"Fuck you, Malio!" I said angrily and slapped his hand away. I couldn't believe how stupid I was to honestly think he would be interested in me in any way! He watched in surprise as I picked up my bag from the floor, which I had dropped somewhere between the door and the wall. "Jolien, wait a minute!" Malio grabbed my arm to stop me from exiting through the ajar door. "Let go of me!" I glared furiously. "You're hurting yourself!" He said after I tried in vain to free myself. Again he played his superiority completely. As if my feelings and condition were nothing. "I told you to let go of me." I said again, a tad more aggressively. " What more do you want? I can't believe you did this! You would have just let me watch like that. How disgusting can you be?" I burst out. "You're just like everyone says! A real asshole! No wonder everyone hates you! You're deranged! Do you suffer from..." "Are you ready?" he interrupted me harshly and pulled me closer to him with a jerk. Malio brought his face millimeters to mine and said calmly: "I would never have slept with her!" I threw my head back laughing. Now he actually wanted to take me for a fool! "Malio, you have a quirk! What does this power play bring you then? Does that make you horny in any way? That's right - you probably won't get your wimp up if you don't!" "Careful, Jolien!" he said warningly. But I didn't want to be careful anymore. why? For what? He had already hurt me. "May I say something about that now?" Malio asked after a while, in which I had already gone through countless insults in my mind, but had found none to be sufficient. I raised an eyebrow defiantly. "You've said enough with what you've done!" "I wouldn't have slept with her!" he said again and again his words made me laugh. "Oh no, and why not?" He hesitated, looking down for a moment and I took advantage of his momentary uncertainty to break free of his grip. I already had my hand on the doorknob when Malio said something that made me pause for a second. "I wouldn't have done it for you!" Now I hesitated, not knowing whether to just smack him or not. What would the consequences be like if I did? Would he maybe attack me with his knife like this guy from the first day of school, or did he have other methods that I didn't know about until now. "I haven't slept with a woman or kissed another woman since we kissed. I don't even think about other women anymore." I heard him say. Wow, if that was his kind of affection then I didn't want to see what he did when he hated me. "Maybe I went too far, I can see that, but you were so disobedient..." "Shut up, Malio! Do you really think I believe you? That's ridiculous! And what was I, disobedient? Am I your dog or what?" I looked him straight in the dismayed eyes. For a moment an expression crossed his face that I had never seen there before. Panic. "Stay away from me!" I said firmly. "I can't," he replied bluntly, and even though I hated him, my stupid heart still beat faster with excitement at his words. Malio probably wasn't the only crazy person in this room if, after all, he could still spark something in me. "Well, then I'm leaving the Academy!" I said without further ado and ran out the door. "You're running the wrong way, we have math now!" he called after me like the last twenty or thirty minutes had never happened. But I had no intention of going to class. I left the school grounds and drove home. Fuck this academy. Fuck Malio. At the moment I didn't care. I would avoid him and fool my father into thinking I was sick. A week at home. A week apart. Surely that would be enough to push away the annoying feelings that were left and lock them so deep in their emotional box that they would never see the light of day again. "You want to leave the Academy?" Bekka asked me in surprise when she called me in the early evening to ask if everything was okay. "Yeah, my dad can't afford it anymore. The Academy is too expensive.", a lie that wasn't even 100% a lie, after all even Silia had told me that we actually couldn't afford the Academy. "But then we won't see each other anymore." , I heard Bekka say sadly. I immediately had a guilty conscience. "We still both live in Silverside." I said quickly. "Yeah, you're right and I've always wanted to have a girlfriend from state school. There's supposed to be hot guys there." "Mhm!" I replied. I didn't want to know anything about guys at first. "But you're not going because of Malio, are you?" she suddenly asked. I felt the heat immediately and feared his little show had already made it into student gossip. "I mean, it was very clear that you were attracted to each other..." "He likes everyone." I quickly interrupted her. I didn't want to chat about Malio even less than I did about some hot guy at the state school. "Exactly not!" Shit, with that statement, Bekka actually managed to ignite a small spark of interest and I cautiously asked, "What do you mean?" " Sure Malio has many girls. But he doesn't bother with one that long. It's really all about sex for him. Always and directly. No small talk, no dates, no cell phone numbers." Suddenly the feelings that I wanted to keep tightly closed in the feeling box reported again. "Jolien, are you still there?" I heard Bekka ask when I realized much too late that I hadn't answered her yet. "Yeah sorry, Amelie just came into my room." "Strange, I didn't hear anything. " " Beka?" "Yes?" "Why are you telling me that?" I asked uncertainly. I just had no idea what else to believe people about Malio. If he really liked me, then why was he doing that? It was absurd. " I do not know. I felt like something happened after Ivan took you - then you both just left at once and suddenly you want to change schools. I'm not stupid, Jolien." "I didn't say that either." "Will you then tell me what happened?" Bekka asked cautiously. Why not? A friend would certainly do me good now. So I told Bekka everything. The whole story. I was surprised myself at what had happened in the last week. It's almost uncanny how quickly you can develop feelings, whether affection or dislike, for people. "Alex is a huge asshole!" Bekka said angrily. "You should tell Malio about it." She added a little calmer at the end. "I don't know if that's a good idea," I honestly admitted. "Jolien, sometimes being bad is just a way of hiding how sad you actually are," she said after a while. " Think again. I would hate to lose a potential best friend - even though the girlfriend point at state school is very tempting." With these words Bekka hung up. She left me with questions I didn't know the answer to and feelings I couldn't explain. In fact, I went through with my plan to spend the rest of the week at home on the premise of having a terrible migraine attack. The plan to switch from the Academy to the Silverside state school turned out to be much more difficult to implement. Because under no circumstances did my father want me to leave the Academy. And I absolutely didn't know why. "Dad, have you thought about it again?" I tried Friday morning for the hundred thousand times this week. Annoyed, he looked up from the daily newspaper, which he studied carefully, as he did every morning. "That's it again?" "Yeah, because I just don't understand why I have to stay at the Academy! I've changed. I take school seriously now. So there's no reason to go to an elite school anymore send." I said calmly. I really had to pull myself together, but I wasn't going to get anywhere with pressure because my dad hated being pressured. In theory it was quite easy, I had to convince him with my carefully chosen words, preferably before Silia appeared in the kitchen, because that would greatly reduce my chances. Silia didn't believe in the idea of going to state school any more than my father did. I feared that Silia was more aware of the truth, the real reason behind the transfer, than I would have liked. "I won't discuss this with you anymore, Jolien! You stay at the academy. That's the end of this annoying topic for me!", my father brought my thoughts back to the here and now. ,, But you would have to work less!", I tried again. I certainly wouldn't give up that easily! I finally had today, Saturday and Sunday to somehow convince him of the idea of changing schools. I just had to make it! I couldn't help but think of Malio. If I didn't make it and continue attending the Academy, I didn't know if I would be able to forget him. It was easier not to have to see him to get rid of those annoying feelings he had kind of aroused in me. True to the motto: Out of sight, out of mind! I've blocked his number as well. First of all, to put a stop to myself from constantly going to his profile and looking at his pictures - because that's been happening far too often lately. I told myself I was doing it just to show myself that I hated him, but I knew that lie was way too bad to believe for even a minute. The other reason was to stop Malio from getting in touch with me - which he already did on Monday. He sent me two messages, asking to meet - he wanted to talk. I found it unnecessary. Since then it was quiet. forced. "Is she still trying to convince you?" Silia came sleepily into the kitchen, holding an even sleepier looking Amelie by the hand. "Yes, and it's starting to get annoying!", he said loudly, with a clear look at me. A look that told me that the next few days would probably be more exhausting than I had feared. "Why do you want to change all of a sudden?" Silia asked suddenly and turned away from the refrigerator, from which she was taking bread, butter and a packet of cheese to spread Amelie a piece of bread. "Just like that!", I said quickly and turned the spoon around in my coffee cup a few times. "Oh, I thought there was a reason!" She said meaningfully, which made my father sit up and take notice. "What does she mean, Jolien?" he asked immediately and closed the newspaper. I glanced at the clock with relief - he had to go to work, which saved me from having to answer. At least for now! "Alright. Now that we've settled the matter, I'm going to go to work," he then said, getting up from the chair and disappearing through the kitchen door. "Are you crazy? What was that comment supposed to mean?" I turned directly to Silia after hearing the door slam shut. "You're crazy!" Amelie repeated with a grin and ran around the table before crawling onto my lap. "You might be able to fool Dad with (she wagged her index finger in the air) this fuss, but not me. I can see very well that you are fine. That in turn leads me to believe that you have another reason for not going to the academy and that you want to change schools overnight!" Silia said, giving me a stern look. She played the role of our mother very well - far too well. Her style really pissed me off. "I guess it all has to do with that horrible guy!" Silia stated expertly, putting the bread, butter and cheese back in the fridge and slowly coming around the table to finally give Amelie the spread bread into your little hands with a loving smile. ,, No! I just don't feel like these snobs!", I answered, as Silia's gaze wandered from the eating Amelie to me. "Of course!" I was so glad when, fifteen minutes later, Silia took the bleating Amelie by the hand and left the house to drive Amelie first to the kindergarten and then to school herself. And I had the whole morning to myself to enjoy the quiet that reigned when everyone was out of the house. I was sitting on the sofa in my fluffy pink pajamas, my blond hair messy in a bun, with three Nutella toasts and watching a cheaply produced reality show with terrible actors when the doorbell rang. Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was only 11:00 am. It was probably the parcel service that wanted to deliver a package from the neighbors to us because nobody was at home there. I slipped into my oversized, also fluffy, pink unicorn slippers and made my way to the door. The ringing grew impatient. Once, twice, three times. I rolled my eyes in annoyance. How impatient could you be? Four times, five times, six times. I opened the front door with a bang, hoping to scare the courier a little. But the shock didn't hit him, it hit me. Because the parcel carrier was not in front of the door. Not even the postman or a neighbor. In front of me stood Malio, who let his gaze wander over my pajamas. As he caught sight of the slippers, an amused grin spread across his face and he said, "Pretty, really pretty."