3. Is he the one?

I met Ty at the canteen. He was sitting at a big table along with six other people. The guy, Brent I met morning was also there. At first, I was a bit reluctant to go join them. But Ty waved at me and motioned me to come. So, I walked to them with a smile on my face. 

 

I noticed Aaron sitting at another big table at the back of the canteen with the girl from last hour and a lot of other people, all of them talking and laughing. 

 

I sat down beside Ty and all the people at the table flashed wide smiles at me. I smiled back in response. 

 

"Hi Caroline," the guy opposite me said. 

 

"You already told them about me?" I muttered to Ty after smiling at the guy. 

 

"Yeah..", he smiled. "Guys, so this is the person you all have been waiting for, my cousin sister Caroline. So she will be having lunch with us from today," All of them nodded with welcoming smiles. 

 

Ty then introduced me all his friends. Two guys other than Brent- Ben and Rhett and three girls Mia, Olivia, and Isabella. All the boys are on the basketball team and Olivia is on the cheerleading team. She is also Ben's girlfriend. The other two girls are her best friends. 

 

All of them were really friendly. We all chatted a lot while having lunch. I was happy that Ty's friends welcomed me warmly into their gang. 

 

After lunch, I and Rhett had English together. "Do you want me to see you around the school till the bell rings?" Rhett offered as we were heading towards our class. 

 

"Oh..yeah. Sure," I replied smiling. He took me to the volleyball court, basketball court, and the school library. The library was really big with a lot of books. After that, we roamed about through the corridors and finally reached the English class. There were only a few people inside the class and most of them were girls. 

 

Although I like to sit in the back row near the window, I followed Rhett as he went to a desk in the middle row, almost in the center of the class. Soon the bell rang and students strolled in like colonies of ants. 

 

I was surprised to see Aaron walking in along with the Gianna girl who was fighting for the chair near him earlier. She was talking and smiling to him but he looked kinda annoyed. Anyway, so this is the third hour I'm sharing with Aaron today. 

 

I smiled and waved at him. There was an empty desk beside us, so I thought they could sit near us. But Aaron just walked to the last row along with the girl, pretending as if he didn't see me. But I'm damn sure he saw me. Why didn't he at least smile back at me? 

 

Soon the English teacher Mr. Davis walked in. At first, I thought he was one of the students as he was wearing only a casual t-shirt and jeans and was looking like a teenager with his lean body and cute face. 

 

But then Rhett told me, he is our current English teacher, a temporary replacement for our previous teacher who took maternity leave. Mr. Davis's only finished his graduation this year. 

 

"We have a new student in our class, right? Who is it?" Mr. Davis asked looking at the class. I immediately stood up smiling. 

 

"Hello.." Mr. Davis flashed his dimpled smile at me. "Please introduce yourself." I nodded and introduced myself to the class. After that Mr. Davis started the class. He was really interactive and interesting to listen to. I soon decided he is my favorite teacher in this school. 

 

But then the girl who was on the desk beside me had to turn and ask me with a chuckle, ‘You are the one who got detention, right?’ It destroyed my whole mood. How did the news spread so fast? 

 

The next hour, I and Mia had Physics together. Aaron didn't show up in this class. 

 

Finally, after one hour, the bell rang indicating the classes ended. I huffed a sigh remembering I need to meet the principal and then spend one more hour in the school, writing essays on random topics. Ty had told me that he would wait for me at the parking after his basketball practice so that we can go home together. 

 

I headed to the principal's office and saw Aaron already standing in front of the doors. "Hey!", he waved at me smiling, showing his bunny teeth. 

 

"Hi..".I responded without smiling. I wasn't so happy with him ignoring me in English class. 

 

"Here..your topics for detention. Mr. Morris asked me to give it to you," he said stretching a piece of paper to me. I sighed and took it, reading through it. 

 

The first essay was to write about 'the importance of honesty.' Then was a totally strange topic 'French Revolution.' Anyway, there was a total of 10 essays for me to complete in a week. And I had to write three pages about each topic. 

 

"Let's head to the library then?" Aaron asked. 

 

"Oh..so there isn't a detention classroom here ?" I asked. 

 

"No. Here, the librarian keeps a record of detention," he told me. 

 

"I see," I nodded. 

 

"So, why you suddenly transferred here in the middle of the sem? Your family moved here?" He asked. 

 

"No.." I sighed. "I got into some trouble in my previous school." 

 

“Seems like you enter into problems often,” he chuckled. 

 

“What to say? Problems hire a taxi to me every day without me actually doing anything," I sighed again. 

 

“Same with my case nowadays.”, he laughed. “And I transferred to here last year after getting dismissed from my previous school." 

 

“Oh! Why? If you don’t mind me asking?” I said. 

 

“No,” he chuckled. “I entered into a fight with a guy,” he said. “He disturbed my cousin sister. So I punched him. He punched back and it ended up in a big fight. At last, we both got TC. Anyway, my cousin sister is now studying there peacefully.” he replied. 

 

“Oh.." I nodded. "Between why you ignored me in English class? I know you saw me." 

 

"Ahm..it was because Rhett was sitting with you," he rubbed his neck awkwardly and looked away. 

 

"Why? Are you both enemies?" I asked. 

 

"Not really. We just don’t talk. I think he doesn't like me," he said 

 

"Okay, so Ty and his friends don’t like you?" I asked. 

 

"No. And Ty hates me," he chuckled bitterly. 

 

"Why?" I asked curiously. I thought he told me, Ty told him about me. Ty won't tell about me to a person he hates. Then maybe Aaron and Ty were earlier friends and then they fought or something unpleasant happened between them? 

 

"I'm on the football team. And he's on the basketball team. The footballers and basketballers are not on good terms.", he said blankly. 

 

"Woah! That's the reason? Why you take such things personally?", I asked 

 

"Not only that. He is great friends with a person I really hate. And you know, it's because of that bastard, I got this detention," he said. 

 

"Oh! Who's that?" I asked. 

 

"Asher." 

 

"Asher? Oh, the basketball captain?" I asked. 

 

"Yeah," Aaron nodded irritably, making me more curious. 

 

"Ty told me about him today morning. Yeah, he seems to be good friends with him. Why do you hate him?" I asked. 

 

"Quite a lot of reasons," he said. 

 

"oh.." I nodded. I wasn't going to force him to tell me what those reasons are. "How long is your detention?" I asked. 

 

"It was a two-week detention and it will end day after tomorrow," he replied. 

 

"That's terrible! Mine is just one week." 

 

"So, how you got detention?" He asked. I sighed and told him the whole story from the beginning. 

 

"Wait! How does this Carter guy look? Maybe he is Asher Carter itself. Because you said about the Maths puzzle and mentioned he is the top student. Asher is the top senior student and he was the one who won first prize in last day's Maths riddle competition," Aaron said anxiously. 

 

"Oh!" I looked at him in bewilderment. "He is so pale and he has blonde hair and small grey intimidating eyes. Altogether weird but kinda handsome," I said quickly. 

 

"Yes! It's Asher itself!" Aaron said clenching his fist. 

 

"Are you sure?" I asked. 

 

"Yes. 99.9%." Aaron replied. Then he suddenly grabbed my hands and started running with me through the corridor. 

 

"Hey! Where are you taking me?" I shouted. 

 

"To confirm," he said and ran fast with me. He continued to run and I ran along with him without knowing where he was taking me. Finally he stopped and I saw we were in front a big notice board. Then he left my hands free and pointed at the board. 

 

"Is he the one?" he panted out, pressing his finger at the person who was standing in the middle of a group of basketball players with a trophy in his hands.