Lani by Eni L.S. (bearly read books txt) 📕

"What? Girl there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Your drawings are amazing. Especially the one of Axel", Sarah says. I groan again in my hands. She is not helping. I look up at them.

"Ok can we please keep this between us? Just forget you ever saw that. Please", I place my hands together in a praying sign. "Girl don't worry. I don't even know why you're embarrassed. You have talent", Sarah smiles at me.

"Thanks", I say shyly. So ok yes I'm good. But I am also modest.

Revi comes around to me and hugged me. I slap her shoulder instead. A little hard. "Ow!" She yells. I jump away before she hits me back. 

"That's what you get hoe!" I laugh. "Let's go to dinner now".

We all walk out and head to the dining hall. When we got to the dining hall it is already filled with students. We follow Sarah and them to their table where their boyfriends are waiting. The back of my neck felt warm telling me Axel is there. Unlike lunch, we are served our meals to our tables. This is pretty cool. It’s meatloaf for dinner with mashed potato and gravy and some vegies on the side. Yum.

Everyone starts to dig in as soon as they got their food. Revi and I look at each other.

"Bags not!" I say quickly with a grin. Revi shook her head at me. We both bow our heads and Revi says a quick prayer to bless our food. We say Amen and started digging in ourselves. We look up and most of the people at our table are staring at us. I raise my eyebrow inquisitively looking around at the staring faces.

"This is like Deja vu. What? Never seen a black person eat before? Yeah we know how to use a fork and knife", I joke.

"Oh no! We're not racist I mean we didn't think you didn't...ugh it's just unusual seeing someone say grace before eating here", Sarah says.

"Oh so ya'll ain't Christians?" asks Revi.

"I am", Sarah and Rachel raise their hands while the others shook their heads. I nod at them. "Cool". I return back to eating my food.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the charity cases. How are you liking American food?" blondie says from the table behind us. Gawsh she is so annoying.

I decide to ignore her. Ain't nobody got time for this. I shrug and continue eating my food. 

"Make sure you don't eat too much. You're already fat as it is", she says sweetly though her voice was filled with venom.

"Hey guys!" I say to my friends. "That's Miss Plastic." I point my thumb in blondie's direction. "She's my personal weight watcher. She came cheap. Ya'll should hire her too".

"Oh burrrrn!" cheers Revi. We all crack up. 

I am about to say something to Revi when I suddenly froze. There is something squashy on my head. I shiver. My breathing gets loud and heavily. The whole room is suddenly quiet except for blondie and her friends laughing their asses off.

"Oh shit!" exclaims Revi. "Should not have done that". 

"Revi? What's on my hair?" I ask calmly. Too calm. 

"Mashed potato."

I stand up slowly and the bulltches stopped laughing. I straighten my shoulders, crack my neck then my back. I know everyone heard my bones crack in the quiet room. It’s what I wanted. It’s part of my ‘intimidation routine’. I push out of my chair and face blondie's table. I can feel the blood boiling. She just had to ruin my hair. Nobody messes with my hair. I stare blondie in the eye. Hmm should I do the Maori stare? Eh next time. 

"Do you have any idea how long it takes to wash this hair?" I ask calmly.

She sneers at me. "Do I look like I care?"

"You should. Cos it took longer than your nose job", I say flatly.

She stands up and walks towards me stopping a foot away. 

She smirks at me, "What are you going to do about it?"

When I don't answer she scoffs. "That's right. Nothing," she says moving closer.

A smile stretched on my face. You should never challenge a hot tempered Samoan woman. She didn't see it coming. I moved too fast for her to duck or block before my fist connects with her nose in a crunch. She falls to the floor. The whole room is quiet until Revi's laugh breaks the silence.

"Damn you K.O'd her!" Revi laughs stomping her feet on the floor. I look at blondie's friends who are just sitting there open-mouthed. 

"Hey! Help your friend!" I snap at them. They finally move to help blondie. The adrenaline starts to leave my body and I feel my hand throbbing. I quickly turn to Revi who is still laughing. I hold out my right hand to her with my left hand over my mouth. I look like I'm about to cry.

"Revi!" I squeal at her. She raises her eyebrows "what?”

"It hurts like a bitch! I think I broke my hand!" I scream at her. Well if it was any other person, they would rush over to me with concern. But not Revi. She cracks up even more.

"Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod! You broke your hand?" I wince trying to stretch my fingers and nodded at her. Yeap she cracks up even more. Uggh she is so frustrating. I am in no mood to laugh. I'm in a dramatic mood.

"Do something you bitch! It's my drawing hand! Ice it Fix it!" Yes and I stomped my foot. 

"Ngaww you poor baby, come here and let me see your hand", she cooed. 

"Here let me look at your hand", a deep husky voice says from behind me.

I freeze. The back of my neck prickles. I was afraid to take a breath. OMG OMG. I look wide-eyed at Revi and chew on my lower lip. She just smirks at me. I slowly turn around and all I see is hard chest. Damn. All that muscle hiding under that tight shirt. I slowly look up and my eyes meet the green eyes that have been in my thoughts a lot. I can totally get lost in those eyes. Happily.

“Umm that’s ok. My friend here is going to check it out,” I say not taking my eyes off his.

“No I wasn’t!” Revi calls out. Seriously I am going to kill that bitch.

The left corner of his lips lift up. Gawwsh. Shexy. “I’ll take you to the nurse,” he smiles at me. That smile! So beautiful.

“Yeah Lani go with him to the nurse,” Revi jumps in before I could say no. She is so begging for it. “And don’t you worry. I’ll help wash your hair after.”

“Ugh fine! Let’s go,” I turn and walk to the door. I know he’s following because I can feel his warmth from behind me. Damn it. What the hell?

I do not want to be alone with him. I don’t want to near him at all. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. Why? I’ll tell you why.

Ok I’m not really a chickenshit. I’m just scared. I have never felt like this before. I mean yeah I’ve dated in the past. But I only dated for the sake of dating. Does that even make sense? I have never had a crush on a guy before. Well except for Chris Hemsworth. He is one fine specimen. But he’s got nothing on Axel. Damn it. What? I’ve never felt this pull towards someone before. It’s like…I don’t even know what’s wrong with me. I just want to ignore this attraction or whatever with him. I’m scared it might be one sided. I do not want to be rejected. That will totally shatter my big heart into dust.

I exit through the doors and turn right. I heard him clearing his throat and I stop to look at him. I stopped breathing. Damn that’s been happening every time I see him. I raise my right eyebrow at him.

He grins and says, “The nurse is that way”. He points to the opposite direction of where I was heading. Inside groan. Embarrassing.

I lift my chin and walk towards him, “I knew that.”

“Of course you did,” he chuckles. I love how he chuckles. It makes me tingly. It’s like the sound of his voice makes my blood sing.

We walked side by side with me cradling my injured hand with my left hand. I turn my head to look at him.

“So we’ve never been introduced. I’m Lani. I’d offer you my hand to shake but it’s out of service at the moment”. I pause. “Oh wait, I have my left hand”, I laugh at my stupidity. I extend my hand and he takes it.

Our hands made contact a feel a jolt going through my whole body. Wtf? I pulled my hand back quickly. What the hell was that?

“That was electricity shooting through your body. I’m Axel by the way,” he grinned at me. My eyes widened. Oh my life! I said that out loud. Shit. Wait. He felt it too. Yayyy. I am mentally jumping up and down.

“I…umm…uh..oh crap,” I face-palm myself. I can’t even form proper words. He chuckles.

“So tell me about yourself”, he says to me. “And why you pretended to have bad English in class today. Imagine my surprise when you spoke fluently at lunch. I love your accent. It sounds American and not at the same time.”

I smile. Ooh he loves my accent. Hehe.

“Uhm thanks. I think. Well as you know, I’m an exchange student from Samoa. And it was my friend Revi’s idea to pretend to have bad English. We wanted to know how you white kids would react. Uhm whether you’d be like blondie or not. It was an experiment of a sort. Fortunately not everyone is like blondie.”

He chuckles, “It’s good you found friends already. Hopefully I’ll be one of them too”, he smiles.

My heart dropped. Oh that hurts. Did he just friendzone me? See? This is why I do not want to explore whatever it is I am feeling. Gawsh damn it really hurts.

Axel suddenly steps in front of me. “Actually, I want to be more than that”.

OMG my heart is back in place and is beating so fast. He wants to be what? I can’t even look at his face afraid I’d see lies in his eyes. He brings up his hand and lifts my chin so my eyes can see his. Damn his eyes! Why did they have to be so beautiful?

“I mean it Lani. I can’t get you out of my head since I saw you standing at your window. And then when you came in to class today. I couldn’t take my eyes off you,” he said in a low voice.

I swallow hard. OH MY GAWSH!!! I suddenly see flashes of Axel and me together. R21! Mayday! Mayday! Turn the plane around!

“I…I…do..don’t kn…know what to…to say,” I stuttered. Shit he is the first guy to make stutter like an idiot. I suddenly saw Revi wagging her finger in my face saying, “What iz da meaning?!”

He moves closer to me still holding my chin up. His lips just a breath away. My heart is beating away so fast. It’s a wonder it hasn’t come out of my chest. “What