BETTER LEFT UNSAID ━━ jake fitzgerald

one

Chloe scoffs. "Of course it was Nina. She's a spoiled brat and budding sociopath with no impulse control."

"Duh." Brooke adds. "I mean, she's probably ditching right now to avoid Emma's good-girl wrath." She pauses when she sees the look on Emma's face and changes her tone. "Em, I promise that your little friend will be fine."

Emma looks down sadly. "We're not really friends anymore."

Seeing how upset she looks, Chloe quickly replies. "Hey, just give it 24 hours, okay?"

"Yeah someone will text and drive their hybrid into a tree and we'll have a new headline." Will says while rubbing Emma's shoulder slightly.

"Maybe Audrey will 'Taylor Swift' her anger into creative energy, for one of her little films." Brooke adds.

Emma still doesn't look convinced. "Emma, she'll be fine. Okay?" Riley says, trying to reassure her.

∘∘∘

"Cavemen made fires. Those fires cast shadows, and those shadows created fear. Men have been obsessed with scaring each other ever since." Mr. Branson says, introducing the new Language Arts topic for the day.

Chloe's eyes drift over to a boy she doesn't recognize sitting in the back corner of the classroom. Brooke catches her and smirks. "His name's Kieran Wilcox. He just moved here from Atlanta."

Chloe turns her head back slightly again to look at him, then back at Brooke. "He's cute." She smirks back.

"I thought you weren't into high school guys?" Jake asks leaning forward, clearly listening to Brooke and Chloe's previous conversation.

Chloe roll her eyes and doesn't even bother to look back at him when she answers. "Ew. No, that was just you."

Jake scoffs and leans back while Brooke giggles at Chloe rejecting Jake for what must have been the millionth time.

"Brooke, Chloe and Jake. It would be greatly appreciated if you three could gossip on your own time and not during my class." Mr. Branson starts looking quite irritated with them.

Chloe sits up in her chair. "Sorry Mr. B. I'll make sure to be more considerate in the future." She says in slow voice, batting her eyelashes at the man.

"Brooke." Mr. Branson starts, ignoring Chloe. "Would you please tell us which genre originated with The Castle of Otranto."

Brooke clears her throat. "I don't know. The Castle Genre?" Brooke looks fairly unsure with her reply.

"The Gothic Genre." A voice answers.

Chloe turns around, along with several other students in the classroom and see that it was the new kid, Kieran, that answered the question.

Mr. Branson gestures to Kieran. "Thank you." He sits down on the edge of his desk before continuing. "Guys, look, I get it. Nobody wants to sit around reading 500 dusty pages about monks and curses. But nobody's forcing you to watch The Walking Dead."

"Ooh." Jake says, suddenly interested in the lesson. "Is The Walking Dead on the midterm?"

Chloe narrows her eyes as she looks behind at him. "Zombies aren't literature, Jake."

"Why not?" Kieran says, getting everyone's attention. "George Romero, Horace Walpole, it's all the same bones."

"Or the same rotting flesh." Mr. Branson adds, agreeing with Kieran. "Kieran's right. Gothic genre is all over TV right now. You have American Horror Story, Bates Motel, Hannibal."

"What about Texas Chainsaw or Halloween?" Jake asks with a huge smile on his face.

"Uh, those are slasher movies." Noah says, slightly raising his hand.