What is this person doing here? Wait.. don't tell me..

"What are you doing here?" I ask, clearly surprised.

"Who are you?" He answers my question with another question, one of the things I hate the most, and that's all it takes for me to be even more annoyed. I never noticed before until today that he's actually got a weird voice, it's low but somewhat gentle. Well, I've never interacted with him this close before so why am I even wondering.

"I asked you first." I snap as I cross my arms across my chest.

"Well, I came to.. clean." He says, whispering the last word. Clean? Oh god, please tell me he wasn't punished by Mrs. Austen too...

"As a punishment?" I blurt out without thinking. The last thing I want is to do my punishments with Mr. Everyone's Boyfriend. Why him of all people? It could be a nerd or an outcast, but why him? I definitely can't work with him. He's intimidating and his presence makes me uncomfortable and..

Remember your last awkward encounter with him outside the library? My subconscious reminds me. I pray that he doesn't remember my face anymore.

"Why else do you think I'd be here then? Only someone completely insane would agree to do this." He spits as his eyes scan the room appalled, just as how I was a few minutes ago. He has a point however he stated it so rudely. Now you understand why I said I can't work with him.

"For how many days?" I ignore his rude remark.

"A whole week. Why are you asking so many questions?" He rolls his eyes. I watch as he walks pass me to grab a black garbage bag. He starts shoving the papers piled on the table inside it without even checking the papers. I stop him by grabbing the handful of paper from his hand.

"What are you doing?" He says, irritated.

"You can't just shove everything in there. You have to check the papers first!" Mrs. Austen reminded me yesterday that I have to check the papers – if they aren't ruined and they don't have any writings on the other side, then I must separate them from those that have writings on both sides. The dean said they can still be donated to schools in other countries that don't have it easy. They can use the back portion of the paper, she added. It's our school's newest project, something like that.

"Are you serious?" He scoffs. He tries to wriggle out of my grasp with not that much force but I stay firm.

"I am. So, stop that now." I say sternly. He gives in and puts the papers he just shoved inside the bag back to the table.

"You can't be serious," he shakes his head in disbelief, "look at all the papers", he points to the piles of paper scattered around the room, "it will take you decades to finish separating all of that, didn't you think of that?" He scowls at me. Annoying little .

"You're exaggerating. Isn't that why you were sent here? To help me do all these? Or you already forgot?" I say as I start separating the papers. I sure as hell don't want to do this either but knowing it will be for people who badly needs a little help, how could I not help? "And believe me, I don't want to do this either." I add.

"Whatever." Chase scoffs again as he hastily grabs and scans the papers.

We work silently. We're sitting on the floor with newspapers as our makeshift seats. Two pairs of hands are working nonstop – too eager to finish quickly.

"My name's Chase by the way." He says out of the blue, breaking the silence. He's probably bored. Bored as I am, I'm sure. I just nod in acknowledgement. I do know his name because honestly, who in this school doesn't?

"What's your name?" He adds when I don't respond.

"Why do you need to know?" I look at him and he looks back at me with a hint of, I guess, mischief in his eyes.

"You're not saying that you prefer being called Miss Peach Sweater, are you?" What? I look down briefly at myself and realize he's pertaining to my clothes. The heck?

"Stop it." He doesn't need to know my name. Good thing I'm not wearing my ID.

"Sure, Miss Peach Sweater." He teases and shrugs. I try to calm myself by ignoring him. We go back to our task without talking to each other again. It's amazing how eagerness to finish can make you do things really quickly without noticing it. There are only a few more unseparated stocks of paper left. The next thing we need to do is.. put away the curtains maybe? Then fixing the chairs, arranging the tables, dusting, repainting the walls and dusting again.

I decide to start putting away the curtains already while Chase works on finishing off the remaining papers. He looks at me when I stand up, neither of us is saying anything. I feel his eyes on me as I move a medium sized table near the window and climb up. Because my height isn't of a model, even with the table I'm stepping on, it's still too high for me to reach so I have to tiptoe.

"Watch out, Peach Sweater." I hear Chase teasingly yells as I stretch my arms higher to reach the top of the curtain. I roll my eyes and ignore him. My clumsy disposition suddenly kicks in and I wobble. I hear Chase gasps before he instinctively runs to my side.

"Jesus, I said watch out, didn't I?" He grabs ahold of my thighs to steady me. The top of his head is on the same level with my chest and that's when I realize how tall he actually is. My heart races, not from his touch but from almost breaking a bone. After a few more seconds, I finally recover and my heartbeat goes back to its normal pace.

"I'm okay, you can let go now." I pat his shoulder and he detaches his hands from my thighs.

"Come down, I'll do that. You stay down here instead and hold the curtains." He commands sternly. I decide he's the perfect person to do that task because he's freaking tall so I acquiesce and climb down the table, he takes my hand and carefully guides me as I go down. I watch him intently put the curtain away with no struggles at all.

"What are you staring at, Miss Peach Sweater?" He cuts me off and I look away. He hands me the curtain before going to the other window to do the same and I follow.

"Will you stop calling me that?" I glare at him and he chuckles.

"I thought it was fine for you to be called that?"

"I never said so."

"You didn't say anything so I figured it was fine."

"Whatever. I didn't so stop calling me that now." I sass. He continues to annoy me. He hands me the last curtain before he climbs down the table.

"What should we do next, Miss Peach Sweater?"

"Aren't you going to stop?" I snap.

"How else am I going to call you then? You wouldn't even tell me your name." He grins and that annoys me even more.

"I swear, if you call me that once more.."

"What, you'll kiss me?" He challenges.

"What?" I scoff and he laughs so loud as he throws his head back like a little kid.

"Come on, Miss Peach Sweater. Introduce yourself then." He teasingly encourages me to spill out my identity.

"Lia." I say as I close my eyes to redeem composure.

"What?"

"I'm Lia, satisfied?"

"That's it? No middle name, no surname?"

"Yeah," I sigh. "Do I need to have a second name?" I turn away from him to start folding the curtains.

"Ooh. Lia, eh? That is such a tame name." He says inaudibly.

"What?" I look at him and he smiles. I take note of his toothpaste commercial worthy teeth and smile when he does.

"Nothing, I said you have a really short name. So, what should we do next, Lia?" He smiles even more widely, if that's even possible. He isn't having inside jokes with my name, is he?

Mrs. Austen calls it a day and lets us off after we're only left with repainting the walls which she said we can just do tomorrow. I start stretching and so does Chase. He looks at me and he's about to move his mouth to say something but his phone's vibrations interrupt him.

"Hey. I just finished school, sorry. Why?" He lies. He turns away from me as he answers the call and his voice is too loud so I still can hear everything, I practically scoff.

"What happened? Is Margaux alright?" My head turns to his direction and I see him frowning.

"Can you look after her for a bit then? I'll be home in less than an hour." He says worriedly and I look away from him when he shoves his phone back to the pocket of his jeans. Chase looks anxious and the mischief in his eyes from just a moment ago has instantly faded away right after that phone call. Who is Margaux anyway? I suppose that whoever that girl is, she's important to him because he really seemed worried about her. She's probably his girlfriend? Oh, and I thought he's dating the Maddy girl from the library? So, the rumors are true. He really does date a lot.

"I'm leaving." I tell him before he can say anything and run off. I really just want to go home right now and take a long shower. I decide to skip my last class for the day and head to the clinic first to visit Andrea before going home. This day has been really tiring for me and all my energy has been drained.

***

"Allie and I were so worried about you. You were gone for a little more than a week without any calls or texts. You still have a lot of things to explain to me, understand? You know you mustn't keep me in the dark, Julia." This is what I get instead of a "how was school?" from Andrea when I arrive to her clinic.

"I know that, and I will explain everything later. I came here today for Rocky and not for that, okay?" I grumpily reply.

"Sure." She rolls her eyes at me before giving me a hug... which she should have given to me first when I arrive and not some infuriating speech.

"How was school?" There. Exactly what I prefer to hear. I wriggle out of her embrace and she scoffs.

"Long. I got punished for my consecutive absences. Where's Miley anyway? Why didn't she come out to welcome me?"

"Inside," she motions to the door of her office, "see what you got yourself into." She clicks her tongue and I ignore her as I enter further into the clinic and luckily, there aren't a lot of people inside – only one baby Labrador and two ladies are inside, waiting for their turn. I go straight to Dr. Hartley's office where I find the milk and chocolate colored Husky sleeping. When Miley detects my presence, her eyes pop open and she starts running to my direction.

"Hi there, Miley." I caress its ears as it stops just beside my feet and its tail wiggle nonstop to show me that she has missed me as well, I guess. I crouch down to caress her more and she starts my hand and face with pure enthusiasm. I giggle and Anna – Andrea's assistant who happens to share the same name with my deceased mother – comes in with some tiramisu and two cups of coffee in her hands to join Andrea in gazing upon Miley and I's blissful interaction. They once mentioned how much they love my interactions with animals especially with dogs and I don't know why.