Jump

Chapter 1

"Well," Rose started. "If you simply tried concealer it would still show up. You would have to use maybe a few concealers and blend excellently. No offense, but Kay does not have the talent to pull that off. But I'll check anyway." She took out a makeup removing wipe from her bag and wiped my arm. When nothing came off, she got satisfied. "Nope, she's not lying."

Just then, we heard the rev of Jaiden's bike. She rode a motorcycle to school because she was just that badass. She took her helmet off and shook her hair in the wind. Just like in the movies. She hopped off and strode towards us.

Finally, all of us were here.

We all gave her a hug, and then we saw Josh approach. She was Jaid's on again-off again boyfriend. They've been that way for almost a year.

"On again," I whisper-asked the rest of the girls. They all shrugged. But a second later Josh and Jaid were off to God knows where. We sighed. He was too much of a douchebag for her. I think she knew that, though.

Soon enough, they had the school gather in the gym for the start of the year assembly. Bulldog pride, right?

As we walked, Alec came up from behind us and hugged Elena. He was her boyfriend, and had been since March. Unlike Jaid and Josh, they were a perfect match. Elena was overachieving and prestigious, and Alec was hard working, nice, and on the football team. But unlike most of the other jocks, he was actually a good person and had an adequate ego. In other words, they were the cutest couple ever.

--

The assembly was a mess. All the seniors hooted every time they mentioned the words 'seniors,' 'graduation', or 'graduating class', and the rest of the students just sat there, uninterested. Except for the wide-eyed freshman. But I would never judge, since we were all there one day. The highlight of it all was Jaxon's speech. Jaxon was what people liked to call the class clown. He was hilarious. He'd been class president since 9th grade, and yet we never got bored of him. He was good at what he did.

Next was homeroom. Ugh. But mine this year wasn't that bad. It had Elena and Rose in it. I prayed that Jaid and Sky got put in the same homeroom. And that Josh wasn't in it, for obvious reasons.

After our routine 15 minutes of the Pledge of Allegiance, Attendance, and free time, it was time for Period 1. Our school only had four blocks each day, and each was an hour and 10 minutes. Fun.

First, second and third period all went by in a blurr. It was the same thing every class. We got our course outlines, and the teachers talked about our responsibility as seniors.

--

"So have you started thinking about colleges?"

I was with the guidance counselor. Each senior had to go to the Guidance Counselor within the first week of school. They would pull you out of a class to do it. They pulled me out of history, to which I was eternally grateful. As somebody famous once said, timing is everything.

"Well, I guess." Truth is, I put hours into that factor, but I didn't want to share that. My parents had given me a long list of colleges that they thought would be 'good for me.' They were all pristine and boring as hell. I didn't need Harvard or Yale, I needed a college that I would belong in. But, as it turns out, no colleges matched what I wanted. Either that, or I was just much too picky.

"How about NYU? Their creative writing program is through the roof!" I sighed. As if I didn't know that. As my parents pointed out, I was Kayla "the writer." But NYU was too messy and spread out between so many blocks. I wanted one plain campus.

"NYU is a great school, really. Just not for me."

After a few minutes of going through the general colleges that most people applied to and a few Little Ivy or Ivy League ones, it seemed like Mr. Markey had found a dead end.