C3 Chapter 3

DOROTHY’S POV

The lunch bell finally rang, and it was the best sound ever. During music class, Elena showed me around all the different instruments. It was nice, but my stomach was completely empty, and I desperately needed to eat it. On top of that, the music teacher was incredibly strict. Laurel told me everyone calls him "Mr. Stinky" behind his back because his personal hygiene is so bad.

"I had no idea you could play the piano," Adrianna said as we walked. Elena had already let it slip to the group that I knew how to play.

From talking to them, I quickly figured out how their group dynamic worked. Laurel was the total tomboy of the crew—her own words—and played basically every sport available. Adrianna was the resident artist who loved drawing and painting. Elena was the ultimate girly-girl, the type of person who would literally shop until she dropped. Again, those were their descriptions, not mine.

"My dad started teaching me when I was ten years old," I told them.

Instantly, memories of us sitting at the piano playing for hours filled my mind. When he's around, my dad never acted like he's on drugs. He's always attentive, spends time playing with me and helps me with my homeworks.

Finding out his secrets broke me into pieces.

"Dorothy?" Laurel's voice cut through my thoughts, and I noticed her waving a hand right in front of my face.

I snapped back to reality. "Sorry, I'm here. What did you say?

"I was just saying that our cafeteria makes the best cheeseburgers." He repeated.

"Okay, you're making me starve. Let's go inside," I said, walking with them into the lunchroom.

There were round tables scattered all over the place, and food was set up on rolling carts around the room.

"Come on, you seriously have to try these," Laurel said, pulling me over to the burger line.

I ended up getting a cheeseburger, some fries, a side salad, and a bottle of water. Once the girls got their food, I followed them to a table in the very back. The boys were already sitting there, leaving exactly four empty seats.

Elena sat next to Hudson, Adrianna sat by Oliver, and Laurel took the spot next to Ralph. The very last open seat was right next to Felix. I sat down and twisted open my water bottle.

But the second I took a sip, I noticed the entire lunchroom had gone completely silent. I swallowed the water and looked around behind me. That was a huge mistake.

I felt exactly like an animal trapped in a zoo. Dozens of students were staring straight at me, waiting for me to perform a trick or something. I turned around and noticed everyone at our table was just eating casually, like this was completely normal.

"Why is everyone staring at me like I'm a zoo animal?" I whispered to Adrianna, who was sitting on my other side.

She chewed her food completely and swallowed before answering. "Don't worry, they'll stop staring in a couple of days."

"A couple of days? Is this town really small? I asked.

"Technically, you can blame the boys for this," Elena pointed out, gesturing to the brothers.

"Hey, don't put this on us," Ralph argued, taking a sip of his milk.

"I'm completely lost," I admitted to them.

"The boys in this family are basically local celebrities," Laurel explained.

"That's the understatement of the year," Mateo chimed in.

"Seriously, if you stood up right now and yelled that you wanted a girlfriend, a line of girls would form faster than you could finish the word," Laurel joked.

"That's completely untrue because I would never shout in a public place. My mother raised me to have actual manners," Mateo shot back.

"People started calling us 'The Kings' because of how popular we are," Felix mentioned.

"Yeah, we're kind of like a boyband, except for the part where we... are absolutely not... a boyband," Ralph said, looking confused by his own sentence before giving up and taking a bite of his pizza.

"If we ever started a band, 'The Kings' is actually a pretty cool name," Hudson said with a sigh.

"We are not starting a band," Oliver said firmly, shutting it down.

"Oh, come on! We could be like Fall Out Boy or Panic! At The Disco. We already have a fan base. We could even spike our hair up to look like real rockstars," Hudson said, totally in love with his own idea.

"How did we even get onto this topic?" I asked the group.

"It's honestly better if you don't ask," Elena advised, eating a grape. I took her advice and just let them keep rambling.

I went back to eat my fries while Laurel started talking to us about volleyball.

A wave of sadness hit me because I hated the fact that I wasn't allowed to play anymore. I used to work late shifts at a little cafe just to earn enough money to pay for my sports fees. I truly love playing volleyball.

But the moment Malcolm discovered I had a job and was playing the sport, he made sure I would never step onto a court again.

Terrifying memories of him using a baseball bat to beat me rushed into my mind. I remembered screaming at the top of my lungs for him to stop, but he just wouldn't. That was the exact night the police finally locked him up, and I was thrown right back into the foster system.

"Dorothy," Adrianna said, looking at me with deep concern.

I blinked hard, forcing the awful memories to fade away.

"You're shaking. Are you okay? She asked.

Suddenly, everyone at the table stopped talking and looked over at us. I glanced down at my hand and realized the fork I was holding was vibrating violently. I dropped it immediately and hid both of my hands in my lap.

"I'm fine, I'm just really cold," I lied.

"Are you sure?" She pressed.

I nodded. I clamped my hands tightly together under the table until they finally stopped trembling. Once I calmed down, I finished the rest of my lunch.

This is my new start. Malcolm is in my past, and I have to move forward with my life.

Starting right now.

Science has always been my absolute least favorite subject. I just don't get it at all—the equations, the formulas, the periodic table; none of it makes sense to me. Even though I always managed to get an A in my old science classes, that didn't mean I actually understood the material. I was just really good at turning in projects and cramming tests.

But chemistry was a completely different beast.

I was totally going to fail, which meant I'd never get into college in New York City. I'd be stuck working at Subway for the rest of my life, living in—

"Are you coming in?" Felix asked, snapping me right out of my panic text.

Yep, it turned out Felix, Laurel, and Ralph were all in this exact class with me.

"Yeah, sorry, I just zoned out for a second," I joked.

"You seem to do that a lot," he noted, his bright blue eyes staring intently into mine.

"I just have a lot on my mind."

Before he could ask anything else, I turned and walked straight into the classroom.

The teacher was a woman with long brown hair, incredible green eyes, and beautiful tan skin. She was wearing a tight navy-blue skirt, a dark purple blouse, and black high heels. She looked like she was only in her twenties. Laurel whispered to me that her name was Ms. Gomez.

I swear I caught one of the guys in the front row staring directly at her chest. GRoger.

"Good afternoon, class," she said warmly once everyone found a seat. I sat right next to Laurel, while Ralph and Felix paired up behind us.

"Today, we are going to look at how different chemicals react when you mix them together. You'll need to watch closely and write down all your observations on a sheet of paper. You'll be working directly with your lab partners," she explained with a smile.

Laurel and I put on our safety goggles and pulled on our gloves. She handled mixing the liquids while I took care of writing down what happened.

Honestly, maybe chemistry wasn't going to be so bad after all. Maybe I was just overreacting.

"Just a reminder, we have a major test in two weeks that counts seventy percent of your grade for the semester. We'll start taking heavy notes later this week and all next week," Ms. Gomez announced about twenty minutes later.

I spoke too soon. I just had to go ahead and jinx it by thinking life could be easy.

"Don't pour too much in," Laurel warned me. We had switched roles about ten minutes ago, and ever since then, I could feel someone's eyes burning into the back of my head.

I nodded, gently squeezing the plastic tube to release just a tiny bit of the liquid. The mixture bubbled up for a couple of seconds and then calmed down.

Everything in the room was peaceful, but of course, quiet moments never last very long in high school.

"Felix! You poured way too much!" Ralph yelled suddenly.

"Ralph, go grab the towels! Right now! Felix shouted back.

I whipped around and saw their chemical mixture overflowing all over their desk and spilling onto the floor. It looked exactly like a science project disaster video. The foamy substance was shooting out of the glass cylinder at top speed.

Ralph was running around like crazy trying to find cleaning supplies, while Felix grabbed the cylinder and bolted toward the sink. He dumped it in, but the foam just kept exploding everywhere, spreading acRoger the floor toward the drain.

The two of them looked exactly like chickens running around with their heads cut off.

Ms. Gomez started shouting commands in fast Spanish and sprinted toward Felix's desk. But mid-run, her heel hit the slick puddle on the floor, and she wiped out completely, letting out a loud groaning sound as she hit the ground hard.

Felix and Ralph froze instantly, looking like two deer caught in a car's headlights.

"Oh, crap!" Ralph yelled.

Half the class immediately pulled out their phones to record the disaster, while the other half was laughing hysterically. Laurel and I rushed over to help Ms. Gomez stand up.

"Ow, ow, ow," she groaned, clutching her hip.

"Ms. Gomez, pleasewait here and I'll fetch the school nurse." Laurel guides her.

"Sure. Also, make sure you go to get the principal on the way." Ms. Gomez replied angrily.

"Ralph, where are those stupid towels?!" Felix yelled, still trying desperately to stop the mess from spreading any further.

The poor sink was buried under the foam.

"I don't know! What do you want me to do, yell 'come out, come out, fuzzy towels' in the cabinets?!" Ralph screamed back, ripping open every cupboard door in sight.

I stayed by Ms. Gomez to make sure she was okay while she continued to mutter frustrated Spanish words under her breath.

Note to self: I really should have taken Spanish class last year.

By this point, Felix was completely soaked in the bubbly mixture. Thankfully, the school didn't trust teenagers with actual dangerous or poisonous chemicals—a rule that made total sense to me right about now.

Ralph finally found a stack of towels and sprinted back over to Felix. Together, they started aggressively wiping down the black tabletop, the sides of the desks, the sink, the counters, and the chairs.

But by the time they got to the massive puddle on the floor, they completely ran out of towels. Instead of doing the logical thing—like wringing the wet towels out in the sink and reusing them—they just grabbed rolls of paper towels.

They weren't even halfway done cleaning when the principal and the nurse walked through the door. Instantly, the entire room went dead silent, and everyone shoved their phones into their pockets.

The principal looked exactly like Jay Pritchett, the old guy from the show Modern Family. Same age, same exact nose. They honestly could have passed for twins.

And he looked absolutely furious.

Felix and Ralph went completely pale, looking like they'd seen a ghost. The nurse rushed over to check on Ms. Gomez and me, with Laurel following right behind them.

"Mr. Cade, Mr. Mason, my office. Right now! The principal's voice boomed acRoger the room.

Ralph and Felix grabbed their backpacks and started walking toward the door with their heads down.

"And if I catch a single video of this incident online, both of you are getting suspended," he added sternly.

He pointed out the door, signaling the boys to leave the room. The nurse handed Ms. Gomez an ice pack and told her she'd have a nasty bruise for a few days.

After they left, the rest of the class pitched in to help clean up the remaining mess. When the final bell finally rang, I couldn't have been happier to leave.

It was only my very first day, and things were already completely insane.