Hell Is Just Love In Disguise

Chapter 2

I cross my arms against my chest not even pretending that I was doing the reading assigned for class. My textbook lies unopened on my desk. The girls encircled my seat were whispering and eyeing the door.

Tulsa Westwood marches in, litters of wet toilet paper stuck to her clothes, hair, and skin. She glares stomping towards the girls next to me and slams a wad of wet toilet paper on Rae Washington's desk.

She shrieks, pinching her nose with her manicured nails. The tall one with green eyes next to her speaks. "Had a little trouble getting up from the restroom this morning?"

Tulsa puts on a big smile. "Wow Leyla, your lives must be so boring that you had to go and mess with mine,"

Another girl talks slowly wrinkling her nose. "We knew you were a freak but smelly too? It's like you want to get made fun of,"

"It's not our fault that the restroom stall door was locked, those doors can be really tricky," a different girl says, stifling a laugh.

She crouches down and glares at Rae. "You owe me new clothes," she spits and then she settles into the chair in front of me.

The girls are unfazed as Derrick Randolph is already cleaning up Rae's table and handing her flowers. I roll my eyes at the scene. Suck up.

I watch Tulsa, impressed with how she stands her ground when if something like that happened to me I'd be in tears.

Tulsa transferred to Clear Lake High last year and she's infamous for getting in serious trouble without ever getting expelled or even suspended. Nothing ever stuck and our principal could never prove it was her. It's rumored that she's a part of Clear Lake's infamous gang, The Jackals but I know for certain that she's not because I'm one of them.

As Bell Hooks said, Tulsa was a fringe freak element, a woman unrepresented, and she would be the one to replace Rose. But convincing her would be the hard part. We didn't exactly get off the right foot when we first met.

She had been lost in the school hallway looking for her classroom. In the sea of students, I could see her eyes furrowed trying to figure out which way to go. Her shoulder-length curly hair was straightened down to her waist and she clicked her high heel boots against the floor.

Her arms were filled with textbooks and a large coffee was in her right hand. I was at my locker fixing my makeup. She tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I could show her where her classroom was.

Before I could answer her Rae Washington bumps into her and Tulsa's drink spills all over Rae's two hundred dollar fuzzy pink Chanel sweater. She screeches as her friends encircle her with napkins trying to clean her up.

"I am so sorry!" Tulsa stammered.

"Maybe next time you should watch where you're going!" She snarled.

I picked up one of the textbooks that fell from Tulsa's hand and gave it to her.

"Do you know this loser?" Rae snapped.

A sharp pain twinges in my chest. I couldn't risk being associated with her. At Clear Lake, our reputation was everything and I needed everyone to believe I was like every other junior at this school. I had just switched to contacts that year and all anyone could talk about was how gorgeous I had gotten.

My braids were curled and I started wearing lipgloss, and skirts to school every day. Also, every time someone waved I would say hi. I thought I was still the same beautiful when I had my glasses and jeans on but the world I lived in was selfish and materialistic, and if you weren't gorgeous on the outside, no one cared what you had to say.