One Month

May was starting to turn hot and was feeling more like summer than ever. I’m not the biggest of summer heat because it’s hard to get outside and do something but I was dealing with it. Lily and Lucy didn’t like it at all and spent most of their time complaining about wanting to turn on the air conditioner. My parents haven’t said anything about it, so we’ve had to deal with a house that hot no matter what you did.

When I walked into school it was really nice, and put me in a good mood. Everyone at my house was kind of at each other’s throats even more than usual because we were all feeling sweaty and gross. Lucy kept complaining about all this shit that would happen to her hair if she couldn’t get the air conditioning going. Even Erica was getting pushed and she rarely even notices the temperature.

“Hey, man,” Billy shouts down the hall and walks over. “You look really happy. It’s disgusting.”

“Shut up.” I laugh and adjust my backpack on my right shoulder. “The air conditioning is just really nice here. We don’t have ours on at home.”

“Really? Mom turned ours on the second the temperature went over eighty-five degrees,” Billy tells me. Billy’s mom is one of the kind of person you could totally imagine being a cougar. I’m pretty sure she would be willing to spend all of Billy’s college funds on getting plastic surgery. She’s hot and all, but it’s kind of weird and I’m pretty sure she’s flirted with us a couple of times.

“My parents haven’t said anything about it. If they don’t mention anything else, I’m turning on the air conditioning. Last night was absolute hell.”

“Didn’t it get to ninety or something?”

“Yeah, and that was at night.” I sigh and we walk down the hall.

“So anything new with... you know?” Billy says the last part in a semi-whisper, which is the quietest I think I’ve ever heard him.

“With who?” I ask and look at him, completely lost.

“You know,” Billy probes and I shake my head.

“I don’t know,” I say slowly.

“Emily,” he stage whispers and I nod, finally understanding. I haven’t talked to her since yesterday. We looked at each other in the hallway once but nothing was said.

“Nothing new,” I tell him.

“Damn,” Billy says and I smile a little. I guess he really is serious about me making a move on Emily. I would but I keep thinking about getting rejected by her. I’ve never been so scared that I’ll be turned down ever, since most of the girls I had interest in asking out would say yes without even thinking.

“I know,” is all I respond with and I head to class.

-

Math is probably my favorite class because nearly all my friends are in there. Billy isn’t since he can’t do math to save his life, but Andrew, and my friends Jacob and Ryan are in there. Sometimes Darren also, if he ever decides he actually wants to show up. Our teacher is pretty cool, he’s young-ish and I’m pretty sure he was just like us when he was in high school. He’s got something about his that oozes High-school-popular-kid.

The class, for whatever reason, is mostly guys. It’s about sixty percent male, which doesn’t seem like much but is when you look everyone sitting in class.

I sit down at my seat and since I’m one of the first people, sit awkwardly with the other few that came in. Tapping my pencil against the desk I look around and try not to think about the reviewing we’re going to have to do. We haven’t had assigned homework from this class since early April but we’ve been studying for finals non-stop. Mr. Williams, our teacher, wants us all to pass with flying colors.

“Dude,” Jacob says when he walks in. He puts his stuff down on the desk and looks at me. Jacob looks more like a college student than a high school one but it works for him. Girls love it, which is all that matters for him. “Dude.”