January 20th, 2011
“We’re seniors in high school and yet we’re still walking to school,” Lexi sighed flatly as my thee best friends and I made our way to school that morning. “I feel pathetic.”
“It’s fine,” AJ shrugged, not bothered by it at all. “We all need the exercise anyway. It’s good for us.”
Chelsea made a face. “Speak for yourself.”
AJ shrugged. “Okay. I actually find this kind of fun.”
I snorted. “She’s definitely speaking for herself.”
AJ made a face at me. "You're going to get fat one day, Jordan. What would you do if you were being chased by someone? You'd never be able to make it."
I glared right back at her. "I'd give up. They'd probably be faster than me anyway."
"Everyone's faster than you," Lexi muttered, and I glared at her instead now. "What? It's true."
"No, I'm faster than Aimee," I shrugged without even thinking about what the girls around me would think. AJ immediately saddened, and Lexi went silent. Aimee was definitely the last thing I should have ever brought up.
Before any of the girls could say anything, another voice called out, “Hey! Look who it is!”
At first, I expected the worst. It was Jesse or Aimee there to harass us. But luckily, when we turned around, I saw that it was actually Emily and Yolanda instead.
It was Emily who had shouted at us, obviously, since Yolanda was way too shy and timid to do something like that.
“I thought that we were the only two seniors that walked to school,” Emily laughed as they came toward us, Yolanda only nodding in agreement. “It makes us feel a little better that we’re not complete losers!”
For some reason, that didn’t feel like a compliment, even though Emily meant it that way. But it wasn’t like I was going to say anything…
We continued on our way to school, but before we could get through the front gate, we were interrupted once again. But this time, it was by someone I definitely didn’t want to see.
“Hey, Emery,” Jesse smirked, a few of his friends behind him. They all had buckets in their hands, which made me a little nervous. “Fancy seeing you all here.”
I glared at him. “This is our school, dumbass.”
He only smirked. “Of course it is.”
“And shouldn’t you guys be in school?” I questioned.
“Nah,” Jesse shrugged. “We ditched.”
I glared at him. “Of course you did.”
When a water balloon hit me in the chest, I let out a shout as the cold water soaked me. I looked up at Jesse to see he had another one in his hand, this time firing it right at AJ. He hit her right in the arm, and before any of us could react, he and the rest of the boys started pelting us with water balloons.
It was freezing cold outside! It was January, and the water was freezing cold! Did they want us to get sick or something? Apparently!
“Jacobsen!” I shouted as he continued throwing them at me. I was now completely soaked. “I’m going to kill you!”
He laughed, still throwing them at me. “I’d like to see you try!”
Yolanda started crying, but that didn’t stop Jesse from laughing while the rest of the boys continued throwing water balloons at her.
Here we were, completely defenseless against these idiots. We didn’t have anything to throw back at them, so once they were out of water balloons, that was the end of it. We couldn’t have stopped it anytime sooner.
“That isn’t even the best part, Emery!” Jesse laughed as he and his friends began to run away. “I hope you all have a great time at school!”
Knowing him, the building would blow up the second I stepped inside it. What could be worse than being completely soaked?
“We have to go,” Emily growled, continuing on her way to our school. “We’ll be late if we all go home to change. Not to mention I don’t have another uniform handy.”
“Same with me,” I grumbled, fallowing right after her. The girls came with us as well, all of us knowing there was no point in changing. We’d might as well just go to school all soaked and covered in rubber from the water balloons.
Surprisingly, there wasn’t anyone around the main entrance of the school. At first, we thought that we were somehow late, but we all checked out phones to see that that wasn’t the case. When we heard a scream coming from around the corner, we all hurried over to see what the problem was.
Much to my surprise, pretty much the entire school was crowded around this wall. I pushed my way through the crowd, people making faces when they felt that I was wet, but I didn’t even care. All I could focus on was what was taped onto the wall of our school.
Hundreds of underwear, at least one pair from every girl in the school, were hanging from the wall above us. I immediately knew who did this, and it made me want to kill him even more than ever.
You would think that finding my underwear out of hundreds would be hard, but it was actually very easy. Mine was right in the center of everything, “JESSE WAS HERE” written on it in big, fat, black letters.
“I’m going to kill him!” I shouted, ripping my underwear away from the wall as other girls began to do the same. “He and his perverted friends are so going down!”
“Jordan Emery!” I heard someone shout from behind me, and I turned around to see Headmistress Belladonna waving me over to her. I nearly let out a groan. “Please come to my office now!”
This was not good. She knew that this happened because of Jesse and me. Everyone knew that this happened because of Jesse and me. The entire school knew about our prank war and we had even included people into it. Now he had pranked the entire school!
It felt stuffy in Headmistress Belladonna’s office, but I was pretty sure that was only because my clothes were just now starting to dry. Unfortunately, Headmistress Belladonna didn’t care if I was wet. She made me sit down in the chair across from her anyway.
“Well, I think it’s safe to assume that this was Jesse’s doing,” Headmistress Belladonna began, and all I did was nod. “Yes, I was sure that it was him. I didn’t even have to see what he wrote on your underwear.”
This embarrassed me even more. I was sure everyone knew that the pair with writing on it was mine, because everyone knew about the kind of relationship Jesse and I had. We were definitely not the best of friends at all.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, even though I really had nothing to apologize for. “I’ll help take down all the underwear. Actually, I’ll even do it myself, if I have to.”
Headmistress Belladonna shook her head. “That will be unnecessary, Jordan. I called you here for more than just confirming that this was Jesse Jacobsen’s doing. I called you in here to talk to you.”
I gulped. “Okay.”
“When it comes to your grades, you’ve been a perfect model student,” she started, and I didn’t know if I wanted to hear where this was going to go. “But when it comes to your behavior toward Jesse Jacobsen, the last thing you are in a perfect model student. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I only nodded, only because I thought that I had lost my voice. If I even tried to speak, I was sure that I was going to squeak.
“I’m giving you one last warning, Jordan,” she now warned, wagging her finger at me in an almost menacing way. “I want this feud between you and Jesse to stop. It’s been nearly four years. You’re seventeen years old, and Jesse just turned eighteen. You two are becoming adults very quickly. A prank war is not something that Yale would approve of.”
I swallowed, knowing she was right. Would Yale ever accept me if they knew that I had been fighting with the same guy for almost four years? That wasn’t impressive in the slightest. It was just embarrassing.
“This is your last warning,” she repeated, and I nodded at her. “If I catch you playing another prank, you’re going to be expelled. I’ve given you many chances and I just can’t give you anymore.”
I gulped again, only nodding. I still couldn’t speak. I felt like I was going to burst into tears, and that was the last thing I wanted to do in front of Headmistress Belladonna.
“You and Jesse have been tarnishing our schools’ reputations for too long,” she told me now. “It’s about time that you two stop and start acting like mature adults. You’ll be going off to Yale soon, and they definitely do not accept this behavior.”
I could only nod for the thousandth time.
“Do you understand?” she asked me now.
I nodded again. “Yes, I understand.”
“That’s good,” she nodded as well now. “Now, I’m going to send you off for the day. I think it’ll give you some time to think about this all.”
All I could do was nod for the umpteenth time, getting up from the chair that I had now soaked before heading out the door. The sooner I got out of there, the better I knew I would feel.
The only sucky part about leaving was that I had to walk all the way home in wet clothing. I was definitely going to chafe, and that was not something I was looking forward to. Damn Jesse Jacobsen for everything he’d ever done to me.
“Oh, Emery!” a voice called out when I was halfway home, and I thought I was going to scream. “Did you like the surprise I left you and your classmates? It was very fun to make. I especially liked handling yours out of everyone’s.”
“I’m not even going to bother dealing with you,” I growled, not wanting to have anything to do with him. If I couldn’t pull anymore pranks on him, three was no point in even associating myself with him any longer. “You’ve gotten me in enough trouble already. Even talking to you will probably get me into even more trouble.”
I noticed his gaze fall toward my chest, where I then noticed that I was wearing a white shirt. Which meant that it was completely see-through.
“Hey, asshole!” I shouted, covering my chest with my arms now. “My eyes are up here!”
“I’ve always thought that you’ve had big eyes. But those are so much bigger.”
“Hey!” I shouted again, taking a step back away from him. “Stop looking at me, you pervert! Just leave me alone!”
“What’s wrong, Emery?” he asked with a wide grin. “Are you embarrassed that all your classmates saw your underwear? Or are you just mad that I can see your bra through your shirt? Not that that’s a bad thing or anything…”
“Leave me alone, Jacobsen,” I snapped instead of answering him, moving right by him as fast as I could in my wet clothing. “I don’t want to talk to you right now. Or ever, actually. You’ve caused me enough problems.”
“I’m sure I could cause you a lot more.”
“I’m sure you could.”
For some reason, he sounded serious. But I ignored this, because he was probably just trying to mess with me. I wasn’t going to let him get to me this tie.
Jesse snickered, grabbing onto my arm as he said, “Aw, come on, Emery--”
“No!” I shouted, ripping myself away and finally spinning toward him. “I want nothing to do with you! You almost got me expelled! If I get expelled, I don’t get to go to Yale and my future is ruined! Everything I worked for, everything I’ve ever wanted, will be ruined… by you! Just leave me alone! I never want to see you ever again!”
If only that could be true. But I was sure that I would see Jesse Jacobsen again, no matter how hard I tried to hide from him. I’d never been good at hide and seek, even when I was a little kid. It had always been Austin’s or Dallas’s game. I had never been good at hiding.
There was a look on Jesse’s face that I hadn’t ever seen before. He almost looked… hurt.
I turned away from him, continuing on without even looking back at him. I had to cut myself off from Jesse Jacobsen no matter what. I couldn’t risk everything just for stupid revenge.
My mother didn’t even question me when I came home early, which surprised me greatly. I thought that she’d be surprised to see that I came home before first period even ended, but she didn’t seem bothered by it at all.
I sulked all the way up the stairs, pushing my door open unhappily. I’d just sleep the rest of this horrible day away.
“Ah!” I shouted, not expecting the three of them to be in my room once I turned on the light. “What the heck are you guys doing here?”
“Our teachers sent us home because we were soaked,” AJ shrugged, as if it was no big deal at all. “Instead of going home, we decided to come over here to see if you were alright, because we were sure Headmistress Belladonna was going to let you go early, too. Your mom let us in.”
“So, what happened?” Lexi asked before I could say anything to AJ. “What did Headmistress Belladonna talk to you about?”
“She said if I played another prank again, I’d be expelled,” I gulped, not believing that I could say this without throwing up. “Jesse Jacobsen nearly got me expelled. I can’t even play another prank on him for revenge without fearing that I’ll be expelled!”
AJ frowned. “If you’re expelled, Jordan, that means you can’t go to Yale.”
“I know what it means!” I shouted. Not at her, but at my lap instead. “That idiot is risking my future! He’s literally ruining my life! He has been for the past three and a half years!”
“Well, we need to get them back for this somehow!” Chelsea announced, her face still red from embarrassment. “They broke into our houses and took our underwear!”
“Aimee probably gave it to them willingly,” I heard Lexi mutter under her breath, but AJ and Chelsea didn’t seem to hear her.
“I know, I just…” I started, not knowing what I was supposed to say. “I can’t. If I get expelled, if I can’t go to Yale, I don’t know what I’d do. Yale is all I want. It’s all I’ve ever wanted and I’m sure it’s what I’ll always ever want!”
“I’m sure you’ll want something else in the future, Jordan,” Lexi told me, looking a little concerned. “You’ll fall in love one day with someone and you’ll want them even more than you want to go to Yale.”
I snorted. “I highly doubt it.”
“Knowing Jordan’s luck, she’ll probably fall in love with a psychopathic killer,” Chelsea muttered, and I couldn’t help but glare at her.
“Or have one fall in love with her,” AJ added.
“Okay, I’m not going to fall in love with any psychopaths or killers, and I’m not going to have any fall in love with me,” I snapped, not wanting to go on about this subject any longer. “Can we please get back to what we’re going to do about Jesse Jacobsen and my future? We have a crisis here!”
“We’ll figure this out,” Lexi nodded, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Senior year will be over in a couple of months. I guess you’ll just have to ignore him until after we graduate. It’s really the only thing we can do.”
“This sucks,” I groaned, collapsing back onto my bed. “I can’t just ignore Jesse Jacobsen for nearly six months! Who knows what he’d do in that time? Who knows what’s going to happen in nearly six months? I could end up almost dead! I don’t want to lose this feud after so we’ve been fighting for so long!”
“Well… a lot of girls at this school play pranks on Cambridge boys,” Chelsea started, as if she was onto something. “Jordan and Jesse have gotten both schools to fight against each other. There have been a lot of pranks that both Jordan and Jesse didn’t do, so how would Headmistress Belladonna know if it was Jordan or not if another prank was pulled?”
“You’re right!” Lexi cried out happily. “She’d never be able to know that Jordan pranked Cambridge if she wasn’t there herself or if Jordan didn’t leave anything personal! That’s brilliant!”
“So, we’ll just prank them and Headmistress Belladonna won’t ever know that it was Jordan!” AJ smiled, and I felt myself smiling as well. “That’s so great! This is perfect! Now we can prank them back for taping our underwear to the wall!”
“I have an idea,” I grinned, looking over at Lexi and all her roles of duct tape around her arms. I couldn’t help but smirk. “Tonight, we’re going to Cambridge. We’ll finally show the boys who’s boss.”
The girls smiled mischievously at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back at them the same way. We were going to do something that would change the feud forever. I just knew it.
Things were about to change.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” I now whispered, gathering my three friend closer, just in case someone was somehow listening in on what we were saying. “We’re gonna tape something that’s important to Cambridge to the wall. Let’s see how they like it.”
“Well, what are we going to tape?” Lexi asked, looking over the roles of duct tape on her arms.
“That soccer net,” I grinned, it being the first thing that came to my mind. “That stupid lucky soccer net.”
“That’s perfect!” Lexi nearly shouted. “Those boys cherish that thing! Who knows what they’d do if it got taped to their school!”
“Jesse might not play soccer, but it’s good enough,” I grinned, excited about this anonymous pranking thing. It was just the start of a new beginning. “This is going to be so much fun. I’ll get my revenge, I won’t lose the feud, and I’ll graduate from Adeline and go to Yale. Everything is going to work out as planned.”
“This is going to be great,” Chelsea laughed now. “I can’t wait for tonight!”
“Lexi, get your best duct tape ready,” I grinned at her as I stood up from my bed now. “This is the start of an even better story.”
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The end. Well, not really... ;)
It's going to be so weird not writing about Jordan and Jesse anymore. It's been over a year since I started writing this. But I'm kind of glad that it's over, too. I love this story and all, but it was just starting to become too much for me, haha.
If you're sad that this is over, I guess you could always just read Thin Line again, if you already have. You should have... since the point of view changes would have totally ruined everything for Thin Line...
And I know some things from this story don't go with some things in Thin Line. I'm just too lazy to change things. ;)
Everything on the side is perfect. <3
And there won't be a sequel to Thin Line. :( I think I'll shoot Jordan or Jesse (again... >.>) if I have to write about them even more. But if you want to, I give you full permission to write your own sequel, or prequel, or just a regular fanfiction during Thin Line if you want. Just because I don't want to write about Jordan and Jesse (AND HUNTER!) anymore doesn't mean I don't want to read about them. ;)
Thank you all so much for reading and sticking with me for over a year! I love these characters to death and I'll miss them so much. It really means a lot to me that you guys are still reading. :) And sorry for the super long author's note! <3