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T H E – L O S E R – A N D – T H E – W E I R D O

It’s official now.

I’m the biggest bitch in the world. Ever. And my reign would last for eternity.

And, no, I did not gain the title because I just made a horde of girls broke into tears with my sharp words. Hell, I’m even not sure if my mouth is capable on creating a tear-jerker insult at all. It’s not that I possessed such a golden heart. I just lacked the backbone. Even if I try to be mean, all it takes is to glare at me and I’ll drop down crying for apologies.

Neither was I a serial heartbreaker. My experiences of romance pretty much consist of three rejections and one failed relationship. Although, this fact was exclusive to me and my bestfriends only. Whenever anyone asked if I’d had a boyfriend, I’d always flip the fact. ‘Oh, yes, Auntie. I’ve had three boyfriends and I’ve rejected one guy. Ahahaha, yeah, yeah, girls my age will have an active love life, no doubt bout that.’

Verdict in three words: (a) Self. Conscious. Loser.

Except, now I had to elongate the verdict into four words to make it apt into my current condition: (a) Bitchy. (yet) Self. Conscious. Loser.

This, for once, was not self-proclaimed. My bestfriend was the one who gave me the title, and I just went for it. Bitches were pain in the asses, but being one had its own honor. All my life I wanted to get out of this nice-girl persona and presto, now I had the chance.

All I had to do is to play mind games with a guy.

Nicholas Aldridge was his name, and he’s sitting only five feet away from me.

“This is very wicked,” I whispered breathlessly. My eyes were still watching him doing his math/chemistry/whatever stuffs on his table.

“This is not wicked,” Daniel amended. “This is named strategy. Guys do this all the time, why don’t girls do it, too?”

I stared at my bestfriend’s eyeglasses for a very long time.

“You know, for a moment there you almost convinced me that you’re actually a woman in heart,” I said.

On my left, I could feel Dini’s shaking shoulders. It wouldn’t take long before her inaudible tittering transformed into hysterical laughter and since we’re in the middle of class and I always hated detentions, I clamped my hand around her mouth.

“Mmhhh!!” Dini’s laugh was transported into my palm and when I withdrew my hand, there’s her saliva all around it.

“You really should practice abstinence,” Daniel sighed.

Dini put on a sweet smile and nodded, but I doubted she caught the essence of Daniel’s saying. She’s Indonesian and she just moved here just a year ago. That explained a lot why her words often tumbled up and many people assumed her deaf. But still, her pretty face made up her (tentative) handicap.

I rubbed my hand to Dini’s shirt. “What makes you believe that he will welcome me with open arms, anyway?” I said as I took another glimpse to Nicholas. There’s a girl coming over to him, her hands held tightly on her book. I could see clearly how his eyes twitched upon seeing her, and after a brief explanation bout the math problem she’s stuck, he shushed her away.

When the girl was back to her natural habitat, she immediately pouted her mouth and ranted to her friends, presumably about how ‘weird’ and ‘mean’ Nicholas was.

Oh, and since I was a whiz at eavesdropping, I also heard the mentioning of his ‘much-nicer’, ‘much-better-looking’ brother, Nigel.

“You hear that, right?” I hissed to my bestfriends. “He’s a freakin’ tyrant! He’ll stomp me flat even before I execute my flirting skills!”

Dini clasped both her naturally tanned hand. Her lips formed yet another sweet smile that made even Daniel paused. “But it’s going to sweet to see a tirant failing in love to you. It was like the faereeytale, beauty and the beast.”

Whoa. Put aside her grammatical errors and her accent and her messy pronunciation, and there’s a huge compliment aimed for me.

"Rietta as the beauty and Nicholas as the beast?” Daniel asked, skepticism colored his tone. It’s not that I was indescribably ugly that even my own bestfriend mocked me; they were just fond of teasing me.

Or… I’d like to think that it's their reason for their near-constant teasing.

Still smiling, Dini shook her head. “Nicholas is beauty.”

Alright. Now they’re talking about me like I wasn’t around them. This should stop before my confidence really got crushed. “I’m a redhead, I’m pissed, and I’m in the verge of giving each of you a black-eye.”

Both of them immediately shut their mouth up. But still their mirth weren’t buried well.

Dini raised her hand in the fashion like a teacher-pet would raise his hand. “But your hair color is brown.”

“It’s brown only in the first look, ok? Look deeper and you can see the red tints.” I knew how vain I just sounded but that was the truth. Both of my parents were redheads, and so did my sister. Hers was the most striking, and her red curls had become her trademark; sometimes I even wondered if the redness in my hair was sapped to enhance hers. But out of four, mine was the closest to brown.

I shook my head to clear those sodding thoughts. “So, back to the topic. He’s a tyrant and he’ll stomp me.”

“And you’ll come back to him again,” Daniel said matter-of-factly.

“And he’ll stomp me again,” I actually used my hands to depict the gory of my demise.

“And you’ll come back, again.” Daniel used emphasis to speak the word ‘again’, as if it’s the obvious thing to do.

There was a pause.

“Isn’t that a little too agreesive?” Dini finally learnt to be sensible and helped me out.

“Yeah!” I nodded with such fervor. “Quote from my auntie, ‘Girls are supposed to wait in the corner for their prince-charming’. What you asked me to do is totally the opposite!”

Daniel tilted his head. “But Nicholas isn’t your prince charming so that should be alright.”

His words struck me like a needle. True, I’d never pine for that somber guy –I just didn’t go for the quiet ones-, and only wanted to take advantage of him to get noticed by his brother. The handsome, the fearless, the popular, Nigel.

And since there’s no way a nobody like me caught his attention naturally, I needed a chain to link myself with him. And that said chain happened to be the quiet, the somber, the tyrant, Nicholas.

The plan? Approach him and hang out with him and hopefully, his brother would notice me.

The founder? Me and Daniel.

Yes, you all had the right to gag me with your socks. I admit I’m such a bitchy self conscious loser.

Though, sometimes it awed me at how different these brothers could be. While Nigel had a penchant for sports and outdoor activities, Nicholas preferred staying in the class doing all those calculus/psychic/chemistry stuffs. Nigel liked having girls fawning over him, but Nicholas shunned most of them away from him.

There was only one thing that they shared: obstinacy.

It’s just one of those typical sibling-rivalries. Only, the Aldridges’ was bitterer than most. Seemed that their two years gap in age didn’t affect this whole competition thingy. Nicholas would always ace everything –non-sport related- and tried to make his brother looked worse in the eyes of teachers. Rumors said that he’d even tried to ostracize Nigel from his own family.

Nigel, on the other hand, won the crowd of the students and the ladies’ good graces. Whenever he knew that Nicholas had a crush to a girl, he’d saunter to said girl and tried to make her his, just for the sake of pissing off his brother.

And that’s exactly where our sagacious plan took place.

So, yeah… even though I’m perfectly aware that if Nigel took interest to me, it’s all didn’t happen naturally, I could bear with it. The thing is, I had caught his attention and had the chance to socialize with him. That’s fair enough for me.

But it’s going to be freakin’ hard to get Nicholas to like me.

“Here, here,” Dini gave me my math book. Most of the problems hadn’t been answered and I’d go to Nicholas to ask him for answers. It’s an ordinary phenomenon that girls looking for him to tutor them. He’s, after all, Nigel’s brother.. he’s definitely far from ugly. And there’s a great deal of brain behind that good-looks, too. The problem is, he never bothered hiding his dislike to practically anyone.

And he disliked a lot of people.

Blah.

To hell with that.

I’d experienced three rejections, after all. That had made my skin as thick as those hippos had. His little rage wouldn’t do much to me.

Besides, what possibly a nerdy guy could say to hurt me?

“Alrighty!” I muttered to myself and stood. The moment I did that, my bestfriends immediately gave me the ‘Good Guy’ pose, a ridiculously wide smile that made your teeth went 'ping!', accompanied with a thumb-up.

Nodding at them, I flattened my skirt. One con of attending a private school is you gotta wear uniforms. And unfortunately, mine happened to be two sizes bigger than my actual body size. My mother was only forty seven, but she acted like she’s seventy four, always claiming that girls shouldn’t wear clothes that fit their body because that would make boys stare at them and would attempt to do their lustful intentions.

What my mother didn’t understand is, the obsolete axiom didn’t apply again in this era.

I thrust out my chest and took brave steps. Our teacher was cool enough to let her students to cooperate doing her problems, so this wasn’t breaking any law. Nicholas’ dirty blonde hair was prominent in my eyes and when I was near enough, I put my book on his table to earn his attention.

And indeed, I was getting some.

“Number seven’s answer is minus one,” Nicholas immediately said, his eyes even weren’t set at me.

Well, gotta remember that. But that’s not the reason why I came here.

“I wasn’t going to ask bout number seven,” I tapped his arm lightly so that he’d –at least- look at me.

That made him stopped his frenzy scribbling. I took a peek at his table and saw complicated books that most sophomores hadn’t been able to understand. I restrained myself from getting all giddy and excited, though, now that Nicholas was gazing up to me.

His pale face was wrinkled in a strange way upon seeing me. “Then why are you here now?”

True to his bloodline, he looked like an effeminate version of Nigel, only with fairer skin and lighter hair color. He wore his hair a bit too long but that suited his long face. His body was a bit too lanky with only little muscles on his biceps. Nevertheless, if he and his brother stood side by side and a casual observer looked at them from twenty metres distance, he’d assume that they’re twins.

His eyes startled me big time, though. One of them was brilliant green, like there was a trickle of emerald inside his orb. The other one, however, was a duller shade of green… or was it blue? The brilliance that his right eye had didn’t pass to his left. It didn’t shine even with the faintest hint of light, making it looked dead.

That’s when I remembered that he’s half blind. It had been a nasty rumor once, four years ago, but now people had forgotten about it.

When I realized that I’d taken too long to answer, I quickly sucked in air. “Eh—I was.. wondering.. if you could help me doing this.”

His eyes followed my hand, and his eyebrows shot to his forehead as he looked at my textbook.

“Which number?”

I beamed. “The entire thing.”

I believe he just pulled an expression that showed his incredulity to me. He got one of his eyes narrowed, giving me impression that he’s looking at me under his nose even though it’s actually the other way round.

“You’re the first person who ever requested that,” he said.

“So you’re going help me?” I asked, a smile crept into my face as I readied to take a seat beside him. I'd never thought that this would go smoothly.

Before I could stuff myself to the chair, a hand had pushed me back. Nicholas’s mouth was curved down as he stared at me grimly. “No.”

Okay. Should had expected that this would happen.

I smothered my pride and put on a pleading mask. “Prettypleasewithcherryontop? You’re the only one who can help me…”

Nicholas’ face was still as sturdy as ever. He motioned his hand to his back, and I just knew who he’s trying to point out. “Daniel Gregory is a feat at math and he’s friendlier.”

Daniel realized that Nicholas had just mentioned him. He looked up and locked eyes with me. Almost immediately, his face turned sympathetic and he gave me an encouraging nod.

That simple gesture gave me incentive. Inhaling deeply, I stared right at Nicholas’ eyes and blurt out. “But I want you to help me, Nicholas.”

He stared back at me in what seemed like a demented slow-motion. I also held my gaze, making this condition quickly transformed into a staring-contest. His obstinacy didn’t let him lose, and neither did I want to be the one who break this.

Finally, I gave up. I closed my eyes and sighed. “Please..?”

“Just..” he seemed to struggle to pick his words. “just scram, alright? Go run to Gregory and use your puppy eyes to him; he’ll appreciate it more than I do.”

This was my sign to leave. I wasn’t a quitter but further than this, then I’d have the label ‘Quean’ stamped on my forehead. A few guys around us had started to pay attention to our little tête-à-tête and their curiosity wasn’t one that I cherished. In my school, gossip spread fast and pervasively and deeply like cancer. Once you got labeled something, then you’d stuck with it for the rest of your high school life.

I shrugged, trying to show that it hadn’t bothered me as much as it actually had. Hell, it was hard. “Alright then. Stay dark if dark works wonders for you, jackanapes.”

I pivoted around and walked back to my friends, who welcomed me with an identical, sympathetic expression. But right before I was out of earshot, I heard him muttering.

“Your name-“

The line was never finished, and when I turned my head around, Nicholas had already continued his scribbling again.

Talk about being over-imaginative.

“What did he tell you? ‘Fuck off, callous bitch’?” Daniel immediately bombarded me with questions. I shot him a look and he shrugged it off with ease. “What? That’s how he usually runs off the girls.”

My jaw dropped upon hearing that. Well, Nicholas was much nicer –if driving out a hopeless girl could be categorized nice at all- to me. At least, there were no profanities took place in our conversation (which, I just realized, was our first conversation that included more than ten English words exchanged between us).

Dini’s wide eyes were looking at me expectantly; probably she’s expecting me to be all weepy and sappy due to yet another rejection.

Sorry. Ain’t going to happen, babe.

“He just threw me out,” I said, trying to make sure that I sounded nonchalant, “but look at the bright side, I get the answer for number seven!”

Dini and Daniel shared a confused look, but the concern only lasted for a second. A minute later, we all already dwelled again on our respective books and the unbelievable problems. Shit. More of these math thingy and I swear my brain would explode.

Not so long thereafter, I felt a strange aura enclosing me and when I looked up, I swore I just caught Nicholas glancing at me.

Chapter One Ended

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Note: Dini is pronounced: Deenee.

AN:
What do you think bout it? Is it worth continuing or is it better be trashed in my recycle-bin?

Thanks for reading,
Archee