Teach Me to Please | Please Me #1 - Chapter 14: Chapter 14

Everyone was still talking about Leah the next day.
It was a joy to come into school and still see some of the papers up, in a way I was shocked the school hadn't taken them down or maybe they just enjoyed the drama as much as we did. I always assumed teachers to have such boring jobs so this must be the only excitement their career brings them.
"OMG, it's still so priceless." Nikki laughed re-watching the video of Leah hastily ripping down the papers with a tomato red face. Someone sent it to a meme account on Instagram and it got posted. I didn't necessarily agree with doing that because I'd rather high school drama stay within, you know, high school and not be exposed to the whole world, but there was nothing I could do about, I wasn't even the one who took the video.
But you were the one who put this whole thing together.
Eh, potato, po-tah-to.
We were sitting at lunch, Rya missing because she had some random study group, reading through the comments left on the video. It almost had one million views which was insane, with the caption 'CREEPY GIRL GETS EXPOSED'. A little dramatic but, hey, they weren't necessarily wrong.
"What an embaressement." Nikki read off some of the comments. "If I were her, I'd never go to school again! What a weirdo to right something like that. OMG, you have to hear this one: If I had to choose between eating my arm and being her friend, I'd say sayonara arm!"
Nikki and the rest of the girls cackled at the comments. I was slightly taken aback from the meanness.
"Isn't that a little much?" I raised an eyebrow, but Nikki only brushed her auburn hair behind her shoulder.
"Oh c'mon, Sienna. It's just a little fun." But it seemed a little too much.
"Who even sent that video in anyway?" I asked, shoving a fork into my tuna salad.
Nikki shrugged as the rest of the girls laughed, reading more comments over her shoulder. "Some guy screen recorded it off my story and asked if he could send it in."
"And you let him?"
"I saw the message too late and when I asked why, he already did it." She carelessly replied and giggled with the rest of the girls as they scrolled through more comments.
I sighed and rolled my eyes when a strong hand grabbed my upper arm and practically dragged me off the bench. What is it with people and grabbing me these last couple of days?
I looked up to see Adam pulling me out of the cafeteria, everyone else was too busy to notice, thank god, because this sight was surely embarrassing and the expression on his face was one that seemed as if he could murder me.
"Let me go, you oath!" I protested and tried to pull back, but he dragged me along the halls. "Are you fucking deaf? Let go off me!"
Adam didn't stop and turned around to narrow his eyes full of spite. "Where's your little accomplice, hmm? Is she hiding somewhere too?"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, now can you let go of me!" I pulled against him but he was much stronger. He dragged me into an empty classroom where Rya was tidying away books and didn't hesitate to grab her hand and drag her out.
"What the fuck?!" she jumped but ultimately was pulled along with me. Adam didn't reply and pulled us along like tiny pets on a leash. "Is he on crack?" Rya asked by my side, struggling against his right grip.
"Wouldn't surprise me." I muttered before Adam kicked open a storage closet and shoved us inside.
The room was tiny and narrow with only a small lightbulb to light up the quarters. Shelves stacked with harsh blenching chemicals and eternally stained wash cloths surrounded us as our only judgements for whatever Adam was about to say.
"Adam, look, I'm really not into the whole threesome thing –"
"Shut up." Adam snapped, cutting Rya off. Poor girl. "Don't act like you didn't do it."
Rya and I looked at one another confused.
"Have a threesome or –"
"Why is it always about sex with you two?" Adam cut me off and glared between us. I turned to Rya who widened her eyes and shrugged. "Leah's diary, I know you two stole it and plastered it around school –"
"Hold up!" I raised my hands up in defence. "You dragged us here to interrogate us about vanilla stick's diary fiasco?"
"Yeah, so?"
"The threesome thing sounds better than this." Rya mumbled under her breath and Adam shot her a glare. "And technically I didn't steal her diary. I found it."
"So you took it!" he pointed a finger at her. Rya pushed his finger out of her face.
"Dude, I just told you that I didn't take it! I found it!"
Adam scoffed, "Like I believe that. Leah said the diary was missing from her bag, not that she lost it."
"Did you not see what she wrote in the diary?!" I finally burst. Was he seriously okay with what she wrote? I hardly believed that. It was so creepy and weird that if I were him, I'd be thinking about a restraining order.
"What does that matter? But, for your information I –" a knock on the door cut him off. Furious, Adam yanked open the door to meet Tiny Tom, A.K.A our school janitor. We called him Tiny Tom for two obviously evident reasons: he was tiny, and his name was Tom.
"What?!" Adam hissed.
"This is my office." Tiny Tom replied. Adam, I swore, was about the kill the poor man before storming out and giving us a harsh "We'll finish this later."
Rya and I apologised to Tiny Tom and walked out, confusion still struck on our faces.
"That was the weirdest thing to happen in a while." Rya sighed, "I mean, discounting the whole you and Roman situation, and the whole Leah and Adam situation, and then this diary thing –"
"I get it!" I cut her off. "Urgh, this is so stupid." I groaned and closed my eyes. Did Adam not have a brain? Did he not have a brain to actually look and see what Leah had written, and the fact he didn't believe Rya when she said she didn't steal it – Rya! The most perfect and pristine girl in the whole school – shows that Leah has been getting to his head. Adam was smart. He wasn't Rya or Roman smart but he was still smart and, most of all, tactile. He couldn't seriously always believe Leah... could he? He couldn't always believe the good girl, innocent act. The girl had to have flaws but in, Adam's eyes, she was a saint. There was no way she was a saint. She was a lying, manipulative bitch.
What if she left that diary out for bait?
No, Leah wouldn't –
Hold the fuck on.
I opened my eyes and stared at Rya who was looking at me concerned. "What?" she cocked her head to the side.
"Where did you find Leah;s diary?"
"Huh?"
I braced my hands on her shoulder. "Where. Did you. Find. Leah's diary?" I demanded.
Rya bit her lip, something she always did when thinking, and stared off into the distance to recall that day. "It was nearabout by my locker." She finally answered. Holy shit. "Why? What's wrong?"
Could it be? Could Leah have on purposely left her diary out for Rya to find, claiming it as 'lost', giving us bate in order to make Adam believe that we were the bad guys?
I had to think on this to be sure. But, if it was true, it gave a new level of bitchiness to Leah. A level even above mine.
❦❤︎❦
Nothing too weird happened again. I didn't see Adam for the rest of the day, and I assumed Leah wasn't in school. I couldn't blame her. I didn't see Taylor either weirdly, but I assumed it was because of basketball practice.
Adam never missed basketball practice for you.
I never asked him to. I knew how much the team meant to him.
It was only when I saw Roman alone in a classroom with Mrs Sanders my attention sparked back up.
She had a cross look on her face, pointing to something on a sheet of paper. Roman didn't look impressed either, but also looked embarrassed. I'd seen Roman embarrassed tonnes of times but never like this. He seemed... disappointed in himself.
I was going to ask him about it when I entered his house after school. None of his family members were home. He told me that his dad worked at a military training base an hour away and since I knew his mom was the Sam in Sam's Silver & Gold, I knew she had work too. When I asked him about his sister, he explained that she stayed with their grandparents and came back on the weekends since her school was in the city.
I found myself wondering what this house was like full, bubbling with the noise and chaos of a family.
When I entered the kitchen, all thoughts drowned to the pit of my stomach when I found what was lying on the kitchen table. A textbook. A 6th Grader's textbook to be more precise. The exact one I had asked him not to use ever again. Alas, here it was lying in front of me.
"What's that doing here?" I asked, slightly taken aback.
Roman seemed different today, as if his head was swirling with hundreds of things bothering him. "It's a textbook." He simply replied, not caring too much for my expression.
"A 6th Grader's textbook." I corrected.
He huffed, "And?"
"I told you I didn't want to use that."
"I don't really care what you want." He snapped harshly and made his way to the fridge to get a bottle of water. Okay, what the hell was wrong with him? Did someone piss in his Cheerio's or something?
"I'm sorry, what?" I was taken aback slightly by his sudden change in tone. "I don't –"
"Mrs Sanders pulled me aside after my AP class this afternoon." He cut me off and took a long sip of water as if to calm him down. "And guess what she gave me?" the way he was looking at me was full of anger and disappointment. I hated the disappointed look; it was the equivalent to going to Disney World and finding out your favourite princess took the day off. What a joke that was.
"... I don't know." I shrugged.
Roman pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and slammed it on the table so loud it made me jump. He didn't say a word and so I walked over to look at it. It was my Chemistry paper from yesterday. Although, that wasn't what he was concerned about because a sticky, red 'F' was written in bold on the front. Next to it was a number. 2/30. Well, fuck.
"D'you want to explain?" he raised an aggravated eyebrow.
"I don't like Chemistry....?" I tried but he didn't buy it. Instead, he huffed and snatched back the piece of paper.
"I had a job, Sienna. A job to tutor you. A responsibility, but I guess you don't even know what the word means."
I turned around as he walked straight past me to the table and scoffed, "Excuse me?"
"You heard me." He kicked out a chair but before he sat down, I interjected.
"Don't condescend me like that. May I remind you –"
"May you remind me what? What, Sienna? That I'm a virgin? That I didn't start jerking off till about a week ago? That the only girl I've ever kissed unfortunately happens to be you? What? Tell me!" he stalked his way towards me so we were inches apart. "Tell me how much better you think you are than me. Tell me how this test evidently shows that you've taken this tutoring seriously. Go on. Tell. Me."
I'd never seen Roman like this. So mad, so intimidating, so – and I hated to admit it – hot. The tone of his voice deepened to a level I didn't know it could and his stare pierced through my guarded demeanour.
I couldn't say anything.
Roman chuckled lowly. "Exactly. Because instead of trying, you drew pictures of stupid, little butterflies."
"They're not stupid!" I protested. Borboletas, that's what butterflies were called. Borboletas.
Roman sighed frustratedly walked back a few steps. "Have you ever done any of the work I've given you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" I placed a hand on my hip.
"The worksheets? The history link I wrote down? Even the fucking work I told you to do whilst I was upstairs learning from your little sex box?! You haven't done any of it, have you?!"
I haven't. I haven't and it showed. But I couldn't help it. I couldn't help that I wasn't interested in any of it.
"That's beside the point –"
"You wont even look at the textbook I'm giving you! You don't even try, Sienna. That's your problem. I told you from day one that I'm not some miraculous superhero that's going to suddenly make your grades better all by myself, you need to meet me halfway in order for this to work and, for a moment, I really thought you were! I thought you were genuinely trying, but now? I see exactly who you are." He scoffed and walked away from me. I could feel the anger radiating off him.
"And what's that, huh?" I bit back. I didn't like going down without a fight and Roman Lawrence wasn't going to make me feel bad about myself.
He took in a breath before he answered, "A cliché, egocentric, stubborn, mean girl who waits for daddy to put the big bucks into her bank account so she can waste her life away shopping for clothes she thinks will make people except her. She doesn't think twice about the future because she has none, and is horrible to everyone and anyone around her."
I froze dead on the spot. Did he just day what I think he said? Oh, he did not!
"Oh, yeah right." I laughed lowly and pointed a finger in his face. "You don't even –"
"I saw what you did to Leah Kingston." He cut me off and grabbed my finger tightly, jerking me towards him. "I saw how humiliated she was, I even heard her crying in the bathroom –"
"How d'you know that I –"
"I'm not stupid. I can put two and two together. You've ruined that poor girl's life and for what? To get back with a guy who doesn't even care about you? You're pathetic, Sienna. Really fucking pathetic."
Pathetic. My blood boiled, fizzing in my veins, scorching my insides into a burning rage. Pathetic.
"D'you know what?! Fuck you!" I exclaimed and shoved his chest. He didn't even move. Wow. "You know fuck all about me! You know fuck all about anything!"
"I know fuck all more than you do in Chemistry!" he fought back.
"You're such a dick!"
"And you're a superficial bitch! What are you hoping to achieve from this, huh?!" there was a smugness to his tone that I hated. An 'I know better than you' way of words that caused a storm of anger inside my head, destroying even piece of civility and calmness I once possessed.
I huffed and stormed over to my bag. "I don't fucking need you." I hissed. "I don't fucking need you! I never fucking needed you!"
"Cleary! You've just been a complete waste of my time!" he snapped back.
"Well, fine! I could so do without your annoying, virgin, ass."
"Yeah? Well good luck graduating!" he exclaimed and followed me to his front door. I didn't even look back to see him as I yanked the door open.
"Yeah! And good luck making Emily like you because she never will! No one will ever like you!" I finally turned to him and shouted in his face.
"Fine!"
"Fine –" he slammed the door in my face.
Urgh, just fucking great.
No. I don't need Roman. I don't need him. I could do this myself.