It's Just High School

Chapter 7

 “How are you Dean?” Jason asked me.

“Fine.” I replied back to him.

By fine I mean, I try not to look affected about it, but I actually am but that doesn’t mean I stop going to school because of it. Camille and everyone is a dear friend to me. She’s a big loss to me and parting like the way we did shouldn’t be how friends are.

“Camille seems fine too.” Jason told me.

“How are they?”

I know how they’ve been acting actually. They act like I’m not gone. They act normal. Even though that’s the case though, I want to know if that was a show or I really didn’t made any impact on them.

“Better than before. They’ve been thinking, with how they acted.” Jason answered like hesitant.

“And?” I want him to go on from there. I made it sound like I’m not that affected of it but I am more than interested to know if there was at least some kind of realization after I left.

“They’re just lost Dean. With how things are just spinning.” Jason answered more. He tried to keep it straight, but I know Jason too well. He’s sad with what he found out. Telling it didn’t make it easier for him too. “They got caught in what people expected them to do. In the end, it’s the only thing that mattered.”

“It can be hard sometimes, expectations.” I agreed with him. “So many of it coming at all at once, you don’t know what really matters.”

I’m not a stranger to expectations. I can relate with what Jason is telling. I’m a Villanueva, and what prestige and expectations that carried is attached to me. With your dad as the DA, it adds more on that. You do things you do because they expect you too. Most of the time it wasn’t so bad because I like doing them, but sometimes, you just do it to comply.

“Yeah I know that. It’s hard to know these days which should go first, which is important and which are just trivial. I saw that in you.” Jason said.

“Did you see that in Camille too?”

“I saw that. It saw it in all of us.” He let out a long sigh. “So are you going back?” He asked me hopeful.

“Not yet.” I answered.

I can’t yet. It’s too odd yet. And I’m not sure if I spent enough time away for them to change. Showing up to the group suddenly might bring up anger to each other. I don’t know about Camille, but I know I’m still angry with how shallow they were. Should we both feel the same, that would put us at a reverse direction in their change.

“See you around then?” Jason asked.

“Yeah.”

We bumped fists together like we always do. Jason is my best buddy, and I could always count on him having my back. We go way back. Even before we started out with football, he and I are always a team, with Travis tagging along sometimes. He and I look out for each other, and this is one of them. I’m grateful that he’s doing this, even if Camille may hate him for it. He’s just doing this for their best really, which made him even more of a friend to them than I was.

It’s already the start of December and the football field just keeps getting colder and colder. With a little more layers of clothing its bearable, but it’s just not a good place to eat your lunch. And it got me thinking, should we eat lunch again in that place?

I decided not to buy lunch for today and I headed off for the bleachers to find Sam. Today is colder than yesterday and though I can still shrug off the cold, I don’t think she can anymore. I can see her shiver yesterday and though she didn’t want to make it obvious, she clearly can’t take it anymore. But being stubborn as she is, she wouldn’t just accept an offer of a lunch out, so I’ll take her by force.