Chapter 4

My sister and I have had a cat and mouse relationship for as long as I could remember. Our bickering and getting at each other's throats was the reason my parents decided to make us sleep in different rooms.

So, it wasn't expected that she'd try to pry into my life to rat me out to my parents. Unfortunately for her, my life had no real secrets, at least non she could use against me.

That must suck for her.

Ace sent me a text this morning that he had to get to school early, so he wouldn't be able to pick me up. Hence, I had to either let my dad drive me or I had to take the bus.

"Bye Mom! Bye dad!" I happily yelled from the front door, shoving my weekly allowance into my purse, grinning that my parents finally added some extra spending money.

Redlake wasn't that populated, hence everyone basically knew anyone who walked the streets of our town. Or at least, I used to think, all that changed with Carlisle Stoll came to this town, some ten years ago.

He was the only exception to this small town rule....

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School year had started, and so had classes, yesterday was more of a welcoming, so I barely learnt anything.

Olive and I both shared all our classes together, except art, most highschool students refrained from taking art as a subject. Something about it being too much of a hassle, or something like that.

My teachers tried to talk me out of it, insisting that with my grades, taking up art would only slow me down.

"Hi." I mouthed to Cameron, my closest friend in art class, he was the top scorer in the class, me following as a close second.

He was already sketching out a drawing on his canvas when I had arrived, he really wasted no time in getting to it.

"Hey, you're fashionably early." He teased, focused solely on his sketch, failing to even spare me a glance while he spoke.

"Ace had practice early, so I took the bus." I answered, bringing out my pack of pens and pencils. Painting wasn't really my flair, so I only had to work with colours when we had a project that demanded it.

Take away painting, one could call me a jack of all trades when it came to art, and many other things.

"The life of a QB's girlfriend I suppose." He went on to say, focusing on sketching the feature of a nude woman, whose fingers were blades, choking her very throat.

Cameron's concepts and talents always baffled me, my abstract drawings were utter trash when compared to his.

"Haha, very funny." I replied, setting my canvas to draw something, though I didn't know what it would be yet. Art was still so very foreign to me, despite taking the class for two years in a stretch.

"Oh yeah, before I forget." I quickly told him, pulling out the list of names I had to get their signatures. Olive handed me my hard copy right from the gates of school, then ran off to attend the student council meeting that was about to start.

"Here, I need your signature for a petition against the cancelling of the spring dance." I told him, dropping the list on his desk, pushing a blue pen into his plaid shirt pocket.

He furrowed his brows at the list, and brought it to his eyes, scheming through its contents. "The spring dance is getting cancelled?" He blurted out, causing a lot of heads to shift towards our direction.

"Shhhh...only members of the student council know about it, that's why the list is being passed discreetly. I don't want the others to take things up and worsen the situation." I confessed, speaking from experience.

Though our town was pretty small time, it did stir up some chaos every now and then, some uncontrollable chaos.

He gave me an understanding look, as he took out the pen to calligraph his signature unto the sheet of paper.

"This can't happen, I just had my glow up, I was going to ask Shelly to the dance this year." He told him, referring to a girl from the student council, a friend of Olive.

But it wasn't a lie that Cameron looked ten times better than he did seven months ago. For one, he added some height and gained some muscles to compliment it. Secondly, after my years of beghingz he took off his braces, finally, making he seem less geeky. And thirdly, he took my advise concerning his hair, and got a nice cut that brought out his features.

"It won't get cancelled, not if we have anything to say about it." I so flamboyantly said, glad that the art teacher wasn't present for fifty percent of our classes.

He was either taking a short nap in the teacher's lounge, or supposedly out shopping for new art tools and teaching aids.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you something." Cameron suddenly said, passing the list back to me, withholding my pen though. He had a bit of a kleptomanic side to him, putting pens and keychains in front of him was the same as placing a bone in front of a dog.

"What?" I snapped, reason through the names on the list, hoping they belonged to any more members of the arts class.

"Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but did you date Carlisle Stoll once upon a time?" Cameron asked, prying into my thoughts, throwing a really weird question at me.

I swallowed hard and ended up choking on my own saliva, my dainty hand resting on my chest.

"Oh shit." He cursed, pulling his water bottle out of his bag, pressing it into my left hand. I was so stunned by the question, that I actually forgot to breathe that second.

"Your reaction makes me believe you two go way back." Cameron told me, discreetly looking around the class, searching for someone in particular.

"We do...in some way, but trust me when I say that, we definitely never dated each other in the past. We aren't even friends, talk less of going out." I firmly said, speaking up for myself.

Cameron wore an apologetic look on his face, "sorry Peyton, it's just, people talk." The latter part of his sentence roused some suspicion in me, just what was it, that people were saying about me?.

His gaze settled on something, someone rather, I followed his stare, till my eyes rested on Carlisle, who had his head buried on his desk, he was sleeping.

I think.

"What exactly did someone say?" I inquired, shoving the list into my bag, I tried to hide my worry with interest, flashing him a nervous as hell smile.

He fondled with his pencil, unsure of whether or not to say anything to me. I was on the verge of calling him out on it, when the teacher suddenly walked in, and class began immediately.

"Just forget I said anything." Cameron suddenly said, focusing his gaze on the bald middle aged man, with coffee stains all over his plain blue shirt.