The Pessimistic Pinky Promise

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Having Percy as my only friend for the past seventeen years of my life left me pretty lonely in the friends department. For the first time since Percy's chicken pox incident, I sat alone in homeroom. Thank god it was only fifteen minutes. The silence was deafening.

Out of nowhere, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out and my already bad mood sunk even more once I saw it was only a text from the phone company.

Nothing from Percy.

Maybe he was still sleeping?

Before I could be caught for having my phone out, I pretended to pay attention to the notices Miss Kennedy was saying. Something about a new taco flavour?

As soon as the bell rang, I raced to my English class. It was one of the few classes that Percy and I never had together - he was always a level above me. Fuck him and his poetic knowledge. Since I was used to him not being around during English, the period was only a little bit more tolerable.

"Okay, today class we'll be doing something a little different. The school board has decided that they want you guys to socialize more and be like a family. One of the parts to this new act is to partner you guys up. For the first and third term you will be doing all of your assignments with your given partner," Miss Kennedy paused for everyone to stop protesting through exclamations and groans.

At least instead of finding a friend for myself, I would be assigned one.

Fun.

"Ahem, as I was saying, you will be assigned a partner. You will not be allowed to swap unless you have an acceptable reason. I have enough trust in you all to share the workload equally instead of making one do all the work. Now for the pairings... Quincy and Hannah..."

I zoned out, waiting for her to say my name.

"...Jasper Gabriel and Phoenix Sterling."

Jasper who?

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So it turned out that Jasper was the new kid from Sacramento. Thank god, I thought I was being a complete jerk for not knowing someone who'd always had the same English class as me. At least now they really were a stranger.

Unlike all of the other boys at Crystal Bay High, he was surprisingly quiet. Lucky for me I didn't have to talk to him a lot - most of my questions ended in one worded answers.

Our first mini-assignment we had been given was to fill out a sheet about the opposite person. Basic things like favourite colours, sports, birthdays, etc.

"Hi, I'm Phoenix," I introduced myself as I took the seat next to him.

He looked up at me briefly before staring down at his desk again. "Jasper," he muttered.

I nodded, taking the hint that he didn't like the idea of this either. "Cool, um, favourite song?"

"The alphabet."

I rolled my eyes. Was he really going to play that game? I wrote it down anyways, since it was technically his answer. He glared at me but didn't say anything.

"My favourite is Ocean Eyes by Billie Eilish."

I waited for him to write it down. Instead he just picked up his pen and attempted to write it. He made it up to the a before he gave up and dropped the pen in frustration.