That was just the beginning of my trouble concerning Derek Noble.
I always attempted to avoid him at lunch, but Derek seemed to have inherited his father's belief that it was his duty in life to torment the Harmon women.
I kept to myself, always brought a book to lunch to read while I ate, and carefully navigated my way past him in the hallways. Still, he would find time to walk by my table and "accidentally" knock my book off my table or "accidentally" knock my books out of my arms as he passed me in the hallway, and at every opportunity he would give me a sarcastic little wave and say, "Hi, Nikki. Pick out my friendship bracelet yet?" or some similarly stupid comment.
Honestly, he annoyed the hell out of me.
One day in 10th grade we had to share a math class, and I wasn't particularly good at math, while he could apparently solve every problem with his eyes closed, so I got to class early and started studying my notes before the test.
When Derek entered the classroom he made sure he "fell" into my desk and grabbed a fistful of my notes, ripping them out of my binder and “accidentally” crumpling them up in his hands.
Seeing as I had spent many painful hours making those notes, and I was PMSing that day anyway, I snapped. I jumped up from my desk and grabbed his hand with the fistful of my notes and exclaimed just a little too loudly, "What the hell is your problem?"
The teacher looked up from his desk at hearing me, and he saw me grasping Derek's arm as Derek just looked at me in mild surprise. "Is there a problem, Miss Harmon?" the teacher asked sternly.
I was just about to release Derek's arm when Derek added, "Yeah, Nikki. You're not gonna kill me or anything, are you?"
My eyes narrowed and it took everything in my power to keep from punching him right in that smug, sarcastic mouth of his. "What, is asshole hereditary?" I asked him.
"I don't know," he shot back, "is psychotic whore hereditary?"
"Okay, that is quite enough," the teacher said, walking over to separate us.
It was a good thing he did, too, because I was about one second from saying school be damned and punching Derek in the face.
"Don't you ever insult my mother again," I said as the teacher came to stand between us.
"Oh," Derek said, putting his hand to his heart, "no, I would never want to insult the memory of your dear, beloved mother. It's not like she killed mine or anything."
"Okay, you two, go to the office," the math teacher said, not seeming to know what else to do with us.
We both stared at him at that point, wondering if he really wanted us to walk out into the hallway together, knowing we might not both return in one piece.
"Separately," he added, reading our thoughts. "Nicole, you go first."
That wasn't fair! "But Mr.—!"
"Go," he said firmly.
I saw Derek smirk at me behind the teacher, but I merely glared at him, collected my things, and stormed out of the classroom.
He didn't get any less hostile over the course of the school year, and even come junior year he would smirk at me when we passed each other in the halls. Honestly, I found it completely ridiculous that he had decided to hate me before he even met me.
After all, I had lost a mother, too.
Chapter One-
It wasn't until junior year that I finally made a couple of friends.
Naturally, since Derek hated me with a blinding passion he just had to be someone cool that everyone else looked up to. He acted like he didn't care about his popularity but there was no denying that he had it. Derek was unlike anyone I had ever met before, but after observing him in school—with his somewhat quiet demeanor, his brooding silences, the way girls would stop what they were doing to watch him walk by and sigh a little—I realized that it somehow seemed familiar to me.
One night I was reading back in my mother's journals, as I did quite often, and I found the passage I was thinking about.
It drives me crazy the way everyone respects Mike, looks up to him. For no reason! He doesn't even have to try, he's just somehow so cool that every girl thinks he's sexy, every guy looks up to him and wants to be like him. His very attention seems to be coveted, and everybody talks about Mike with the utmost respect, even when he isn't around.
He was teasing me today, and like always, he playfully accused me of doing something dirty that I didn't do—I was just getting ice. Then he remarked, "Aw, I'll tell everybody. I'll be like, 'Yeah, you think she's so bookish and innocent, do you know what she did to me back there?'"
I wasn't really irritated, because even though reminders that he still thinks of me that way are a bit painful, I'm still glad he does. Instead I simply smiled and replied, "You can't do that. I didn't do anything."