look down at my paper to see what he means by that comment.