"This is all your fault, director's pet. This is a play. I'm not falling in love with you, and I would never ever go out with you, Jack Garrison."
Jack and Shayna can't get through a rehearsal without fighting.
Cheerleader Shayna loathes perfect Ja...
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Driving down memory lane wasn't one of my favorite activities. The past was a painful reminder of perfect things that had once been and now remained lost. Unfortunately, I needed help with my physics homework, and I wasn't speaking to Juan.
That left one real option since Tasha's mom still wouldn't let her out of quarantine. Kai Young, resident smartie pants and the only person I knew who probably wouldn't care or judge my breakup with the basketball captain. Kai was more obsessed with online gaming and taking marching band instead of PE than the school's social scene.
He said it would be better if we got the physics out of the way before rehearsal, which was the only reason I was awake at eight-thirty in the morning on a Saturday in the first place. I yawned as I pulled onto his street and passed the big house on the corner where Mom, Dad, Parker, and I had all lived happily. The new owners had repainted the cream trim a tan color, and a chalk hopscotch game was drawn on the sidewalk in front of the house.
Driving down the street, I followed the path my bike always took from my house to Kai's home down the cul-de-sac. He still lived in the same neat little house with a treehouse in the front oak that he had when we were eight.
As I parked, I watched Kai's twin sisters run past the open screen door. One screeched about the last one to the top being a rotten banana.
I got out of my car and followed the stepping stones to the porch. Kai sat slightly concealed behind a bush by the door on the green porch swing where we ate popsicles on the Fourth of July when we were eight. We'd watched Parker and a few neighborhood boys shoot off fireworks until the cops showed up since no one was supposed to set off fireworks within the city limits. They only got a warning since they didn't hurt anything, but Mom wasn't happy.
"Morning," he got up to greet me. "You're just in time for breakfast."
Following Kai in the house, we passed his father and little brother in a fierce video game duel. Parker loved playing those two-player fight games when he had buddies over. Kai settled in the breakfast nook in the back of the kitchen and patted the empty seat beside him.
His mother, Mrs. Young, set waffles down and left us alone at the worn little table that barely fit a page of physics, two plates, and a tub of syrup. It wasn't quiet, but it was better than being alone.
"I kinda figured you wanted a low profile," he blushed. "And no one ever comes here except my family."
"It's fine," I said, sitting beside him. "Let's get this physics homework done."
Kai made it all look easy. Somehow, he was able to teach me how to do all the math for the problems better than the teacher in a quarter of the time. We'd finished the homework within an hour and had three hours before rehearsal.
We ended up watching a movie in his room. I wasn't paying all that much attention. There was some plot about neighborhood kids who found a robot to foil some government plot.
