East Chapel Academy

Chapter 22-Marcus

She couldn't have waited five more minutes.

    It was just my luck that as soon as I was going to ask Nia out Dean Nelson would appear out of nowhere and ask for her to come into her office. I walked down the hall in a huff. I'm starting to think the world is against me.

    As I turned down a hallway I spotted Whitney down the hallway. Before she could see me I turned in the opposite direction. I'm putting off interacting with her for as long as possible. Entering class I expected to see Sam, but he wasn't there. Odd he's always here before me.

    He's probably in the nurse's office. I've never seen anyone get as many nose bleeds as he gets.

But it might be for the best that he wasn't here yet. I still haven't figured out what I'm going to say to him about Nia yet. I've gone over it again and again in my head, and it almost never ends well. In the first scenario, I tell him and he stops speaking to me. And in the second scenario he gets angry and tries to fight me. That one gets really ugly.

    I sighed sitting back in my chair. I just need to get it over with, worst thing is I have to beat the shit out of him and apologize later.

    Sam came to class late with a red nose and a shit eating grin on his face. His red nose confirmed my suspicion about a nosebleed. He handed Mrs. Stanfield his late pass before sitting down in his seat.

    Mrs. Stanfield looked down at his note with a slight grimace. Setting the note down she went back to droning on about Reconstruction. I didn't want to risk getting detention so I just shot Sam a look.

    He smiled at me like the cat that ate the canary. Strange.

    Stanfield held Sam after class to talk about his test score, so I walked into the hallway alone.

    "Hey, Garrett." Nick leaned against the lockers a coffee cup in his hand.

    "Hey," I said coming up to him. "Did you finally put Red Bull out of business?"

    He laughed taking another sip. "Not yet, the gas station by my house was out of stock, so  Crystal brought me this Starbucks bullshit."

    "Do you have more energy?"

    "This isn't going to give me anything except a case of the shits," he said bluntly. I wrinkled my nose at the visual. He threw the cup in the trash. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he said, "I'm going to order a few cans from Post Mates."

    Despite just getting chewed out by Mrs. Stanfield Sam came up to us with a smile.

    "What are you so happy about?" Nick asked him taking another sip from his coffee cup. He frowned looking down at the lid. "Didn't Stanfield just tear you a new one?"

    "Yeah, but who cares," Sam replied crumbling his test in his hands. "I won't need U.S History to become an engineer anyway. But guess  who just scored a study session with Nia?" he exclaimed excitedly.

    "There's a lot of those going around," Nick said under his breath. I should knock that coffee cup out of his hand.

    I cleared my throat ignoring Nick's comment.  "Did she ask you to tutor her?"

    "No, Dean Nelson did," Sam explained. "The best thing she's ever done for me. I'm definitely going to score a prom date now."

    I began, "Actually, Sam about that...."

    "Shit," Sam interrupted me. "I forgot my chem textbook back in trig. I'll catch you guys later." He disappeared down the hallway.

    "Welp, I would say that went a lot better than I thought," Nick said. I banged my head against the locker with a groan, I just cannot win today.