The Girl Across the Street

The Girl Across the Street- 7

December 4th, 6:30 in the morning. My alarm buzzes and I turn it off, getting out of bed slowly. I stumble into my connected bathroom, rubbing my eyes and running my hand through my bed head. I turn on the shower and get it.

6:45, I'm out and brushing my teeth. I walk into my room and open my drawers, searching for a shirt. I grab one from the top and slip it on after checking for smell and stains.

I walk downstairs, kiss my mother on the cheek and grab the peanut butter toast she made me. I thank her on my way out the door.

Simon is waiting for me as usual, honking his horn as soon as he sees me. I jog over to the car and get in, glancing at the house across the street as we pull out of my driveway. I see Emma in the same window as yesterday, watching us drive down the street.

7:10, we pull up in front of Nathan's house and he stumbles out, nose buried deep in a book. He has to look up after fumbling with the door handle three times.

We pull into the junior's small parking lot at 7:20 and head off to the locker room. 

Simon and I go out to jog on the track. We get there and run a lap in silence before I speak.

"So, um, Kate and I are over." I state.

"Oh?" His tone isn't surprised.

"For good."

"Really?" Now he is surprised.

"Yeah, Will finally made me see that it wasn't worth it anymore; though Cassidy wasn't against the idea either."

Simon laughs. My sister's attitude towards Kate was almost as notorious as Simon's driving. She certainly was not afraid to voice her dislike for Kate in front of every one of my friends, teammates and even Kate.

"Wow, big day for you yesterday. I can't believe you let Cassidy prove you wrong." Simon jokes.

"Don't rub it in. I can't have people knowing my baby sister was right and I was wrong." By now, we have finished our two miles and start our cool off, then head inside.

We meet up with Nathan in the locker room at 7:45 and head to home room, walking in at 7:50. Emma is there, reading Romeo and Juliet. I walk to my seat, ignoring the calls of people asking about Will or Kate.

I put my head on my desk, hoping to fake sleep for the next five minutes.

"So, your kind of girlfriend left your house in quite a hurry yesterday huh?" Emma states quietly.

"Yeah, you were right, Will was right, my little sister was right. Are you happy?" I mutter back.

"No, I'm not happy, I was just right." She says simply. I nod my head and go back to faking sleep. I actually manage to almost fall asleep when I hear Mrs. Olivers' heels click on the tiles.

Everyone scurries back to their desks and shoves their homework back into their backpacks. Just about everyone in the school is scared of Mrs. Olivers. She is the strictest teacher in the whole school. On the first day of school, she explained to everyone her expectations of us, which included staying completely silent during morning announcements unless you wanted to spend the next week after school in detentions with her, carrying papers back and forth from her car and cleaning her classroom from top to bottom.

Clearly, no one had informed Emma of Mrs. Olivers' rule about not having anything on your desk to distract you from morning announcements because when the bell rang at 8:00 and the buzz for announcements came on, Emma still had her book on her desk. I tried to catch her attention to tell her to put it away but she wouldn't look in my direction. I lean over and tap her shoulder and she finally looks up at me. I motion for her to hide the book but she understands too late.

Mrs. Olivers is standing over Emma's desk, glaring at her. Emma is caught like a deer in the headlights with her book only half in the desk. "Miss Moore, detention until the end of the week. Mr. Barnes, you will be joining her." She announces. I gape at her. She is kidding right? Me, get a detention? No way, no, she must be talking about me joining Emma at a lunch appreciating the fact that I never get detentions. I am a good student, I respect my teachers, I don't get detention, well didn't get detentions until now I suppose.

"Don't stare it isn't polite. Unless you want an extra day of detention thrown in?" I shake my head. Who wants more detention? That shouldn't even be a question, rhetorical or not.

Mrs. Olivers walks away as the announcements end. The class is completely silent. No one in our class had been given detention yet and now there were two of us in one day.

At 8:10 the bell rings and Mrs. Olivers lets everyone go, glaring at Emma and me as we leave. Emma gives me an apologetic glance. I try to ignore it because I'm annoyed with her. But, I suppose she didn't know. I shrug and walk to English.

Simon and Nathan catch up halfway there.

"Dude, that sucks! You’re stuck with the freak and Olivers!" Nathan mocks; little sympathy in his voice.

Simon slaps him on the back of the head. "Dude come on." He scolds. "But you'll be fine. It could be worse, you could be alone with Olivers, or stuck with Kate. She's going to be a bitch for the next week or so."

I groan. I really don't want to deal with her attitude right now.

Miss White calls me up to her desk when we walk into English. "Dylan, I'm so sorry to hear about Will. I'm glad he is doing better. Mr. Kran told me yesterday." She sympathizes. Everyone jokes about how she and Coach Kran are secretly going out. They spend a lot of time together and both are them are single.

I nod and thank her, then head back to my desk. Nathan glares at me jealously. He needs to get over this stupid middle school crush. Simon sees him and rolls his eyes.

Miss White picks up her white chalk and starts to write tonight's homework in her big, loopy script.

The bell rings at 9:00 and we file out of the classroom. I walk to my locker before my next class. I see Kate at Chris' locker, her hand on his arm, obviously flirting. I roll my eyes and slam my locker, going to math.

Mr. Byrd greets me as I walk in. I put down my backpack and walk over to his desk. He already has the worksheet and typed notes of what I missed yesterday. I thank him and promise to get it to him tomorrow.

"Just get it to me by Friday. I understand that you will probably have a lot of make up work today. From what Mr. Kran said, that seems that most of you boys were pretty out of it all day. I can't imagine what I would do if that happened to my basketball team. I'm really sorry to hear about it. I hope everything turns out okay." I nod and thank him, turning back to my desk when Nick comes running in, racing the bell. I shake my head at him, rolling my eyes. If he was ever on time, it would be a total shock to everyone.

He shuffles over to Mr. Byrd's desk for the notes and homework from yesterday. Mr. Byrd hands him the papers and talks to him for a moment, then Nick walks back to his desk behind me. He gives me a nod and a quick "hey" which I return.

Mr. Byrd reviews what we learned yesterday and doesn't assign homework to give everyone a break because we are going to get a lot of make up homework tonight.

The bell rings at 9:50 and Mr. Byrd releases us into the packed hallway. The rest of the morning was pretty much just reviewing what we did yesterday, and a lot of homework assigning.