Two.

"Ninety seven. Ninety eight. Ninety nine... Ahh. Finally."

From across our table, Blake relapsed into his chair and sighed in content after brushing each sides of his hair one hundred times.

Beside me, my friend Oliver scoffed.

Today was a pretty non stressful day. Many of my classes were interesting–except for Mrs. Portholl's class– even Art class was tolerable.

"I see where his friends are coming from, really, they're afraid to break it out to him that he's crazy." Tyson reasoned, slowly etching a chicken nugget into his mouth.

"I don't even know how he fit in the hierarchy!" May pointed out. "I mean, he is actually the second most loved person in the feisty five."

Ah yes, the hierarchy.

You see, every school has it's hierarchy of student status. But my school has only two dividends.

It's either your an outcast plus a socialite merged together.

Or

You're one of the feisty five. Which you can't actually be part of because there are already five of them.

First, there's Courtney Miller, the artist. A pretty brunette with the perfect baby blue eyes and flawless skin. Her single mother is a fashion designer that also owns a company of her own.

James Thompson, the basketball star with dark sleek hair that's always in place and his dark green eyes always flickering in amusement. His parents are lawyers who are never in town. He has twin siblings a boy and a girl.

Blake Fischer, the quarterback. Shoulder length golden blonde hair and grey eyes. He is the weirdo, stupid, childish, and chaotic one in the group. His mother is a choreographer in Brooklyn and His father an actor. Two elder sisters and a dog.

And Carter Ferraro, the dancer. She's the one that is likely to talk too much. She has long raven hair that falls above her waist which looks amazing with her grey eyes. She laughs a lot, almost all the time. Her mom is deceased and her father is a workaholic CEO that is always on business trips.

"Does he really have to brush his hair that many times everyday?" Ruth asks as she stared at the quarterback with so much incredulity.

I shrugged and thrusted a nugget inside my mouth.

At our table we were six in number, and we are friends. The craziest you could ask for. There's Oliver, Ruth, Tyson, April, May and I.

Oliver and Tyson are also in the soccer team.

Ruth has been voted class president three times already, and she's the president of the music club.

April is the cheerleader and May is always at the top of the pyramid.

And like I said, I am just a nerd who sticks around with really cool people.

"He grew up with two sisters, he is bound to be a maniac." Oliver said which earned him a smack on the arm from April.

I chuckled softly at that. The twins have a baby brother, Ishmael.

I may not have mentioned it, but I think you guys already know that Ryder is the fifth and first person in the group.

Yeah, I haven't mentioned him when I listed the rest of his friends. That's because no one really knows about him. His parents, siblings, relatives... nobody knows about them.

Dark blue eyes darkened and flickered with annoyance. I blinked twice and then blushed with embarrassment.

I had been watching him this whole time, and had been watching right back.

My gaze immediately diverted to one of my friends and we started talking about elections and stuff.

I was about to chug another nugget down my throat when something collided with my forehead ricocheting me off my seat. With a small 'oomph' my butt landed on the cafeteria floor.

"Holy shit." I heard Ruth curse.

Everything stilled in and out of me, even the low chattering in the cafeteria had died down and I instantly knew I was the centre of attraction.

I blinked furiously and fixed my glasses that has somehow gotten under my nose. I tried taking deep breaths but I knew it wasn't going to work anyway. I bit my lip and balled my fist before standing up.

As predicted, everyone was looking at me. My furious eyes searched the floor until they spotted a big, green apple that had formed a dent.

I picked it up and clutched it in my hand.

"Where did this fucking apple come from!" I said as calm as possible through gritted teeth.

I might be a nerd but that's because I'm smart, not because I'm patient.

"Alexandra, I think we should–"

"Ruth, I swear to God if you talk about being civil I will cut your tits out, dry them and feed them to your future nephews and nieces." I said every word with slow venom and a very strong promise dripping in each octave in my tone.

I rose an eyebrow and my friends gulped then pointed their fingers forward.

My eyes followed their hands until they stopped at the table across us, the table of the feisty five.

Well, fuck.

I marched over to their table, my platinum blonde hair flapping in the wind, threatening to slip through my glasses and blind me.

But I didn't care, all I saw was red. Bloody red.

The trip wasn't long and I soon stopped at their table. My eyes narrowed into slits as I rose the apple to their eye sight.

They had actually looked terrified. It was almost funny.

"Which one of you did this?" I demanded.

Blake closed his eyes and patterned a quick cross, his index and middle fingers tipping his forehead, chest and shoulders sideways.

Without any further ado, they all stretched their arms to the very end of their table, ratting out my attacker shamelessly.

Of course, it had to be him.

Ryder was seated at the end of the table, he looked at me with a bored expression.

Oh I know this kind of scenario, it's the part where the bad boy thinks he gets to bully the awkward nerd and go away with it.

Who on earth told him I was some stupid, innocent nincompoop?

Maybe he thought he could scare me off with his distraught, stupid glare.

Well, he couldn't have been more wrong.

I sagged my shoulders and walked up to him.

"Hey, how are you?"

He didn't reply, I didn't expect him to. Instead he scrutinized me from head to toe with his blue gaze.

"Anyway," I said with a fake smile. "I hate to break it out to you Anderson, but the whole school already knows you're a bastard and a fucking lowlife so I'm not going to hit you back with apple. I'm not stupid."

I'm goddamn crazy!

The whole cafeteria gasped at my words.

From where our table was, my friends were doing crazy hand gestures for me to stop. Except for Oliver who was smirking.

Ryder's eyes hardened. It won't work on me fucktard.

"I'm guessing you want your apple back? Here you go." I smiled sickly and placed it on his tray before straightening up.

Fucking bastard.

Immediately, my face hardened. I released my hands from the fists they hand formed and before anyone could see it coming, my right palm had connected with his left cheek.

The loud crack was heard all over the cafeteria.

Ryder's face whipped to his right from the impact and I tried my best not to grimace from the stinging sensation in my palm.

I raised a finger to his face.

"You can do whatever you want in this goddamn school but you better how to treat a lady like one, not all of us out there are whores."

With one last glance at his direction I huffed and started walking past the sea of students to the nurse's office where I can get my forehead examined.

Ryder Anderson better think twice before thinking he can pick on me.

He has always been the mysterious one amongst his friends. He is a one man army.

What I do know is that Principal Myers will have my ass for disgracing the star swimmer in public.

And I don't care.

~*~

"You smacked him! Across the cheek! In front of the student body!" May exclaimed pacing back and forth in my room. "You know what that means? Damnation! We are fucking damned."

I rolled my eyes and continue to apply an ointment the school nurse recommended earlier at school. After that incident at the cafeteria, I went to the nurse's office to check on my forehead after that, the rest of my classes went smoothly.

Without apples flying in the air.

"You're just adding the 'we' to make an exaggeration. 'We' didn't do anything!" April said. "She did."

From the other side of the room Ruth bobbed her head to April's revelation.

"Truth be told Alex, you are damned." April deadpanned.

I sigh and patted the last bit of ointment I needed at the side of the purplish-black bruise on my forehead.

"Seriously guys, it's not like he's God or something! He started it first! Can you look at me without cringing?" I asked them, turning around and in response, they all cringed. "Exactly what I'm talking about!"

"But don't you think slapping him is a bit too far? I mean, it will bruise his ego and reputation. And you have neither of those." Ruth said as a matter of factly.

"Yup, I have neither of those but if there's one thing that is bruised, it's my forehead. Now put a sock in it and let's go do something fun." I grinned.

"Your definition of fun is very limited, Alex." May said.

I sighed dramatically. My friends have  so much faith in me.

I grabbed my purse and stood up.

"Let's go eat pizza." I said lazily and they all laughed before getting ready.

Ryder and his reputation/ego can come suck my posterior.