Trouble in Paradise?
Chapter Nineteen

I woke up to a pillow.

More specifically, it hit me in the face and I didn’t even have to look to know who it was.

“Christen, I will turn you into a pillow if you do that again,” I mumbled, turning over. I heard him chuckle before he hit me with the pillow. Again.

I opened my eyes and turned around, death glaring the boy who was grinning. We were both sprawled out on the mountain of pillows, blankets covering us. It’s like when you were little and you would have sleepovers with the neighbours kids or something.

“Do you want to die?” I asked. His grin immediately dropped and he got up, almost tripping over the pillows and blankets, and he bolted out of the lounge room and into the kitchen. I quickly got up, only falling over twice, and ran after him.

He ran around the bench in the middle of the kitchen, easily avoiding me. I glared and grabbed the closest thing that I could to use as a weapon.

Unfortunately, it was only a can of whipped cream that we had forgotten to take into the lounge room for the movie. Still, I could use it. I squirted some into my hand and then ran after Christen, still holding the can in my other hand.

In my favour, Christen ran back through into the lounge room and tripped over the blankets as I had previously done. This gave me an advantage to rush towards him while he was still disorientated for a moment.

I then through the ball of whipped cream, that had been in my hand, right into his face. Bulls eye.

His mouth in shock. “I can’t believe you just did that,” he said, wiping his face with his shirt.

“What? Did this?” I said, spraying the whipped cream from the can right into his face and hair.

Then, he snatched the can from me while he was temporarily blind. I stumbled back, with my hands in front of me. “Let’s talk about this.”

He grinned evilly, even though he looked ridiculous when his face was covered in cream. He got closer while I hit a wall, before he sprayed the whipped cream all over me.

I glared at him and he started laughing like crazy, while made me stop glaring and eventually join him. Soon enough, we were both covered in creamed sugar and laughing our heads off, about to fall on the floor.

After we stopped laughing, I went to the sink and grabbed a cloth, putting it under the water and wiping the whipped cream from my face. Christen joined me moments later.

It was now quiet in the house, our sounds of laughter gone. Well, it was silent until Christen spoke up. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s only whipped cream,” I joked.

“No, I mean for everything that I did to you,” he said, sounding genuinely sad. “I’m sorry for being a bully and an asshole. I’m sorry for saying all those shit things to you and hurting you. I’m sor-”

I cut him off, “Christen, its fine. I forgive you. I can’t stay mad at anyone for very long, and you seem like a nicer person now,” I said, a small smile tugging at the corner of my lips.

He smiled too. After that we cleaned up and took down our pillow fort, which was quite sad actually. We worked hard on that fort.

Fast forward to Tuesday the next week. I had spent the whole weekend doing things with Christen, basically lazing around and eating an entire supermarket in one hour.

My parents hadn’t shown up all weekend, which meant that they were probably staying at a hotel that was closer to their work, or they were sleeping in the office. I had no idea how they did that, don’t ask me.

Anyway, after school today was soccer tryouts. I had my P.E uniform so I was prepared. Christen was going to pick me up from the tryouts after school, him using a rental car that he rented yesterday.

I was walking with Jordan. I had no idea what had happened to Blake lately, he had been spending the whole weekend with his new girlfriend, according to Jordan. I hadn’t talked to Blake about his dyslexia, and whether or not he needed me to help him anymore. I made a mental note to ask him about that later.

“Good luck with tryouts, I’ll be there,” Jordan said, winking.

“You have training or something?” I asked, shifting the books that were in my hands.

He nodded. “Yep, but I’ll glance over and see how you’re doing from time to time. Maybe I would be your good luck charm.”

“I haven’t found twenty dollars on the ground yet, so if you’re my good luck charm then you aren’t bringing me a lot of good luck,” I retorted. He chuckled and shrugged.

“Oh well. But seriously, good luck with tryouts. Maybe our girls team can win this year with you on the team.”

I rolled my eyes. We walked through the hallways of the school until the bell rang, signalling the start of class. Jordan and I walked to Calculus, where Blake was already sitting. He was on his phone, grinning like an idiot.

Jordan and I shared a look and I took my seat in front of Blake, Jordan sitting next to him. I didn’t see the teacher yet, so we had some time to chat.

“Texting Belle?” I asked in a teasing tone, snatching his phone away from him.

“Hey! Give it back!” he said, trying to reach for it but ultimately failing.

I fake gagged at the messages. They were so.. cheesy.

“Okay, let me just go throw up,” I said, giving him back his phone. Jordan laughed at Blake’s pouting expression while I smirked. Blake glared at me.

“I’m sorry, little Blakey. Shall I call Belle to come cheer you up?”

“Not funny.”

The teacher came in, and the chat halted. Throughout the lesson, I did my work while occasionally hearing Blake and Jordan bicker behind me. When the bell rang, Jordan left quickly due to his excitement for P.E, or Gym, whichever you want to call it.

“Blake, do you still need me to help you with your.. reading?” I lowered my voice down a little.

He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Belle helps me now.”

“Oh I’m sure I know exactly how it works. You can something right, and she gives you special little.. treats?” I winked at him, laughing while he groaned and then started laughing with me.

“You’re not wrong,” he said before walking away.

“Wait.. what?”

After gym, which was just our class playing volleyball. I hated volleyball, but besides that it was okay. I did have Jordan and Blake on my team which was an advantage.

The next class that I had was cooking. With Ethan.

Usually, when we had cooking classes we had chosen benches that were at the opposite ends of the room. Unfortunately, Ethan came in late and the only spot that was left was next to me. Great.

He reluctantly came over and sat in the seat next to me. We didn’t speak as the teacher went over the instructions and the recipe. Today we were making chocolate coconut truffles.

Hell yes.

Halfway through making the base for the truffles, I had run out of coconut and there was none left on the ingredients table. I turned to Ethan, a hopeful look in my eyes.

“Could I borrow some coconut, please?” I asked.

He looked towards me with a bored expression before he nodded. “Fine, but only a little.”

He gave me a spoonful, while was all I really needed. “Thanks.”

We didn’t converse after that.

The classes of the day went by rather quickly, and the tryouts were upon me before I knew it. The final bell of the day rang and students filed out of classrooms, heading for their cars and the busses.

I said goodbye to Blake and Jordan before I went to my locker and grabbed my bag out, taking it to the changerooms.

Other girls had already gathered in there. Many of them were just normal girls, like me, who weren’t apart of the popular group or anything. Unfortunately, there were a couple that were apart of the popular group. Belle was there too, talking to Veronica.

I ignored Veronica’s death glares as I walked to the back part of the changerooms. There was another girl there. She had black hair and dark skin, her figure perfect along with her muscled thighs. You could tell that she was an athlete. She was insanely pretty, and I was surprised that I hadn’t seen her around before.

“Trying to get away from the barbie dolls?” she said, a small smile curving on her lips.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Just then, Veronica came up to us and started speaking in her annoying voice. “Wow, Stef are you sure you’re going to get in? They don’t take fat girls,” she said in a prissy voice.

I sighed, the definition of my expression being I’m done with your bullshit.

“Veronica,” I said, having changed into my sports uniform. “No one in this changeroom is ‘fat’. Why go picking fights that are pointless and inaccurate?”

Veronica glared at me, then turning to the girl who I had been speaking to before she arrived. “Amber, I see you are friends with the new girl then. Fat girls gotta stick together you know,” she antagonised the girl, Amber.

“Just shut up Veronica,” Amber said, wearing a pissed off expression. I imagine that I had a similar expression as well.

“Have your thighs gotten bigger? That’s gross, don’t you even care about your body?” Veronica said with disgust, and I spotted Belle behind her, laughing.

“Thick thighs make the dick rise, bitch,” Amber walked out then, walking onto the grass fields. I smirked and followed her, not wanting to deal with them.

“Sorry about them, it’s mainly my fault that they were there,” I said to Amber as I caught up with her. I saw one of the school’s P.E coaches standing on the field, setting up the equipment. We walked over to that area.

“It’s fine, I’ve dealt with them for years. You’re Stef, right?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s me. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” she said. We arrived at the tryouts area, other girls joining us eventually. When all of us were there, the coach spoke up.

“Welcome to soccer tryouts. This,” she pointed to the small obstacle course that she had set up behind her. “Is the course that you will be starting on. If you get on the team, it will be played with eleven players on the field at once, with substitutes. We will have twenty players on this team, therefore thirteen of you will not make it,” she said.

She went through the instructions for the obstacle course. First, run zig zags around the poles that had been set up. Next, dribble a soccer ball in and out between cones and then kick the ball into the net. After that, go into the net and play goalie for the next person who kicks. There was more, but it was more basic stuff.

Basically, it was tiring and long. By the time I had gone through it twice, my chest was heaving. Despite this, I still went through with it. We did this for twenty minutes, making all of us groan.

When the coach finally blew the whistle, we all sighed and pull our hands on our head, opening up our airways so that we could breathe easier. I spotted Jordan playing with his team in the next field over. He spotted me and waved, I nodded my head in greeting, grinning.

For the rest of tryouts, we just did drills the whole time. Amber and I conversed between the small breaks, mostly complaining even though she was the only one who wasn’t on the verge of collapsing.

Finally, after two hours, tryouts ended. The coach thanked us for attending and then told us to get changed. I waved goodbye to Jordan before I walked with Amber back to the change rooms, getting changed quickly before we walked back out.

She got picked up by her parents while I got into the rental car that Christen had rented.

“How was tryouts?” Christen asked, starting to drive away from the school.

“Alright, hopefully I made it.”

“I bet you did.”

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