Break Apart Her Heart

**Dani’s POV**

She couldn’t fucking believe him. That stupid dick had poured his carton of milk on her. All because she told him that the look on his face was one that only a mother could love. Okay, so it was a bit harsh. And not completely true. But it had sounded good at the moment. Besides, that was just how they worked. They insulted each other. End of story. But never before had he actually poured milk on her. It was disgusting.

“Ray! This isn’t funny!” Dani exclaimed as she furiously wiped her crouch area with a napkin. At the moment, she was in the boy’s bathroom down the hallway from her English class. Yes, Dani Stuart spent time in the boy’s room with Ray. She was pretty damn cool like that.

Ray’s whole body was shaking with laughter. His face was beet red from lack of oxygen and no sounds were coming out of his mouth. Yes, he was laughing that hard. And it was starting to make her laugh, even though she didn’t want to. A smile grew over her face as she threw her milk-sodden napkin at him. It hit him square in the face, then landed on the tile floor with a ’plop’.

They were late for class, but neither of them really cared much. Besides, she had good reason. If she went into English at the moment, she was likely to kill Frank. And Ray wouldn’t be there to stop her, because he had Spanish. So, she surely had to calm down first. And laughing with Ray was the perfect way to do it.

“Dani! That’s disgusting!” Ray exclaimed, wiping his face.

Dani snickered, grabbing her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “I happen to think it was pretty damn funny,” she said, shrugging offhandedly.

His eyes narrowed. “You would.”

They exited the bathroom, both of them glad that most everyone was already in their classes and not around to see the small framed girl exit the room that was clearly off limits to humans who had vaginas. They walked down the hallway silently, smiles on their faces. Their tennis shoes made thudding noises with each possible step, breaking the silence of the hall. Finally, they paused outside of Dani’s English classroom. Ray turned towards her, his look suddenly going serious.

“Alright, Dani. I leave you here. Please, I beg of you, do not do something stupid. Just…be calm. I know you can do it. I have faith in you,” he said, ruffling her hair.

She scowled at pushed his hand away. “Yes, Daddy,” she said, punching him playfully on the chest.

He let out a small grunt, shaking his head before hugging her quickly. And then, he was gone. Okay, not completely. Just across the hall, in his own classroom. But still. Dani turned and faced the door. From inside, she could hear Ms. Matthews droning on about something, and she hoped that she didn’t miss anything too important. Although she didn’t care about being late, she did care about totally missing class. She was a nerd like that.

Dani inhaled deeply before reaching out, taking the cold handle into her small hand. She turned it, then stepped inside. 26 sets of eyeballs swiveled onto her, and Ms. Matthews went silent, giving her a disapproving look.

“Ms. Stuart. You’ve decided to finally show up. How nice of you,” she said, nodding her head towards Dani’s desk.

Everyone knew about Dani and her extreme smarts. Which was probably why she got away with almost everything with just a slap on the hand. A lot of people were jealous of that, and called her teacher’s pet, but she couldn’t care less. Let them say whatever it was they were going to, because in the end, Dani was the better person. And that was all that mattered to her.

Dani smiled and took her seat, across the room from Frank. He was still smirking, damn it. She ground her teeth together as she pulled out her notebook, telling herself that she would under no circumstances start anything with him. She wouldn’t. She was better than that. Everyone thought that she couldn’t handle her anger around Iero, but she could. Damn it, she could. And she would. She’d show them. She’d show Ray that she could survive an hour alone with the idiot. It was possible.

“Where was I? Oh yes. Romanticism. That will be our first section this year. And much to everyone’s joy, we will be kicking of the beginning of a new school year with a little project. I’ve already put you into pairs for this,” she said, pausing as she waited for the groan to leave the room. “Now, this project will be on romanticism. The history of romanticism, to be exact. Your goal is to write a paper on a story, a poem, something from the time period that romanticism flourished.”

Dani stared at Ms. Matthews as she walked over to her desk, picking up a sheet of paper that was situated on top of her computer. She was already starting to have a really bad feeling about this. A really really bad one. And the feeling just got worse as she listened to her teacher rattle of names, and none of the ones called at first were hers. And then, near the end, she heard it.

“Danielle Stuart with…”

She held her breath, clenching her eyes shut. Please, don’t let it be him. Anyone but him. Even the funny looking, smelly kid that sat in the back. The one that breathed out of his mouth and wore gloves all the time because he was a germaphobic. Anyone but Frank fucking Iero.

“…Frank Iero.”

Son of a bitch.

Frank obviously didn’t like the prospect either, because she heard his indignant yell from across the room. Ms. Matthews paused in her name calling to turn her blue eyes on him, one fine eyebrow arched.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Iero?”

“Yes, there is. I can’t work with her! She’ll kill me!” Frank said, pointing wildly over at Dani.

Ms. Matthews furrowed her brows as she turned to Dani. Of course she was puzzled. Dani was the epitome of a perfect student. You just didn’t get much better than her. At least, that was what Dani thought. But Frank was right. She would kill him. She would beat him over the head with a toaster.

“Ms. Stuart? Do you have any problems working with Frank?”

Her mind screamed ‘yes’. At the top of it’s lungs, her mind screamed that one word. But obviously, the disagreeing function in her mind was shut off for the time being, because she found herself shaking her head ‘no’. Ms. Matthews smiled warmly, then continued reading off names for pairs. Dani turned towards Frank, scowling.

He looked shock. And he had every right to be. Dani had just agreed to work on a project with him. It was insane. Stupid. Murderous. Only bad was going to come from this. Not only did they hate each other, but Frank wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, to put it nicely. And Dani had issues being the smart one in a group. Mainly because that meant that she would be doing all the work. And this was a group effort, damn it.

Dani lost herself in her thoughts as Ms. Matthews began carrying on about romanticism. Fuck. This wasn’t good. She was going to have to make sure that there was always supervision around when they worked. Or, when she worked. Because God only knows how much Frank actually was going to do. Dani rolled her eyes at the thought. Men. Seriously.

The bell ringing broke her out of her thoughts and she stood quickly, shoving her notebook into her bag. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Frank heading towards the door. She quickly slung her bag onto her shoulder and chased after him, catching him just outside the classroom. She saw Ray’s fro down the hall a bit, obviously waiting on her. However, she had a few things to say to Frank.

Her hand went out and grabbed his shoulder, making him turn. His hazel eyes darkened at the sight of her, his upper lip curling in distaste.

“Yeah, yeah. I hate you too,” Dani muttered, rolling her eyes before continuing on. “Look, I don’t like working with you all that much either, Iero. Actually, I fucking hate it.”

“Did you stop me just to insult me?” Frank asked, narrowing his eyes.

A smirk came over her face. “No, but I was going to do it anyways while I had you here. Anyways. Look, I’m not going to fail this. And you will be helping. And you will be at my house after school so that we can get started, okay?”

“Who the fuck died and made you king?”

Dani smirked once more and flicked him on the nose. “Queen, dipshit,” she retorted before skirting around him and heading towards Ray.