(8:40am, February 14th 2023.)
"Dude, come on. Be serious." Jade laughs at me, both of us walking through the school hallway.
"Both of us are late, there's no shot that the teacher isn't gonna embarrass us." I reply, rubbing the back of my neck.
"It's our first day here, I'm sure it'll be fine." She says, nudging my shoulder.
"Need I remind you about your previous attendance record?" I respond, both of us taking a turn to the right.
"It was bad I know but I'm gonna pay attention now alright?" She tells me. "Plus, you were expelled as well."
"You got me expelled. They associated me with you." I defend myself.
"Come on you can't lie, it was funny." She says, scanning the classroom numbers.
"You're lucky that I like you." I joke, my eyes landing on our classroom. "This should be it according to the info desk." I tell her.
"Ladies first." She replies, motioning for me to go first.
"I'm a dude." I respond, chuckling slightly.
I place my hand on the doorknob, twist it and open the door. I take a short breath before entering the classroom. "Ah, I see we have late attendees." A female voice says, my eyes landing on the source.
"Sorry teacher. This one's a deep sleeper." Jade responds, standing next to me.
"Me?" I question as the words register, my head snapping towards Jade.
Jade pats my shoulder, a cheeky smile writing itself onto her face. "Very well, what are your names?" The teacher questions.
"My name is Jade Tanner and his name is Kai Boyer." Jade answers.
"Ah, our two new students. Welcome, my name is Ms Kingsley. Go sit down." Ms Kingsley says, pointing to the 2 empty seats near the back.
"Sorry for interrupting Ms Kingsley, please continue your lesson." Jade states, grabbing my wrist and dragging me over to the seats.
"Ow." I whisper, sitting down in a seat.
"I didn't grab you that hard." Jade mutters back, smirking at me before looking at the teacher.
"I almost slept in if it makes you feel any better." A person on my left murmurs.
"I wasn't the one who slept in." I whisper back to the person who I could now recognise as female. She had short straight blonde hair that curled ever-so-slightly, blue eyes and a small piercing on the end of her left eyebrow. She simply hums in response, turning her attention back to the lesson.
Unzipping my bag, I grab a pen and a notebook, looking at the front. "As I was explaining before our two new students arrived. I'm not strict, I'm very lenient. If you miss out on handing an assignment in, I will give you two extra days to hand it in but if you have a reason as to why you could not. I will extend it to three days to a week depending on how good the reason is." Ms Kingsley explains.
"I expect everyone to behave well if you do not. I will send you to another class and have that teacher watch you while you complete your work. They are stricter than I am. If you manage to annoy them, you will be sent to the Principal's office and you can complete your work there." The professor informs the class, looking around the room. "I allow jokes and am lighthearted but will not tolerate bullying or ignorance." She adds on. " Am I understood?" She questions.
"Yes, Ms Kingsley." The class replies.
"Very well, let us begin with the lesson." Ms Kingsley states, turning to the board and grabbing a marker.
__________________________________
(47 minutes later, 9:30am.)
Jade and I make our way to the exit. "Goodbye, teacher." I say, approaching the door.
"Goodbye Jade and Kai, I hope you enjoy your stay here." Ms Kingsley responds, a smile written on her face.
"Man, I need to stretch." Jade tells me as we exit the classroom, raising her arms into the air.
"What'd you think of the lesson?" I question her.
"Good, It went by at a decent rate." She replies, walking by my side.
"What's next?" I question her.
"You're asking me? And here I thought you were the one that cared about education." She responds, a grin appearing on her face.
"I hate you." I say, releasing a deep sigh.
"I'm only kidding. We have... I think Maths next?" She tells me, grabbing her phone from her pocket.
"You think?" I ask her.
"I'm not remembering our schedule on the first day. I need to get used to it." She answers, checking our timetable. "We're lucky we have the exact same classes." She says.
"Which you somehow managed to convince the Principal to give us." I remind her.
"It's our last year in High school. Plus, I have a way with words." She responds. "We have maths in classroom A15." She informs me.
"Yay, maths. My favourite subject." I sarcastically celebrate.
"It can't be that bad." Jade says, shrugging as we make our way back to the info desk. "Our teacher at our last school just gave a book to share and do the questions while he did his own thing."
"Yeah, I remember you copying the answers off of me." I say, laughing lightly.
"You explained everything when I actually started caring about school." She responds. "I know how to do everything we learnt that year."
Jade and I stop in front of the info desk. "Hey, how may I help you two?" The man behind the counter asks.
"Do you know where classroom A15 is?" I ask.
"It's behind me, take a right at the first opportunity, then take a left through the cafeteria and then take a final left and it will be on the right side." He answers, pointing towards where he said.
"Thank you." I respond, Jade and I begin following his directions.
"I forgot how painful it was to walk back and forth to every classroom." Jade groans as we make our way through the cafeteria.
"Well, at least we'll get used to it." I reply.
After 1-2 minutes of walking, we stop in front of the classroom. "You go first since I did last time." I tell Jade.
"You're just lazy." She chuckles, knocking on the door.
"Come in!" A muffled voice says.
Jade opens the door and steps inside before me. "Sorry, teacher. We're new here and had to ask the info desk where this classroom was." She apologizes.
I close the door, standing beside her. "That's fine, go sit down. I'm guessing you're Jade, and he's Kai?" He questions, pointing to two seats that were on separate sides from each other.
"Yeah." Jade responds, giving me a quick sad smile before walking to the seat on the right side of the room.
I make my way to the other seat, noticing the same blonde sitting in the seat next to it. "Sorry." I say, sitting down next to her.
"Why are you apologizing?" She questions, looking up from her book.
"In case you wanted to sit alone?" I say as more a question, my voice nervous.
"I'm not gonna eat you." She responds, looking back down at her book. "You sit next to me in English, I'm not sure what would be different here."
"I should probably introduce myself then, I'm Ka-" I start whispering only to get cut off by her.
"Let me guess, Kai?" She murmurs, looking up at me. "Sorry." She quickly apologizes in a hushed tone, looking back to her book, flipping through her pages quietly. "Mine's Gwen." She whispers, holding up a few pages.
"Nice to meet you." I respond, my voice lowered.
"Very well class. We'll take a vote on what you guys want to learn first out of three options." The teacher speaks, pointing at the board.
__________________________________
(5 hours and 30 minutes later, 3pm.)
"How did you both enjoy your first day?" Jade's mother asks as Jade and I open the car doors
"It was good Mum." Jade answers, her and I entering the back seats.
"What about you Kai? Did you enjoy it?" She questions.
"Yeah, it was nice." I respond, Jade and I both putting on our seatbelts.
"That's wonderful to hear." She says, pulling out of the parking spot. "Your Mum wanted to know if you and Jade were staying at your house or ours for the week."
"Is it okay if I stay at yours?" I question.
"If Jade is fine with it then so am I." She responds.
"Yeah, I'm cool with that. I stayed at Kai's last week." Jade says, looking out the window.
"I'll call your Mum and let her know Kai." Jade's Mum informs me.
"Thank you, Ms Tanner." I reply, pulling my phone out of my pocket.
"I told you we've known each other long enough. You and Jade have been friends since kindergarten. You can just call me
Tess." She states.
"Okay, Tess." I respond, logging onto Instagram and scrolling through my for you page.
"You two fine with McDonald's? I didn't make anything since I didn't know how long it would take for me to get here and pick you two up and get back." Tess says, stopping at a red light.
"You can just say Maccas and yeah, I'm fine with it if Kai is." Jade says, readjusting herself and resting her head on my shoulder.
"I'm fine with it." I respond, loading up Clash Of Clans on my phone.
"I still can't believe how committed you are to that." Jade says, laughing to herself.
"I'm a gamer." I tell her.
"Yeah, but you have to wait four days for one X-bow." She responds.
"Yeah, I've been losing interest but I wanna get to Town Hall eleven, I'm so close. That's when I'll stop." I tell her, upgrading some of my walls before upgrading a wizard tower.
"Your usual things you two?" Tess asks, stopping behind a Subaru.
"Yeah." Jade and I respond at the same time.
"Did you make friends with who you had to sit next to in Maths?" I question Jade, closing Clash of Clans.
"As much as I could. You?" She answers, pulling her phone out of her pocket.
"She told me her name and only replied when I said something to her. It was the same person we sit next to in English." I tell her, watching as she opens her camera.
"You got less than me. Yikes." She says, smiling into the camera and grabbing my cheeks with her free hand.
"She was glued to her work and her book." I say, feeling Jade squish my face before taking a photo.
"You gotta smile in my photos, man." Jade huffs.
I look up, seeing Tess drive forward and list what she wanted. "Nah, it ruins them for you." I tell her, smiling at the camera. Jade takes a photo, dropping her hand from my cheeks, tapping on the photo and looking at it. "It's a nice photo." I say, looking up to see Tess begin driving behind the Subaru before looking back down.
"Yup, it's going in the folder of you and I." She says, tapping on the home button and entering Instagram.
"Kai, can you hold your drinks?" Tess asks, my head snapping upwards.
"Yeah." I say, grabbing the drinks from her hand.
"Thank you." Tess says, pulling out her credit card and paying for the food before putting it back in her wallet and starting to drive.
I pull Jade's drink out of the holder and hand it to her, watching as she scrolls through reels.
"Thanks, Mum." Jade says, drinking from her straw.
"You're welcome." Tess replies, exiting the parking lot.
"Did that girl at least help you in maths class, Kai?" Tess questions.
"Not really, she sorta did her own thing." I answer, still looking at Jade's phone.
"That's a shame. At least she told you her name." Tess states, stopping at a red light before drinking from her cup.
"What is it?" Jade asks.
"Her name is Gwen." I answer.
"That's a nice name, was she pretty?" Tess asks, looking at me through the rear-view mirror for a second before driving as the lights turn green.
"Mum!" Jade shouts.
"What? I wanna know." Tess states, switching to the left lane and taking a left turn.
"You can't just ask Kai that. Not until he at least gets to know her better." Jade replies, dropping her phone on her lap.
"I only asked if she was pretty." Tess says.
Jade covers her face in embarrassment. "Kai, you don't have to answer her." Jade tells me, releasing a sigh.
I sit there, my mouth left agape, unable to answer Tess' question. "You look like a goldfish." Tess says from the front seat, laughing to herself, switching to the right lane.
Shutting my mouth, I try to think of an answer. "Mum, please." Jade says from my shoulder.
"Fine, fine. I'll drop it." Tess says, turning right.
"Thank you." Jade sighs, lifting her hands off her face.
__________________________________
(2 hours later, 5pm.)
"Yo, Kai." Jade calls out to me.
"What?" I question, putting my shirt on as I walk into the living room.
"First of all, put your shirt on before you exit the bathroom, I don't wanna see that." Jade says from the couch. "Secondly, look it's that Spider-Woman chick." She continues, nodding at the TV.
"You know I don't care for that. I'm glad she protects us but I don't really care Jade." I say, walking over to the couch.
"Oh, come on. Being a man you have to admit she's pretty hot. I'm straight and I can admit that." She shrugs.
My eyes land on the TV, a video of her stopping a car playing. "I'm not gonna admit to that. I don't even know what she looks like under the mask nor do I know her." I tell her, sitting down on the couch next to her.
"Yeah, you think she's hot." Jade says, resting her hands behind her head victoriously.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night." I tell her, grabbing the TV remote from the table. "What do you wanna watch?" I ask her.
"Don't care. Whatever you feel like." She answers.
"You're helpful." I huff, loading up Stan.
"I'm extremely helpful." She responds.
"Tomorrow's Wednesday right?" I ask her.
"Yeah." She responds.
"God, I'm already tired of school." I tell her, putting on a random show.
"Yeah, well. It's only been one day." She replies, laughing as she looks at her phone.
"And I've never wanted to sleep in more." I joke.
"Look, tomorrow we have maths first, you should try and talk to Gwen." She says, showing me her phone.
"What about you and the person you sit next to?" I ask her.
"Scott and I are fine. We talked and had a conversation." Jade answers. "You spoke to Gwen. She didn't speak to you."
"She told me her name." I respond.
Jade slowly turns her head to me, a disappointed look on her face. "Wow. You two must be best friends." She says, trying not to laugh.
"You're just jealous." I reply.
"You caught me red-handed." Jade responds, putting her hands in the air. "You're just scared to talk to her." She chuckles, looking at the TV.
"Me? She's the one that gave me one-word responses." I tell her, putting my hand on my heart.
"Should've asked her to have a conversation." She shrugs, laughing as she looks at me.
"I tried to, what do you think I did?" I ask her.
"Fumble?" She answers, shrugging her shoulders, her face contorting into a confused one.
"That is single-handedly the best answer I have ever gotten from you." I say.
"Jade 2023?" She questions me.
"Jade 2023." I respond, turning my attention to the TV.
__________________________________
(1 day later, 8:30am.)
"See, we got here on time." I tell her.
"Yesterday, it was you being worried about being late." Jade responds.
"It was our first day yesterday." I remind her, entering the classroom.
"Enjoy your time with her." Jade changes the subject, pointing towards Gwen who was sitting with her head face-down on the desk. Jade pats my shoulder before walking away to her seat.
Releasing a sigh, I walk over to my seat and sit down. "Looks like someone had a rough morning." I say, placing my bag on the ground next to me.
"Hmm?" The blonde hums next to me before lifting one side of her face to look at me. "Oh, yeah. Sure." She says, turning her face back and covering it with her arms.
"Okay." I respond, unzipping my bag and grabbing out a pen and book.
"What, Kai?" She replies, releasing a huff.
"I just wanted to start a conversation." I tell her. "But if it bothers you so much I'll stop."
Gwen doesn't respond, her face not moving. "You can't stay face down forever." I tell her, undoing my pen's lid.
"Alright, class. I'll come around and give you all a book to share between you and the person next to you. We can do more questions about yesterday's topic." Mr. Hodge speaks up from the front, 5 books in his hand as he walks around, placing a book on each table.
"I don't wanna do this." Gwen groans from my right.
"It can't be that bad." I tell her, opening my book to an empty page.
"It's that bad." She responds.
"I'll do everything if you just wanna copy so you don't get in trouble." I say.
Gwen lifts up one side of her face again, the tiniest smile on her face. "You want something from me don't you?" She asks.
"For you to talk to me like a friend?" I ask, shrugging my shoulders, a smirk on my face.
Gwen puts her face back in her arms. "I don't need your help." She replies, her voice monotone.
"Did I do something wrong?" I ask.
"Hey Kai, did you enjoy your first day?" Mr Hodge asks me, placing a book between Gwen and I.
"Yeah, it was good." I respond.
"That's great to hear." He smiles at me. "Is she okay?" He asks me, looking from me to Gwen.
"Yeah, I'm guessing she just had a rough morning." I reply.
"Alright, just wanted to check." He says before moving to the front of the classroom. "Class, remember. Do as much as you want. If you don't want to do anything, that's fine, just do one question at least so you can prove to me that you know how to do it." He speaks up.
"Looks like I won't have to copy off of you." Gwen says, finally lifting up her face and looking at me.
A new cut had appeared on the right side of her face as well as a bruise around her eye. "What happened to you?" I question.
Gwen quickly covers her face with her hand, wincing slightly. "Uh, nothing. Don't worry about it." She chuckles, her voice nervous.
"That doesn't look like nothing." I speak, looking at her with a confused expression.
"Trust me, I'm fine." She replies, swapping her right hand with her left hand. "We only have to do one question right?" She asks, picking up her pen.
"Yeah?" I say as more of a question, my eyes never leaving her face.
Gwen looks down at her book, her writing slightly wonky as she looks from her book to the textbook. "Should I be worried about what happened to you?" I question.
"No." She responds, writing down the question in her book. Lowering her left hand from her face.
"So, I shouldn't be worried that my classmate who I sit next to and is a female has a cut and bruise that wasn't there yesterday?' I ask her.
"Yeah. Now, can you please stop looking at me?" She responds, annoyance riddled through her voice, her head fixated on her book. Immediately looking down at my book, I write down the question. A tense and awkward atmosphere filling the small space between Gwen and I. "Do you have a calculator?" Gwen asks from my left, her voice coming out shy.
"Yeah, I brought an extra one in case Jade forgot hers." I awkwardly answer, grabbing two from my bag and placing the spare one on her book.
"Thanks." She replies. "Sorry about what I said."
"You don't need to apologise. I was staring after all." I tell her, entering the maths into my calculator.
Gwen hums in response. My eyes darting a bit to the side, from what I could see, she was looking at me for a second before looking back at her book.
"How long have you been here?" I question, clearing my throat.
"I moved here at the start of the year." She replies.
"Oh, you're new as well? How have you been enjoying it?" I ask her, beginning to do the next question.
"It's been okay." She answers.
Laughter comes from the left side of the room, my head snapping over to see Jade laughing at something that the person she was sitting next to showed her. Turning back to my book, I write down the answers. "I moved here because Jade and I got expelled from the last school." I tell her.
"Five months into year 12? Damn, that's rough." She responds.
"Yeah, well. I don't really mind it so far since a lot of the teachers treated Jade like shit at our old school." I inform her, moving on to the final question.
"I moved from my school because my dad thought it was best for me." She says, a sad tone in her voice.
Looking from my book and at her. A sad smile sat on her face. "I'm guessing you had friends there?" I ask her.
"Yeah." She responds before she puts on a smile. "I have the final answer if you want it." She says, offering me her book.
"Uh, thanks." I reply, moving her book closer to mine and copying the equations and answer.
"It's the least I can do after I snapped at you and you gave me a calculator." She tells me, resting her hand on the side of her face.
"You're warming up to me. And here I thought you were just mean." I reply, a smirk growing on my face as I slide her book back over to her.
"Yeah." She says, her smile faltering for a second.
"You good?" I ask her, grabbing both of my calculators and putting them in my bag.
"I'm fine, sorry." She says.
"You don't have to apologise for whatever you're going through." I tell her, my eyes landing on Mr Hodge who was inspecting each student's book.
"Sir is about to come over here so if you want to hide your black eye go ahead." I tell her.
"Can you show him our work?" She asks, placing her book on top of mine and putting her face onto the table.
"I don't really have a choice now." I joke.
"Thanks." She says, her voice muffled, her arms covering her face.
"How much does the eye hurt?" I question her.
"Not that much, as long as I don't touch it." She answers.
"Hey, just checking that you two are all good and understand the questions." Mr Hodge says, breaking Gwen and I out of our conversation.
"Yeah, the work's all here." I tell him, handing him Gwen and I's books.
"Good job, you guys can relax and do whatever you want or do more questions." He says, walking away and back to his desk.
"Yo, Kai. Wanna go to the mall later?" Jade questions, her voice coming from my left.
Jumping in my seat slightly, I turn towards her. "Yeah, sure." I answer, putting my book into my bag.
"Cool, what's up with her?" Jade asks, following her eyes to Gwen.
"Rough morning." I state, looking at Gwen's hair which I only just noticed was silky smooth.
"You're staring." Jade whispers into my ear. "Alright, well I'll see you at Science." She says before leaving and walking back to her seat.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I focus my attention solely on it. "You can stop hiding it now." I say to Gwen, loading up Clash Of Clans.
"Thanks for that." She says, lifting herself off the desk.
"I didn't do much." I shrug, closing Clash of Clans and loading up Instagram.
"You showed sir our books and said to your friend that I had a rough morning." She says, feeling her eyes on my phone.
"Well, you're welcome." I respond, tapping on reels and scrolling through them.
The feeling of someone's eyes on me becomes apparent, a cold shiver running through my body. A sigh is released from my right, Gwen's head resting on the desk next to me. "How long do we have until the end of class?" She questions.
"Are you asking me because I have my phone in my hand?" I respond.
"Nah, definitely not." She responds, her tone playful.
"Mhm, well since you asked, we have two minutes until the end of class." I answer her, stretching my arms in my seat.
"Really? Time flew by." She says, turning her head towards me.
"Time flies by when you're having fun." I tell her, looking from my phone to her, our eyes meeting. "Maybe it'll fly by faster if we keep talking." I tell her, breaking eye contact and looking back at my phone.
"Mmm." She hums, her eyes still looking at me in the corner of my vision.
"You're staring." I mimic Jade.
Gwen's head snaps down in my peripheral, a hiss exiting her mouth. "You good?" I ask her.
"I'm excellent." She replies, her voice coming out muffled.
As I'm about to say something the bell rings. "Enjoy the rest of your day class." Mr Hodge speaks from the front.
"I'll see you next time?" I ask Gwen, getting up out of my seat.
Gwen packs up her stuff, shoving it into her bag before speed walking out of the classroom. "Okay?" I mumble, tucking my seat in and picking up my bag.