teeth ↣ joshler ✓

4. Secrets

Josh ran his hand through his dark curls as he let out a yawn and made his way towards his college algebra class. It was his last class before lunch and he just wanted to get through the day.

He walked through the doors and glanced around the room. The bell was going to ring in about a minute so he took one of the last two seats in the classroom. The desks were grouped by two so he just hoped the person who sat next to him wasn't an asshole.

Josh glanced at the board and saw they were starting a new lesson thankfully. He had been enrolled in college algebra at his old school as well, but based on the title of the lesson he was pretty sure he had already leaned what the class was going to learn today.

The bell was 30 seconds away from ringing when a familiar face walked through the door. Tyler's eyes fell on where Josh was sitting and he scowled.

Marching over, he stared down at Josh as if he were inferior to him. Maybe Josh was. He wouldn't deny it. So far he could tell Tyler was popular and had a lot of friends but he was also rude and reserved. Despite that, he still had a number of advantages on Josh.

"That's my seat," Tyler spoke.

Josh sighed, the noise being cut off halfway through by the bell ringing. He slid over to the other desk in the pair and set his bag by his feet. "Better?"

Tyler didn't reply as he sat down. Their teacher walked in a moment later with a stack of papers in her hand. She caught Josh's eye and smiled. "Good morning everyone," she spoke gently.

The class chorused a good morning back minus Tyler who just sat there with a bored look on his face.

The teacher didn't seem to notice and she continued talking. "Today we're starting a new lesson and then we're doing a partner quiz with the person you're sitting next to. As always, you may use your notes but you may not talk to anyone else that isn't your table partner," she paused. "Also... we have a new student," she smiled. "This is Joshua. I hope you all do your best to make him feel welcome," she looked at him. "Do you go by Joshua or Josh?"

Josh offered a small smile towards her. "Josh," he replied.

She nodded. "Well I'm Mrs. Black. If you need anything then just let me know."

"Thank you."

Mrs. Black began passing out the papers she had brought in. Once Josh got his, he noticed they were the notes for the day. He glanced at the lesson on top: factoring. They had just wrapped this up at his old school so he already knew what to do. Perfect.

Josh flew through the notes on his own while Mrs. Black completed them with the class step by step. He always paused to make sure he got the correct answer once Mrs. Black got to a certain problem. However, he did finish pretty early so he just watched her finish them and waited patiently.

Mrs. Black told the class that they were to complete their quiz before anything else but could get their homework as soon as their quizzes were turned in.

Josh didn't have any intentions of speaking to Tyler so once he got his quiz he began filling it out silently. It didn't cover today's lesson but it covered the two from before that Josh also knew how to do so he went through the assignment fairly quickly.

Mrs. Black had told him when she handed the quizzes out that she would take his for a grade unless he did really well on it. Good thing he was good at math and had gotten that head start in Columbus.

"Damn," a voice spoke up next to him. "How the hell are you going through all this so fast?"

Josh looked up and saw Tyler looking at him in disbelief. Apparently he was talking to Tyler now.