The Bad Boy Sweetheart

Tessa blinked her a hundred and one times before finding lifting her eyelashes that seemed extra heavy that morning. She groaned as she pulled herself out of bed. The wall clock on the locker beside her read a few minutes past 5am and Tessa sighed softly while walking towards the bathroom.

There was only one reason why Tessa woke up as early as 5am on school days. So that she could get to school early and find somewhere to hide before she became the butt of their jokes r even bullied in itself.

She stared at herself in the mirror in front of her while brushing her teeth. The dye of her hair was beginning of wear off and she mentally reminded herself to either wash the dye off or re-dye her hair. Re-dying her hair seemed to appeal more to her and within minutes, Tessa was done washing her teeth. She ran her hands through her hair and she finally got a good look at herself in the mirror.

There were dark circles underneath her eyes from sleeping late and waking up early, lack of sleep. Her coffee brown eyes were slightly sunken in and her straight nose seemed to have an edge. She pursed her small pouty lips against herself in the mirror before shaking her head.

She looked way too easy and that was why she was always bullied. She didn't have the confidence or the energy to fight back either so instead of allowing them to constantly bully her all the time, Tessa found another option.

Avoiding them.

And for the past two to three months, she had been able to flawlessly avoid these bullies. She always arrived very early to school and hid somewhere; she never came out unless the classes had started and somehow she was able to escape their radar like that.

As it had been working for the past two months, Tessa planned to continue like that, she didn't have any other plans in order to escape their bullying so she had to continue with this one.

By few minutes to 7 am, Tessa was already making her way down the streets towards the bus stop. There were already few people at the bus stop waiting for the 7am bus. The woman with the crying child, the sophisticated lady who was all dressed up for work, the woman with two super naughty kids and a few other people.

Tessa realized that for the past two months, she never failed to see these particular people while waiting for the 7am bus. She gave a nod in greeting and it was the just the women with kids that replied her. The other sophisticated lady was busy glancing at her watch from time to time. As soon as the bus arrived, everyone filed in a straight line and got on the bus while sliding their bus cards st the door.

Tessa slid her hands into the pockets of her hoodie with her other hand dangling beside her. There was soon a problem, the mother of the two naughty children was having a hard time sliding her bus card. The counter showed red each time she slid it across. There was not enough card in the card to go round.

"I re-filled it yesterday" the woman complained while wearing a distressed face. She couldn't afford to come down from the bus, she was going to be late for work and her children were going to be late for school as well. She looked towards the person in front of her for help but the latter didn't say anything before walking towards her seat.

Tessa swallowed her saliva as she smiled at the woman and slid her card "For all of us she muttered quietly and everyone turned to her immediately. The woman had tears in her eyes as she grabbed Tessa's hand and thanked her.

"Thank you so much" she said and Tessa nodded before walking to the end of the bus and finding her usual seat beside the window. She plopped down on the chair while looking outside at the cars that moved with the early morning clouds.

As expected, very few students were in the school as Tess walked into the school compound, she rolled her eyes at the huge blocked inscription beside the walls of the school compound. MACPHERSON HIGH SCHOOL.

Macpherson High School was the school for the rich of the rich, it was owned by the Macpherson family, one of the biggest and most popular family in America and its environs. As much as it was only rich kids that attended Macpherson, there was still hierarchy and societal status. And it was the societal status and hierarchy that left the slightly unsocial Tessa at the bottom of the food chain where she can easily be bullied.

She easily slipped into the school building murmuring the lyrics of a song she was yet to know the artiste as she found her way to the rooftop. The rooftop of the Sophomores had been Tessa's haven for a while now; when she had found the place, it was dusty and dirty and signs of human lives couldn't be found there. It greatly surprised Tessa as these were places where the cool kids would usually hang out but then Macpherson had a lot of cooler places than a rooftop to hang out.

She had quietly cleaned the place up and fixed the chairs there, there was a resting place where she could catch up on her sleep whenever she slept really late. Sometimes she sat near the railings and watched as other students trailed into school chatting happily and gossiping about parties that happened the night before, parties that Tessa had never gotten an opportunity to attend in her entire life.

She dropped her bag on the floor while trying to fish out her ear pods from the pocket of her bag. She yawned lightly as she climbed into the resting chair she had made for herself and opened her phone while tapping on the Netflix app. She fixed her ear pods in her ears while resuming the series she had slept off while watching the night before.

She was so engrossed in her movie that she didn't realize that uproar that was going on at the school that present moment. It wasn't until her alarm went off that Tessa jumped to her feet and carried her bag while hurrying down the stairs and avoiding attention. She cursed inwardly as she tried to squeeze herself through the horde of students in the hallway.

She had forgotten that today was Thursday and on Thursdays, she was supposed to set her alarm to ring at least ten minutes earlier. She had Ethnics class and a not so Mr Friendly Gordon taught them. he was strict and well overly dramatic, any student that entered class after him got detention.

Everyone hated detention so they did always make up to come extra early on Thursdays, even the wannabe queens and cheerleaders always made sure they came early but somehow this particular Thursday, fate wasn't on Tessa's side. Her phone buzzed in her hands again and Tessa's face instantly morphed into that of irritation and annoyance pushing past the students while ignoring the ones that were yelling at her.

She was already three minutes late and she started praying inwardly for something to hold Mr Gordon down but by the time she arrived at the door of the class, she already knew that God didn't answer her so not worthy prayer.

The man in the class stopped teaching and turned to Tessa with his usual stoic and friendless face. Tessa sighed inwardly, she should have known that prayers wouldn't work on someone like Mr Gordon, he was never late to class.

Ever.

"Miss Tessa, do you care to tell the class why are you coming to class at five minutes past 9?" Mr Gordon asked and Tessa swallowed her saliva trying to think of an excuse that wouldn't get her into detention.

She obviously couldn't say she had been in school since few minutes past 7am and because she was trying to avoid bullies, she had to hide in a rooftop till classes started. Tessa knew the slightly older man would just snort at her and send her straight into the detention.

"I woke up late" Tessa replied dropping her head and trying not to make contact with the Mr Gordon's eyes.

"This is your first time and for saying the truth, I won't give you detention. You just have to listen well in this class, make a note out of it, print them and send them to everyone in the class. we'll have a test on that next week" Mr Gordon replied and the class started murmuring.

Grateful for the not so heavy punishment; Tessa quickly nodded her head at him.

"Thank you Mr Gordon" Tessa replied as she walked into the class and flew towards her seat.

"You must be nuts!"