Chasing the New Girl - (Complete)

Chapter 19 - Working Out Together

"He never mentioned that," Jolie said in disbelief."

"Yeah, they did a whole front page story in the newspaper about it and everything. Getting a full ride to Harvard is probably a first for this town," Blaze told her. "It's a pretty big deal."

"Yeah. I wonder why Austin never mentioned it? The crazy thing is, I'm actually going there too, but to Harvard Law. My Dad's an alumni and he's a guest faculty member on occasion and his family are good friends with the Dean, so I was pretty much guaranteed admittance since birth."

"Must be nice," Blaze said. "To have your future all planned out like that and know exactly what you want to do."

"What about you? What are your plans for the future Blaze?" Jolie asked as they got to the front of the line and started putting food on their trays.

"I'll probably just work in the auto body shop, rebuilding old muscle cars to sell and running guns and bootleg merchandise with my buddies," he said quietly so only she could hear.

"Is that really want you want to do?" she asked, noticing he didn't sound too enthusiastic about it.

He shrugged. "Not really, but for a guy like me there aren't that many options. I'm not like you and Austin."

He swiped his lunch card, looking into her eyes for a couple seconds before slowly turning and walking away.

Her heart ached for him and it almost made her want to cry. She felt so bad that his Mom had abandoned him when he was little, his Dad was an abusive addict that told him he was worthless and forced him to be the adult of the household and the only "family" he had were a bunch of convicts that talked him into helping in their illegal activities because they knew he was desperate for money. He was set up for failure from birth and it wasn't fair.

She took her tray and walked outside to the grassy area where Austin was sitting and sat down beside him.

"Hey," he smiled. "I thought it would be nice for us to have some time alone for once. It seems like we're always surrounded by people."

"Yeah," she sighed, opening her can of orange juice and drinking from it.

"So I was checking the class rankings earlier and noticed you're not even on the list," Austin said, handing her a piece of paper and Jolie stared at it, seeing Austin's name at the top and searching for hers.

"I asked the counselor and apparently you're not eligible for class ranking because you transferred your senior year after the first semester had already started. You had to transfer by the end of your junior year to be eligible."

She scrunched up her face in disbelief. "What? That's so not fair. I've worked my ass off for four years to be valedictorian. I was at the top of the class at my old school and it had WAY more students."

He shrugged. "Sorry. Looks like we'll have to call off the bet."

"I guess so," she said with a frustrated exhale. "That's bullshit. I already had my speech written out and everything."

Austin laughed. "You were that confident you were going to beat me?"

"Honestly? Yeah," she laughed and he gasped before pulling some grass and throwing it in her hair, making her laugh even more. "Hey!" she squealed, ripping some out and throwing it back at him.

After their grass fight was finally over they sat there smiling and catching their breath for a minute.

She looked over at him, thinking and finally said, "So why didn't you tell me you had gotten a full ride to Harvard Medical School and that you want to be a doctor?"