Chapter 7 Royal Lesson's
Trent
Trent noticed her chest before her face, because let's face it, she was female and he was well, male. Trent had begun noticing the opposite sex since he was eleven, and almost never looked back.
"A fellow Aussie!" Trent tried not to notice the size of her chest as it bounced with vigor. "G'day mate! Ow ya goin?"
She was blond, it rolled down to the middle of her back in waves. Dark eyebrows matched her dark chocolate eyes. Two rows of perfectly aligned teeth looked made for teeth whitening commercials. Trent almost forgot the façade he was supposed to be keeping up here.
"Bonzer! Not all Aussies talk this way."
Now that they had gotten their greetings out of the way, she relaxed some. "Right, right, well Americans do seem to love a foreign accent, so I figure, why not? I have to admit, I thought I was only foreign exchange student here. Can you believe it?" Trent never got to answer and was already having minor difficulty keeping up. "Then I hear, word gets around quickly here, imagine, a fellow Aussie. What were the chances?"
Trent silently agreed.
"First I thought you might have been from New Zealand, people get our countries mixed up all the time!" Trent had to restrain himself from watching her chest bounce again as she kept bouncing her weight from one foot to the other. He'd never seen a chest quite like hers move so... fluidly. Now, Trent was glad, to have decided to get out more.
"So what part ya from mate?" She asked quite suddenly that Trent had to bring his eyes back up to flash a smile. "By the way, Name's Zoë or Zoey. I'm from Sydney, born and raised." The way her chest stayed put between the straps to her backpack as she wore a plain white shirt, fascinated Trent more so. "Typical ya? All the strange looks these Americans give me whenever I reveal my name and where I'm from. Has it been like that for you too?"
Luckily, Trent had thought about this before. He was glad he didn't have make something up on the spot. Mr. Bateman prepared him in advance in his world culture studies.
"Westside and name is Trent." he replied, the lies left a funny taste inside his mouth.
"Trent huh? I like it. Can't say I know many Trent's. You'll be the first. Say, can we be friends in this strange world some would call San Francisco? The hills here are wild!"
This girl was all over the place, but at least Trent didn't have to continue lying. At least now he'd have one friend. He could hardly wait to see the look on his Father's face when he found out. Things were already looking up. It had only been near two days and his progress looked promising.
"Yeah," Trent said. "Sure."
They could be friends, he thought smugly.
The bell had to irritatingly ring and Trent had to fight back a wince. For Zoey, not so much. It appeared he wasn't the only one who felt the same way. Fellow classmates were starting to file in through the front doors.
Zoey looked extra pleased but she suddenly threw Trent another curveball. "By the way mate, don't think I haven't noticed those eyeballs on my chest. I'm strictly into women."
As a prince, raised how not to miss a beat, Trent's response was almost diplomatic. "Then we've got something in common." He said this and once again, another lie. Well, maybe half a lie.
Zoey seemed to be really good at reading him because he suddenly felt like she could see straight through him. "We'll see about that mate."
Trent stayed where he was, dumbfounded by what she had said.
Before Trent knew it, two class periods flew by. Trent was hardly paying any attention to what was being said but managed to answer correctly when he was called on, even when he didn't have his hand raised. He couldn't explain it, but he was getting a bad feeling. Spanish class was over and it was time for gym.
Normally this was something Trent looked forward to, but that feeling only intensified. Things felt and looked slightly different when he entered the dome. At first he thought he might have fallen asleep back in Spanish class and was now dreaming this up. Unlike yesterday, everyone was gone. It wasn't until his fellow male classmates came in through the door behind him that they took a right and headed down the steps.
Trent foolishly followed. With a left turn through a door, Trent noticed it was a locker room. He'd forgotten about that. The bell rang after a few minutes of leaning against a row of painted blue lockers. Most of the other guys kept to themselves in clusters. None of them glanced his way.
Trent decided to walk around a bit since no adults decided to show up yet. He found a shower area past the rows and rows of lockers. Trent suddenly felt uneasy about showering so openly in front of others. Back at his previous high school, they had stalls for privacy. There was little worry of having anyone looking in on him.
Sure there was that typical banter about who had the biggest bat, but that was all. Trent wasn't into any of the guys at his old school like that, so he never bothered to join in. Not that he ever truly thought about it until now. He had to ask himself, would he be ok with another guy looking at him that way? More importantly, why hadn't he ever considered this?
Trent had to hurry back because two of the gym teachers had finally come downstairs. They were each assigned lockers, uniforms and locks. At least this part Trent was familiar with. He was nice enough to show a few of the new guys how to use the locks. He was bound to make more friends that way. Right?
They had ten minutes to get themselves situated. When it was time to head back up the stairs, everything went exactly as it did yesterday. Trent thought about going for basketball but the look some of the guys gave him suggested he'd better go someplace else. That's when Trent remembered his mistake. He beat up their buddy, who wasn't present. Neither was Jason.
Now all he accomplished was depressing himself.
Trent ended up being the only guy on the volleyball team. Again. The game went uneventfully, as in, no one else managed to get hurt. There were moments when he found himself enjoying the game. At least most of the female population had a tendency to take to him easily. He had to remind himself to keep his Australian accent.
When gym ended, he went back to walking with his head down. Things weren't going as planned, but he should have seen that coming. Accomplishments take time. He just needed to hang in there.
Earth science was next. Trent had already taken every other available science class imaginable but this was all there was available. Besides that he need to blend in this way. He couldn't stand out too much. He had enough credits that he could have graduated a year and a half ago from here.
So when he walked in, he realized the teacher's assistant was the girlfriend of the guy he beat up yesterday. The one and only. Trent thought about walking out or skipping class, all that would do was make him look like a coward. He needed to tough it out and face the consequences.
His bad feeling was right because when he sat down, she noticed. He didn't get the look of disgust like he expected. His work might get thrown away, or he was doomed to get failing grades on every assignment. That would be better than having her pull another chokehold on him again. Now that was a scary experience!
All he hoped for now, was that she didn't cause a scene. Trent decided to busy himself and start reading from his text book. A little refresher couldn't hurt, but his eyes couldn't focus. If the blond had lasers in her eyes, he would have been a pile of ash. Trent didn't like to admit it even to himself, but she terrified him.
Before class could begin, she was suddenly sitting on a stool she had to pull up to face him. "I just wanted to say that what you did was really awful. So shame on you! That is all." She pushed up from her stool with her hands and didn't quite stomp away. She carried herself well, like royalty.
"But he was cheating on both of you right?" Trent didn't mean to shout causing a few heads to turn his way in confusion.
The girl turned her head so harshly that her ponytail hit her directly across the face and bobbed. "So?"
Trent couldn't believe what he was hearing!
"So that's horrible!" Was that kind of thing normal here? Or just in California? Why hadn't Samantha brought this to his attention? She knew where he was going. The press all thought he'd gone to Italy.
"Look," Trent tried again, he had the entire classrooms attention. "I'm sure you're really nice. Jason is. But this can't be right!"
"He isn't really Jason's boyfriend," she said now looking at him like he was the dumbest person on the planet, and confused Trent further by adding, "I told Nicklaus to act like he was, so people wouldn't pick on him anymore. You think being gay is easy? Heads up Aussie boy, it's not. Let that be a royal lesson to you!" she turned her head away, ponytail bobbing angrily and sat near the front desk.
If only she knew how close to the truth she was.
What was it with the women around here? Trent wondered. Was there something in the water? They're all a little loony! Who makes demands like that to their boyfriend to pretend to be someone else's boyfriend?
Would Trent do it if his future girlfriend asked him to? Probably not. He doubted he could do it since he himself was a firm believer in monogamy. Let alone kiss another guy! It didn't matter how attractive he found the girl. No friggin way!
Now Trent was ready to throw his hand in the air because now he was lying to himself!
Maybe that Nicklaus was bisexual? Like Trent, er Caleb. Was that how, why he could kiss another guy? No heterosexual-sexual man in their right mind could pull a stunt like that off without gagging. Trent would ask the guy if he wasn't already off to a bad start.
Maybe Caitlyn was right. He is the dumbest person on the planet. He thought of actors and actresses, and how he needed to start keeping his mouth shut from now on.
The rest of the class period made Trent feel like he'd jumped out of the fire and into the freezer. Everyone was too afraid to associate with him. With the icy looks the blonde kept giving him, they even started to slither away with their stools from him. She had everyone eating out of the palm of her hand it seemed.
Trent still had a feeling that there might have been a little more to why she was so mad. It was unlikely that he'd get any answers. Trent knew enough about women to know that once a woman felt offended in any way, apologizing hardly guaranteed survival. So Trent just accepted it when the teacher finally did walk into the room. Mr. Hanagan had no idea or flat out didn't care when he started to teach.
Trent felt himself drifting by the time class ended.
The rest of the day passed by sluggishly. What was worse, he had after school detention. Actually it wasn't so bad, all he had to do was sit quietly like he'd been doing all day. He got all of his homework done. Before he knew it, he couldn't help but bolt out of the door once he served his time.
He needed to find the football field. That is, if Jason didn't end up ditching him. The halls were nearly empty, with a janitor or two rebuffing the floors. Passage was easy.
When Trent found Jason sitting side by the person he least expected. He wasn't entirely sure why, but Trent felt a surge of protectiveness over Jason. What was that girl doing sitting there talking to him? Was she making Trent look bad? What if Jason no longer wanted anything to do with him? That would spoil his one and only chance at having a friend!
Well, there was Zoey...
But no! Trent felt he needed to protect Jason from being corrupted by the one person who would try to poison his mind!
"Jason!" Trent didn't care when the blonde turned his way, shooting an irritated look.
Jason looked up and for a moment there, their faces of relief might have mirrored each other. Jason and the girl were sitting at the highest point on the bleachers. The sun had also gotten hotter, or maybe it was due to how the light bounced off the bleachers. He found himself jogging up them while ignoring the childish giggles from the cheerleaders down below. Trent had no idea where they came from.
Trent hardly cared if it looked like he was showing off. He jumped 3 steps at a time making the muscles in his legs stretch. His arms flexed as he kept balance. If he happened to fall now, it would be the end of him as he knew it.
Blonde girl was not impressed, but at the moment, Trent had only eyes for Jason.
"So that ride," he said and was Jason blushing? "Offer still stands?" Trent couldn't say he ever felt so vulnerable by asking a simple question. It had nothing to do with being born with a silver spoon in his mouth. It was the fact that his heart wouldn't stop pounding. It wasn't like he never worked out, so it had nothing to do with being out of shape.
But that was how he felt.
"You don't really sound Australian," Blonde commented. "Shouldn't you be using a word like mate or something?"
Trent couldn't hide the annoyance that made the right corner of his mouth twitch. "This is America, I did my research lass."
"Lass?" She was standing up now. It seemed like no matter what Trent said, all he did was offend her further.
Now Jason was standing up with his hands halfway up. "Hold up, stop. There's been a major misunderstanding I think we all need to clear up."
"Please!" He added, mostly by giving the blonde a look.
The blonde was not at all pleased but complied, not without shooting one more comment before sitting back down. "Sometimes I detect a blend of a Ukrainian and French accent."
Trent was ready to give up and walk away. He hoped Jason would follow but judging how close he seemed with the blonde, they were friends. Close friends and that made things really complicated.
"Look," Jason began, "this is my best friend Caitlin and this, well, you know, is Trent." Trent tried not to look hurt by how dismissive Jason sounded. "Caitlin and the guy you hit, Nicklaus, are both my best friends."
Trent felt the temperature on his face rise. He'd really messed up!
"Caitlin and Nicklaus are both looking out for me. It may sound strange, well hell, it's strange even by most American standards, but we're usually in the same gym class together. This year it's just Nick and me so-"
"She had orders for her boyfriend to pretend to be your boyfriend just to keep the other guys from bullying you. No one cheated on anyone." Trent finished. Well, he wasn't entirely sure of that...
"Well thank you for looking out for my virtue." Jason replied with his eyes closed and arms crossed. "Wait, what? When did, how did you find that out?" Jason only stared back. His lips parted.
"Your friend filled me in on that earlier today." Trent finished.
Jason had to look Caitlin's way but there was no shame in the way she shrugged.
"I had no idea you were all friends, and I already apologized to you yesterday back at the nurses station." Trent was getting more frustrated by the second.
"What?" This was directed towards Jason by Caitlin.
No one was going to end up happy by the end of this conversation it seemed. Trent needed to step in and fix things, but he had no idea how.
"You were busy worrying about Nick. I was worried too. I didn't want to burden or bother you." Jason tried to shrug it off like it was almost meaningless.
Trent was stuck listening to them bicker back and forth for a bit longer. Before he could start feeling like he was forgotten about, he watched them make up. They hugged. They forgave each other. The misunderstandings were put to rest.
"Have fun," Caitlin gave a dismissive wave but she still gave Trent a cold look over her shoulder. She took each step one at a time and used the railing for balance.
"Don't take what she says personal." Jason apparently felt the need to explain things. "She means well. What can I say? Caitlin and Nick can both get a little overprotective of me."
Trent said nothing. He was still trying to digest what he learned today, but mostly, he felt he could relate.
"So yeah," Jason started and brought Trent out of his own head, "about that ride. I'll take it but can it hold my bike?"
"Can't see why not." Trent wasn't sure his reply was chipped and to the point. He couldn't stop thinking about Caitlin and Jason hugged. It was him who Jason should have been hugging. Trent wasn't sure, but he was suddenly mad at himself.