Matters of the Hart

Chapter 4 - Let’s not discuss the health benefits of a cheese pizza.

In every cliché high-school story, there are always the same characters - the good girl and the bad boy. Also, there are exactly three plots.

One, the good girl catches the bad boy's eye in the cafeteria. He places a bet on her and takes her for rides on his bike. She ends up falling in love with him. She finds out about the bet but ends up forgiving him anyway (after much drinking and partying and drama of course).

Two, the good girl bumps into the bad boy in the hallway. He goes hulk on her and she mouths him off. The bad boy gets attracted to her and tries to woo her. Give or take a possessive cheerleader ex-girlfriend and a mad best friend, the good girl realises that she can't live without the bad boy and they run off to Uni together.

Three, the good girl becomes the bad boy's tutor. The bad boy annoys her a lot but actually secretly likes her. They fall in love and get a dog together.

But since we were not an average cliché, this is plot four. The good girl tutors, wanna-be bad boy (who is really dumb by the way). The good girl thinks he is too annoying. The bad boy asks stupid questions, so the good girl hits the bad boy on the head with his own book, takes the remaining Kit-Kats and runs away. The End.

It had been two weeks since I had begun tutoring Noah. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the library after school hours and boy was it torture. That guy was as dumb as a post and that was me not at all putting it lightly.

We would start on a certain page and two minutes into it he'd make up some shitty joke about one of the characters and that would somehow lead him back to the past and he'd randomly say something nice about me that he remembered from all those years ago and expect me go 'aww' about it.

He had taken the 'we will be best-friends again' part very seriously. Honestly, I was only in this for the Kit-Kats and I couldn't wait for the semester to be over.

On our way out of the brown doors on Friday evening, I even smiled at Miss Martha who was sitting at her big desk covered in lots of books and magazines, but she turned her face away like always. Miss Martha was what most people would call a bundle of arrogance and lack of a s*x-life.

Cole said she was always cranky because one, she wasn't getting any younger and two, she wasn't getting any action. Cole was so gross, honestly. I guess I thought that maybe she was just shy. It would explain why she always hid in the library; so she wouldn't have to face a lot of people.

"Which parents would purposely name their son Fitzwilliam? No wonder why Darcy sulks so much." He said, once we had walked out of the building and I couldn't be happier.

Like I said, it was Friday and there were a lot of places I could be at than tutor dumb-beg Noah. But obviously, I had to make the silliest of the choices. Kit-Kats Thea, do it for the Kit-Kats.

"Kind of like your little tribe," I muttered inaudibly.

"We don't sulk!" Obviously not so inaudible but hey, at least it got my point across.

"Yeah and I'm Red Riding Hood," I said sarcastically, my fake smile still not wavering even a bit.

This was what I liked most about Noah. I could deny I didn't want him as my friend again, but with him it was easy. We'd just pick up one topic and continue bantering for hours on the silliest of things. But that was all those years ago and people change. I did.

Noah raised his eyebrows playfully at me and opened his mouth to make another smart-ass comment but another voice came through before he could speak. A deep, male voice with a 'get-out-of-my-face' vibe. "Stark."

We both turned around to locate where it was coming from at the same time and I almost wanted to face-palm. Should have known. No one else in this school would dare to call Noah by his last name.

"Hey, man," Noah said. We were on our way to East Court after getting some real-time study done, or in this case at least trying to and I so couldn't handle another wannabe right now.

The owner of that voice walked over to us (to him, I just happened to be there at the same place and the same time). I looked back to Noah again.

Now a cliché tribe of bad boys would have their special 'Boy-band special' bro-hug or handshake or whatever it is they did. But then I realised that the people standing in front of me were no bad boy cliché, just wannabe inapproachable specimens. So they only bumped fists. Boy-tribes that brood together, stay together.

"Thea," he nodded curtly at me; I didn't think he'd acknowledge me at all (wouldn't be the first time). But well, if he was being nice, then maybe I should greet him back. And I would have if he hadn't spoken the next few words. "If you're done playing tutor, you can go."

There you go.

So much for being nice, I sighed. And who was he to tell me what to do and where to be? But I let it slide, like always. I was too mentally tired for arguments. Especially with his non-existent common-sense.

"It was good to see you too, Caleb." I fake-smiled at him, pulling at the straps of my Victoria's Secret black backpack before looking back at Noah again. "I'll see you Monday, Noah." I smiled genuinely. No smiles for the rude bad boy wannabe.

Caleb Ridgewood, the second of the four Broody Brothers. I didn't need many words to describe him. Just one. Arrogant. Being an ass came naturally to him, I guess.

That boy was on his man-period three hundred and sixty-five days a year and I didn't mean to exaggerate but no living human in the history of mankind had ever seen him break into a smile. He had exactly one expression for every mood and situation as if it had been stuck there with superglue.

He was shorter than Noah by around less than an inch, with caramel-brown hair and blue eyes and a similar physique. They say the colour of your irises darkened by a shade if you were angry. No wonder I thought his eyes were a deep shade of blue.

He must really hate me.

Caleb was a scholarship student; he wasn't over-the-top rich like Noah, but he was pretty well-off himself.

He was smart, really smart and there was no doubt that he was one of the top students in our form and took part in a lot of extra-curricular activities outside of the scope of academics. He spent his energy currency in the basketball court with Noah (he was on the team too), in the janitor's closet (eww), and then some more 'eww' things.

Caleb wasn't a bad looking guy. If I may say so, he was handsome. Now forget I said that.

But I could never quite understand what girls saw in him though, or in any of the four for that matter. They were rude, cocky and all-angry-everything all the time. All they had were blessed genes in the looks department. But girls were mad for Caleb.

In this place you probably wouldn't find two girls fighting over a limited edition Fendi purse, but the probability of finding two girls clawing at each other over Caleb Ridgewood was high, very high. And Caleb being the ass that he was, he'd just walk past them nonchalantly, secretly smirking to himself.

The most crucial detail about Caleb Ridgewood was that he was allergic to a girl named Thea Hart, which just so happened to be me. For some reason unknown to the universe, Caleb had taken a dislike to me from the very first time I had spoken to him and it was no surprise he would remember to hate me now, even after a year and a half.

Sometimes it was hurtful, but when I finally realised that his attitude towards me wasn't going to change anytime soon I stopped paying heed to his jabs and taunts. Obviously we were not friends anymore because of him, but it's not like he was guilty or upset about it. Neither was I.

***********

It was half past six by the time I was done with my homework and my favourite time of the day - food time. Dinner on school campus was served every evening between six and eight o'clock. Every day, there was a different cuisine. And guess, what they served every Friday? *Drumroll please* Pizza!

Lia and I were already seated at our table, with our food. A plain salad and cheese pizza. Ironic but if I had to question every life choice I ever made, I'd probably still be peeing in my diapers. It's a good combination. - the salad kept me healthy and the pizza kept me happy. Let us not discuss the health benefits of a cheese pizza.

"This is why I love Fridays," I said, moaning after I took a bite of one triangular piece of my seven inch pizza. Triangles were important, maybe I should start paying attention in Trig.

"You and me both, sister. You and me both," she smacked her lips together, picking up a slice of her own pizza.

"You and I," I tsk-ed once as I kept my slice of pizza back on the plate and picked up a piece of cabbage. Very healthy diet, I know. It was Thea's special - only available on display every Friday.

"What about us?" Amelia's obviously confused face meant that she truly didn't understand what I had just done. I smirked to myself; the possibility of getting kicked in the shin was very high but right now I'd give anything to see steam come out of her ears. So like a good girl, I did what I had to.

"No, it's you and I, not you and me, Lia."

I read a lot, and by a lot, I meant that I had probably read one-fourth of the five thousand plus books in our humongous library. From mystery to action, I was open to every genre, although I did have a soft corner for romance. That was why I loved English Lit so much. And that was also why, every inch of my being was a grammar Nazi. If looks could kill, I'd be dead already.

Half of the time, Amelia wanted to kill me because of my annoying habits but I was just looking out for her. I mean if she became the next president and made silly grammatical errors in her big speech on national television, the entire country would just troll my poor grammar-deficient twin. Aren’t I such a thoughtful sister?

Fine, I just loved annoying her. But in my defence, she kept walking herself into that all the time. My twin settled her glare midway and smirked right back at me, opening her mouth to say something back. Uh oh, what now? Twin telepathy was not our thing; you never knew what went on in that juvenile brain of hers. How hypocritical of me.

Here I was, calling her juvenile, when my imagination was more senseless most of the time.

"This is probably why you don't many have friends, Thea."

Ouch.

Just kidding. Honestly I would be offended if that weren't true, but it was true. I was never one of those people who partied every other weekend or had a lot of pending texts on her phone. The only consistent people who bothered to leave texts on my phone were Amelia, Cole, the electronics repair guy and my Uber driver.

We both laughed at that and I threw the thinly cut piece of cabbage leaf at her face.

"Non-sense! I'm her friend," came a deep voice from behind me. Guess who? Nope, not Cole.

"Isn't that right, Thea?" he prodded, and I shook my head lightly, letting out a slow, tired breath.

"We're not friends, Noah." I turned around to face him since he was standing behind my back, right across from Lia. Since I had been sitting, I had to crane my neck too much for my liking to get a look at Noah minus his leather jacket and a smiling face. Oh my.

"What do you want?" Lia said, breathing hard in his general direction. Disrupt Lia and her time with food and you'll have to run for your life.

"But we will be," he said, a warm smile sitting on his lips. Who is he trying to re-assure - me or himself? "And to answer your question, Lady Lia, child of Hades," he acknowledged Lia in an amused tone and she scowled back. But obviously that didn't bother Noah Stark; he was pretty much used to it - given how she had threatened to severely hurt his 'essential' parts, he was so amused that it was radiating everywhere.

"I didn't come here to bite into your dinner time or your dinner, which is a very weird combination by the way." Lia smiled at him at that. Oops, I meant sarcastically smiled. "Your sister forgot her payment today," he said, holding out two Kit-Kat bars on his palm for me to grab.

Obviously, I did.

I wanted to face-palm, literally. Kit-Kats were above everything, even an annoying wannabe bad boy who wants to be friends.

"Uh, thanks Noah." I took the Kit-Kat from him, smiling as he retreated his hand and shoved it into the pocket of his grey sweats.

"Anytime," he smiled back again. "...and hey, I'm…sorry about Caleb..."

If rude-boy Caleb wasn't meaning to apologize to me anytime soon, then why should I have let Noah do it on his behalf? It was not fair.

I shook my head instead. "Don't be, Noah. If there comes a day when Caleb does not wish to kill me, I'd think the terrorists have won." I chuckled, making him let out a loud, full-blown laugh. "I guess he is just not used to sharing his boy with anyone," I added, smiling cheekily, poking him in the arm.

Noah's eyes widened and the laughter in me faded in spurts, the atmosphere suddenly very uneasy. Slowly, a small smile slowly grew on his lips - it was then I realised that I might have brought something up un-intentionally. Something I should have left in the past.

"He used to. We used to be friends, Thea. You, me, and—"

I looked down, shaking my head lightly before looking back up, my eyes meeting Noah warm brown ones as I cuts his words short. "Used to being the key-word, Noah. You should go before Caleb's eyes melt with the glares he is giving me right now."

And I wasn't just saying that because I was good at guessing games. Behind Noah, in my direct line of vision, were Lucas, Caleb and Nathaniel.

Lucas was staring at the exchange between Noah and I with wide 'watch out-there's-a-deer-in-the-middle-of-the-road' kind of eyes: anymore and they would fall out. Judging from his expression, he didn't think this day would come when one of them would talk to me again in front of a hundred other people. Yeah, I didn't think whole tutoring-Noah thing through either, kiddo.

Nathaniel was looking at his phone in his hands and typing away furiously. Anything to refrain from making eye contact with Thea Hart.

Caleb, the man in question was looking at me like he could invite the whole school to the cafeteria for 'Saturday Special Thea Hart Barbeque Party.' Yup, that's how bad it was.

Noah didn't even bother turning around to check if I was lying. He knew his friend very well. He just smiled once again, taking two steps backwards.

"I'll see you around, Thea," he said, turning around and walking away to his friends. I too turned around to face my sister again and she looked at me with a question in her eyes before her eyes went back to something behind me. Oh God.

"He is staring at you, you know," she stated quietly, sipping on her orange juice.

"That's Caleb's everyday expression. Nothing new there." I figured she was talking about the permanent glare super-glued to his stupid face so I shrugged back nonchalantly, placing my Kit-Kats on the table.

"Nathaniel," she whispered, shaking her head and pursing her lips together.

It took me a while to comprehend what she was really talking about. Then, it hit me. Nate was staring at me/ glaring at me. Who knew what any of his expressions meant?

A small, almost indistinct "Oh," was all that came out of my mouth and her subtle expression stayed for a fraction of a second only, until she realised something and looked back at their table with furrowed eyebrows.

"But speaking of Caleb..."

Here goes…

"Nothing happened, Lia. I just had a run-in with Caleb earlier today when Noah and I were returning from the library," I cut her off, closing my eyes and wincing as if my tongue burned when I took his name.

It was silent for a while after that; for about ten seconds everything was peaceful and I knew I wasn't going to be bombarded with questions like Mark Zuckerberg. If that were the case, it would have happened by now.

So I, very courageously, slowly opened my right eye, only to see a thoroughly amused-looking Amelia Hart sitting across from me, munching on her lettuce.

I furrowed my eyebrows and added, "...and he was mean - the usual Caleb Ridgewood." I picked up my fork and started pushing and playing with the remaining salad, my appetite suddenly disappearing into thin air.

My sister snorted, looking away. "People like him are a result of technical blunders in genetic programming, I swear. Either way, it was his loss. You'd be a great friend to them."

I sighed again. Too much sighing in a day. This was one conversation that I wanted to avoid and I always made sure that I did. But if there was one person who I couldn't run from - it was my own twin-psyche. I smiled back at her, shrugging. "Sometimes, certain things happen for the best, Lia."

"Yeah, right. I can't believe they said all those things. They went too far with it when Caleb bought up our Mo-"

"Yeah, me neither," I cut her off. Amelia was my twin and I didn't want to snap at her, but I wasn't having this right now. Or ever. Especially if she was going to bring that woman up into our conversation.

"Guess some people are a certain way and you can't change them," I urged back as we both got up to dump the empty plates in the trash-can. I turned around, unfortunately encountering Caleb's hard gaze once again as I did.

"Well, you certainly can't make Caleb like someone," Amelia said, scoffing next to me as we took a left turn to where the trashcan was kept at the corner of the eating area.

"Trust me, I would know." I whispered to myself.