Chapter 7
On Monday morning I woke up to my annoying alarm clock. I still didn’t understand the reasons that society had for waking students up early in the morning but I guess I couldn’t really fight against the cause.
I grudgingly got out of bed and went through my normal morning routine before throwing on one of the first outfits I spotted I my closet; a light pink t-shirt with a grey sweatshirt to cover it, a pair of light blue jeans and a off-white beanie for my head.
Hey, it was Monday; I didn’t need to look like a supermodel!
After checking my bedside clock and realizing I was slightly behind schedule I rushed downstairs to see a tired looking Piper sitting at the table waiting for food.
I stopped in my tracks and looked and her raising an eyebrow. “Would you like something?” I asked sarcastically.
Piper looked up at me and stared. “One, don’t use your sassy attitude with me, you love me. Two, yes I would love something to eat so make it snappy. And three, get up a little late today Soph?” she finished with the most sarcasm she could muster, looking my outfit up and down.
I yawned and shook my head. “Nope, I just took a super long shower because I lost track of time.” I replied, heading around the corner to the kitchen and grabbing a yogurt, banana and juice box for myself as well as an apple, granola bar and juice box for Piper.
I walked out of the kitchen and threw Piper her to-go breakfast on at a time before sitting down at the table for a couple of minutes.
“So, you weren’t answering you phone all weekend so I assumed it was just dead, but did you get home fine on Friday night?” Piper asked, sounding a little concerned.
My eyes bulged for a second before returning to normal when I remembered that I hadn’t checked my phone all weekend and it was probably full of missed calls and texts from both Blake and Piper. I nodded my head in confirmation. “Yup, I came home a little late but eah, what’cha gonna do?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
Piper stopped eating and looked at me strangely.
“What?” I asked, swallowing a bit of yogurt.
“My recital ended just after 9:30pm and you must’ve left at least before ten. You’re curfew is midnight so how in the world did you end up being late? At most it’s a forty minute walk from the auditorium to your house.” Piper asked.
I internally groaned. Since I hadn’t been answering my phone all weekend while my mind was focused on Jett, I obviously hadn’t been able to tell Piper about what happened on Friday night after I left her recital.
I outwardly sighed. “You know what? I’ll tell you this… I was with Jett.” I said, smirking to myself as I got up from the table just in time to see Piper’s shocked face with I laughed at.
Piper sobered up quickly and looked at me incredulously. “Why didn’t you tell me? What were you doing? How did that even happened?” Piper asked, rattling off question after question. She only stopped when I put my hand up signaling for her to shut her mouth.
I smiled. “Come on, I’ll tell you when we pick up Blake because I really don’t feel like repeating this story twice for both of you. Once will be enough.” I said, putting on my shoes and grabbing my bag. I turned around to see Piper still sitting in her seat. “Come on Pipe, we’re going be late and you’re just prolonging your chance at hearing this wonderful story.” I exclaimed as I walked towards the front door with my keys in hand.
Thank the lord my car didn’t have any serious damage to it. The man who was working on it over the weekend had dropped off my car yesterday afternoon and it looked good as new. From what he told me, and the very little that I understood, it seemed like something inside the engine had malfunctioned temporarily and it took them a day to fix it. I was just glad that my car was running like new and I was able to drive again.
I hopped into the car and waited patiently for Piper. Another minute passed before Piper emerged from my house, stomping towards my car before hopping into the passenger seat.
“You are so lucky that you got your car back because with the bomb you just dropped on me, you would not be catching a ride with me this morning.” Piper stated, obviously frustrated that I was keeping ‘important’ details from her.
I shook my head as I backed out of my driveway and headed towards Blake’s. “You know I could just stop the car and kick you out leaving you to walk to school.” I stated, obviously not actually planning on doing such a thing.
Piper sighed. “I’m just frustrated so ignore me but hurry up and get to Blake’s because I want to hear this story about your Friday night adventures now.” Piper said, nudging up the radio slightly when the song ‘As Long As You Love Me’ by Justin Bieber came on.
“By the way, there is nothing about my story that is juicy at all if that’s what you were hoping for.” I informed her.
Piper just waved me off. “Yea yea, just hurry up and don’t interrupt my Bieber time.” she said, motioning for me to bump up the volume of the radio a bit more, which I happily did since I was somewhat a fan of his new album as well.
The remainder of the drive to Blake’s consisted of me and Piper singing; quite badly may I add, to the rest of the songs that played on the radio.
When I pulled up into Blake’s driveway he was coming out the door and walked quickly to my car, jumping in the back seat. Now unlike some other days, today Blake did not mention his distaste for the back seat, instead he just sat there comfortably until I backed out of his driveway and headed to school.
“Sophie, Blake is here and you have a story to tell. Now spill!” Piper demanded, squeezing my arm slightly and turning down the volume of the radio.
I shrugged her hand off my arm. “Don’t touch the driver.” I stated as a warning.
I really didn’t want to end up in a car accident and risk dying like my parents did. I was affected by that accident but not in a way that made me never want to be on the road again, more like I was afraid to get in an accident because then my brother and the rest of my family would have lost three people instead of two to a driving mishap.
“She apologizes, but what’s this I hear about gossip. I was not informed of anything.” Blake said, acting shocked at his development.
Piper turned around to face Blake. “You know how Sophie here wanted to walk home from my recital on Friday?” Piper asked and Blake nodded in response. “Well it seems that Sophie didn’t arrive at home before midnight because somewhere along the way she bumped into Jett, however, she has yet to share her little adventure story with us.”
Blake gasped. “You and Jett were hanging out? How could you not tell us, anyways, what happened?”
I sighed and rattled off the whole story; how I was walking down the street and spotted Jett getting up onto stage in a local café and how I went into the building to listen to him perform. I also described how good I thought he was at performing and how after his performance he just hung out, talked for a bit, and I met a couple of his friends from outside school. When I got to the part about him driving me home on his motorcycle, Piper flipped out.
“Oh My Gosh, you were on the back of Jett’s motorcycle! Did you hold on to his body? Could you feel his muscles? Did he walk you up to your door? Oh My God, what happened?” Piper exclaimed, going way overboard on this whole thing.
I sighed. “Yes I went on the motorcycle and yes I held on to his body, but no I didn’t feel his muscles and no he didn’t walk me up to my door.” I replied, fiddling with the radio controls nervously as we pulled into the school parking lot.
I jumped out of the car before Piper or Blake had a chance to reply to me and headed quickly for my locker, however, I momentarily forgot that Piper and Blake knew exactly where my locker was located because about a minute later they were headed towards me.
Blake leaned on the locker beside mine. “So, you got a crush on the guy?” he asked, in a tone that was teasing but seemed slightly serious.
I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t think so, I mean he’s nice and we get along but we’re just friends. Maybe I’ll develop feelings for him or something but right now, I just feel friendship.” I replied, partially lying. I knew I cared for Jett as a friend but I didn’t know if there was something more to my feelings, I mean, I couldn’t get him out of my head all weekend but, did that mean anything because I had no clue.
Blake nodded and looked at Piper quickly before returning his attention to me. “Okay, we’ll stop bothering you about Jett unless you actually want to talk about him, and we mean it this time, but you can always talk to us. If you start having feelings for him or you just want to tell us about you guys hanging out, don’t hesitate. We’re your best friends and we’ll be there to listen.” he explained, talking on behalf of himself and Piper.
I smiled at both of my friends. “Thanks, you know I love you guys’ right?” I said, starting to laugh as I hugged both of them tightly before heading off towards first period.
My two first periods flew by, as did lunch. My guess was that since I was paying attention in class and no gossip or interesting subjects were talk-worthy today around school, Father Time must have fast forwarded the day a little to get on with the day.
As I walked into English that day another theory hit my brain as I walked to the back of the room to sit beside Jett. Did the time pass quicker today because I subconsciously wanted to see Jett or something else?
Jett took his focus away from his phone and put it on me. “Hey, how was your weekend?” he asked, slipping his phone into his jeans pocket.
I shrugged in response. “Pretty good, I basically lazed around the whole weekend in my house watching television and movies. What about you?” I asked.
He smiled. “I hung out with Dillon and them a bit, but other than that I pretty much did the same as you… absolutely nothing.”
“Hey! Watching movies and lazing around for the weekend is doing something, it’s just not doing anything productive.” I responded, sticking my tongue out childishly.
At that remark Jett cracked a smile and shook his head, but before he could reply, the teacher walked in and settled us all down until the class was silent.
“Okay class, today we are starting something new. The school board has been doing this for the past couple years as a way to get the senior students a bit more social as you all will be entering the world of adults in a few short months.” the teacher announced and I got confused. I hadn’t heard about anything the seniors did specially in class. “Each year the senior students are given a month to work on a project with an assigned partner and they are not to mention the project to the younger class man. Each year the new seniors are to be surprised by this project and you must all keep the tradition going by not uttering a word to the grades below, understood?” he asked and the class nodded affirmatively.
I glanced at Jett and mouthed ‘do you know?’, but he just shook his head looking as confused as the rest of us.
The teacher went on to explain this project some more. “Even though most of you have gone to school together your whole lives, you don’t really know one another. This project pairs you up with somebody to find out more about each other. You basically have to get to know the person and see that even through school, some people hide secrets from their friends and others are exactly how they seem. Basically, this project is designed to show the seniors that once you’re out in the real world and you meet new people, you always have a first impression but those can change; don’t judge a person before getting to know them. Because I don’t want a lot of arguing with the choosing of partners I am just telling you that the person you sit beside will be your partner for this particular project.”
I turned to Jett and smiled, which he returned. I guess I’m glad that I actually sit beside someone that I’m starting to get to know because as I looked around the room, I saw a couple unhappy faces with the partner situation.
“Both individuals will present some sort of work on the other person; whether it be a report, a poem, a song, a slideshow or a poster; be creative with it and have fun. Also, this presentation must include your first impression of your partner at the beginning and then details into who they really are, whether it be totally different than your first impression or not. This project will not be done during school but on your own time. Sure, there might be one or two periods throughout the month to work on it but the majority will be done on your own time. It will also be due in exactly one month.” the teacher explained, rambling on about this ‘getting-to-know-each-other’ project.
“Any questions?” he asked, and when nobody raised their hand he nodded. “Okay, well there is five minutes left of class so just occupy yourselves in some way and don’t get to loud.”
Chairs scraped the floor as people went to sit and chat with their friends but I just turned to Jett and smiled.
“So this is going to be an interesting project, ain’t it?” Jett asked and I nodded.
This project was definitely going to be interesting; however, I’m not so sure I minded. .In fact, I don’t think I minded at all.
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Chapter 7 is up! Hope you enjoy this as it sets a lot of the rest of the story up. Give your opinions on this chapter in the comments and vote if you think the chapter deserves it :)
Next Update: Monday (tomorrow if I can get 10-15 votes on this chapter by then)
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