Friday, September 24
“-ul. Paul. Wake up.”
I groaned, opening my eyes slowly. My head was resting on my left arm, and my right hand was still holding my pencil. I was in the middle of my Mandarin homework, but I guess I passed out. I looked up at Jack who was still in his T-shirt and sweats.
“What time is it?” I asked wearly.
“7:10.”
“What!?” I sat bolt upright, looking down at my Mandarin. “No! I didn’t finish!”
“You can do it on the way to school,” Jack said, snickering. “You should get rid of your bed head first.” I combed my fingers through my hair, while Jack left his room to get ready for school. I quickly put my papers and binders away, leaving my Mandarin worksheet out. After Jack was done in the bathroom, I took a quick shower and promptly dressed myself. Jack and I went downstairs and saw Mrs. Calaway had made some smoothies.
“Mom,” Jack groaned as the two of us put our shoes on. “We have to go.”
“Make me feel better and just take them!” she said, giving me two mason jars with straws. “Have a good day you two!”
As Jack drove us to school, I was vigorously finishing my paragraph and drinking the smoothie at the same time. Jack didn’t say anything as we pulled into the student parking lot. I finished my homework and took the smoothie with me as the two of us walked into school.
“Just make sure to give the jar back,” Jack said as we went our separate ways. I nodded, walking around the corner to my locker.
“Hey.” I looked up and saw Alex leaning against my locker. He wore a button down shirt and tie, the normal attire for all varsity soccer players on their game day.
“Do you need something?” I asked, putting the combination in the lock. I opened the locker and switched out my binders.
“Just wanted to see you.” The flashback from yesterday popped into my mind and my face started heating up.
“I’m not forgiving you for yesterday,” I said, shutting my locker and turning to look at him. “You can’t just do something like that and think I’ll forget about it.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “I never should’ve kissed you.”
I felt a small throb in my chest, but turned to leave. “Good. I’ll see you after school.” I left, leaving Alex alone.
My first class was Spanish, and I walked in to see a few other kids gathered around two boys. One was sitting at a desk, the other leaning against it. The boy sitting down was Cooper Garcia. His dad’s side of the family was Spanish, so he was kind of forced to take the class all through high school. The other boy was Izan Ramirez. His parents immigrated from Spain when they were both young. Izan grew up learning English, but wanted to know more about his parents’ native language.
The others were telling the two how happy they were that tonight’s soccer game was a home one. Apparently a lot of people were going.
Wonderful.
Not only would there be a lot of people, but it would be people he saw in school.
I sat at the desk behind Cooper, quickly pulling out my book.
“I heard you’re going,” Cooper said, turning to look at me. Izan was still talking to the others.
“Yeah,” I muttered, taking my book out. Cooper seemed a little confused with my answer, making me sigh. I put my book down and looked at him. “I’m going to the game, but only because your captain asked me to. If I say no, then he’ll definitely get mad at me.”
“I see,” Cooper said.
The morning announcements started, and I was glad Cooper didn’t talk to me for the rest of class.
My second class was AP Lit. I remembered one of the soccer players was in my class, Travis Lenard. He had a nicer aura than the other members on the soccer team which made me wonder why he wasn’t made captain.
Today we were peer editing our college essays, and our teacher randomly assigned partners. Of course, Travis and I were paired up.
“Here’s what I have so far,” he said, looking a little depressed. We switched computers, and he didn’t say anything else. I kept glancing at him, wondering when he’d say something random to start the conversation, just like everyone else. Instead, he just stayed quiet and read my essays. Travis was said to be the loudest player, but in class, he was really quiet.
“So,” Travis started, not looking up from my computer. “I heard from Alex that you’re coming to the game.”
“Does Alex run his mouth off about other people?” I muttered, clenching my fist.
Travis chuckled a little. “No, but he’s taken a real liking to you.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he kissed me,” I muttered a little loudly. Travis’s head shot up.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I looked away. “I didn’t say anything.”
“That jerk!” Travis looked away, and then proceeded to take out his phone. “I’m going to give him a knuckle sandwich for lunch!”
“What? No, you don’t need to do that!”
“He’s a stupid jerk who disregarded your personal space!” He was right, and I did think about punching him myself. My punch wouldn’t have hurt, but Travis looked very strong and I definitely didn’t want to get punched by him.
After Lit ended, I realized it was time for Chem. Our teacher had told us in our last class that we would be getting new seats. I was totally fine with it as long as I wasn’t sitting near Alex. I walked into the classroom and saw people chatting with each other while standing around the perimeter of the room.
“Settle down everyone,” Mr. Creeves said, holding his clipboard. “I’ve made the seating chart, and I don’t want to hear any complaints. If you wish to speak with me, come during homeroom.” He started going along the rows, calling people’s names. I waited for my name to be called, praying Alex wasn’t going to be near me.
“Paul, you’re over here.” I looked at the desk and saw it was in the last row on the opposite side of the room where I was last time.
And Alex was sitting in front of me.
“We’re close to each other,” Alex said, grinning at me. “I’m happy.”
I sighed, sitting down and resting my head in my hand, looking out the window. Everyone else went to their new seats, and Mr. Creeves went to his desk to hold up a stack of paper.
“Now that you’ve all settled in, I’m passing out the quiz. You have three tries, including this one. There’s a worksheet for you when you’re done. No talking, and you can begin when you get it.”
It’s okay. You studied for hours last night. You’ve got this.
Mr. Creeves handed me a blank Periodic Table, and I put my name at the top. The directions were simple. Label all 118 symbols, and on the back, list the names of all 118 elements.
I took a deep breath, picking up my pencil. Putting against the paper in the first box, I started writing the first element.
“That. Was. Hell.”
Alex chuckled a little as we walked towards the cafeteria together. Alex was the first one to finish the quiz, which surprised everyone in the class. I was the last to finish, right before the bell.
“You probably did fine,” Alex assured me.
“Well you got a 100!” I exclaimed, punching his arm and walking ahead of him.
“I helped you study last night,” Alex said, coming up beside me again. “I can assure you, you did fine.”
We arrived at the lunch room and walked back to the senior area. I was about to go sit at my corner table when Alex grabbed my arm and forced me to sit next to him at his table.
“What’re you doing?” I asked, brushing his hand off.
“You’re sitting with me today.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because it’s only me and Travis at this lunch. I get lonely.”
“There you are, jackass!” Travis huffed, walking over to our table. “You ignored my text, and now you’re acting all buddy-buddy!” I flinched, slowly moving away from Alex on the bench. “If you wanna kiss someone, at least let them give consent!!” Travis slapped Alex across the face, and most of the other seniors looked at them in surprise.
“What’s going on, you two?” a girl asked, coming over.
“Don’t worry,” Travis said. “It’s nothing to be too concerned about.” The girl looked at the two soccer players and then went back to her table.
Alex rubbed his cheek which was red, and then looked at me. “Did you tell him?”
“I didn’t mean to,” I muttered, avoiding his gaze. “He overheard me when I muttered it during English.”
Alex sighed. “Travis is right, though. I really am sorry about… that.”
“Hey hey hey.” We looked at Travis. “I don’t feel like third wheeling today, so let’s not leave me out.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Alex said, looking at his friend.
“You had your Chem quiz today,” Travis said, opening his cup of fruit. “How was it?”
“I finished first,” Alex responded proudly.
“And he got a 100 on the first try,” I added hotly.
“Hey no need to get jealous,” Alex put his arm around me. “You’ll do better than me next time.”
“You know what? I will!” I snapped, glaring at him.
“Again, third wheeling here,” Travis sang, looking at us. Alex chuckled, and I just gave a half-hearted smile.
The rest of lunch went by smoothly. Travis and Alex mostly talked about the team they were facing. I didn’t really understand anything, so I just nodded my head whenever they asked me something.
Lunch ended and we headed upstairs to the language hallway. Alex waved goodbye as the two walked into their French class. I walked further down the hall to the Mandarin classroom. It was a small class of ten kids which I enjoyed. The only problem was that everyone else was younger than me, and they weren’t socially awkward.
There was one junior who was on the soccer team, and he was also taking this class without any of his friends. But that didn’t matter. The other students were drawn to him.
“Alright,” Mrs. Chen said, getting our attention. “上课!上课!”
Mandarin wasn’t so bad. When I fell asleep last night, I was only a few words away from finishing. We went over some sentence structures, and Mrs. Chen told us when the quizzes would be.
After lunch block, there is always about a half hour for homeroom. I usually just sat alone reading or doing homework. EI sat at one of the desks, ignoring the chit-chat around me and doing my Spanish homework.
Finally.
The last class of the day.
I had my elective, Honors Journalism which I surprisingly enjoyed. Since it was Friday, we would usually share our weekly articles, and pick the best one. I usually had the best, but they were on random topics that I had no interest in.
“Hey, Paul,” a girl said, walking next to me in the hallway.
I nodded my head at her. “Hi, Charlotte.”
“I think I’ll beat your article today!” she exclaimed, grinning.
“Oh?” I gave her an evil grin. “Are you sure about that?” We arrived at the classroom and saw our teacher, Ms. Kim, holding a tin with popsicle sticks. Charlotte and I each chose one and went to our seats. The desks were set up in groups of four, and Charlotte’s group was right next to mine. Our seats were right next to each other, too.
“Alright,” Ms. Kim said, walking into the room and closing the door. “Everyone got a popsicle stick, right? Two of them have stars on them.” I flipped mine around and saw a red star.
“I have one,” Charlotte said, holding hers up.
“Me too,” I said, doing the same.
“You two are going to write an article on today’s soccer game,” Ms. Kim explained, going around to collect the sticks. “Since it’s the first home game of the year, it should be one to two pages long. Include the key players, who scores, who we’re playing, and of course, who wins.”
“Cool,” Charlotte said, giving me a look. I just sighed, knowing I’d have a reason for going now.
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