Him

School With The New Guy

Finally, it's the first day of my Senior year at Maxwell High. Driving through the parking lot, looking for my spot, I start to feel nervous. Summer had been long with what happened to my Papaw. I've still not really dealt with it. Instead I continue to avoid it.

As I park my car, Eli jumps out, saying bye to me as he shuts the door. When he was gone I lean my head back and close my eyes. As I rest my head there I think about my Papaw. It has only been a few weeks.

I keep saying it’s okay. I've continued to play the "perfect" daughter role at home. The truth though, I pretend to be that when I'm with my family. But when they're gone, my old self is gone too. I went to so many parties. I don't even remember half of them.

Oh well.

I think a little more about my life but my thoughts are suddenly interrupted.

A guy in a leather jacket, on a black motorcycle drives into the parking lot. Where have I seen that bike before? It looks like the one I saw at church. I don't know though.

I reach for my purse and notebook and get out of my car. As I step out, the motorcycle guy slides into the parking spot next to me, almost hitting me.

"Hey!" I yell, jumping back, away from the guy.

The guy just hops off his still running motorcycle and kicks down the kickstand. He flips up his helmet visor and peers at me. His bright eyes almost glowing. Saying nothing he turns back to turn his motorcycle off. Opening a compartment, he grabs some school stuff.

"Um, excuse me?" I say rudely.

He stops what he was doing and walks right up to me. Slowly he lifts his helmet off, his black hair moving slowly with the breeze. I scoot back from him a bit.

"I'm sorry I almost hit you," He finally apologizes while extending his hand.

"Uh, yeah. It's fine," I mutter, ignoring his hand.

I walk past him and up to the school. I'm almost sure that he is the guy I saw at my church. Maybe I can ask him sometime. Excited to see my friends, I reach for the door handle. My notebook slides out of my hand and lands in front of a pair of black shoes. Looking up, I see it's the guy that almost hit me. He reaches down and picks up my notebook, handing it to me.

"Oh, thank you," I say.

"Least I could do after almost hitting you," He says with a grin.

I start to turn to go but stop. Since he's here, I might as well ask him.

"Did you go to a church a couple weeks ago?" I ask him.

He thinks for a moment and then nods. So it was him. Good thing I wasn't imagining him then. He steps in front of me and opens the door, holding it open for me. Quickly I walk inside.

"Hey, wait! What's your name?" The guy calls after me

"Katie. My name is Katie," I said.

Before he can say anything, I walk away. I lose him in the crowd as try to get to my locker. Walking through the halls, I see the wrestling team. Eli is over there. I see some other wrestlers that I know also. Owen included. He looks at me and quickly I turn around.

"Hey, I'll be right back," I hear him say.

I try to get away from him. It's not that I didn't like him anymore, I did. After that day we had when we left the funeral though, I have kind of avoided him. Not a lot, but every now and then. And this is a time I would like to avoid him.

"Katie! Hey, wait up!" He calls.

"Owen! Hi," I say, stopping and hugging him.

"I haven't seen you in a while," He says.

"Yeah. Been busy getting ready for school."

"Yeah. Me too. Wanna come over tonight? I'm having a "Back To School" party."

"Oh, um... I don't know. I might still be under punishment," I lie.

"Oh, well okay. Hope to see you there if you can."

"Yeah well, bye," I say turning away from him. Okay, I'm not really under punishment. It's just the best excuse I can think of. He thinks I have missed his last few parties but really I haven't. I went to all of them, I just avoided him. I really do miss him though. Maybe I will go tonight.

I continue walking down the crowded hallway to my locker. As I get closer to it, I see Hazel. She is already at hers, which is right next to mine.

I walk up to her and she immediately turns my direction. She must have seen me in her locker mirror. I hand her my schedule and open my locker. After I put my purse on the hook, I shut the door and look at Hazel.

"So classes? I ask her.

"You're never going to believe this. All the same," She exclaims.

"What? No way!"

I take the schedules from her hand and look. Sure enough, we do have all of our classes together. My school is a bit different. Since it's year-round, we have four classes a day. Which is awesome. It's pretty much a half-day, if you want to think of it that way.

Hazel shuts her locker and we link arms as we go to our first class. Owen passes us as we walk and Hazel lightly nudges me. I giggle a bit, pulling her towards the room. Even though I occasionally ignore him, I am still happy to see him.

On the board is a seating chart. I find my name quickly and go to sit down. My seat is all the way in the back. Hazel comes towards me and sits in the seat next to me. Good thing the chart isn't alphabetical. If it would've been, Hazel would be sitting way away from me. We are early so we could talk in private. The teacher isn’t even in here yet. I know what Hazel is going to ask.

"So Katie," She starts. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?" I ask. I know what she means. She wants to know what happened with Owen and me after we left the funeral. I sound like an awful friend. I haven't told any of the girls.

Hazel sighs. "You know."

I start to explain but the bell rings. "I'll tell you later, when we are with the twins," I say. She droops a little in her chair.

Suddenly my eyes shoot towards the door. The motorcycle guy slowly walks in. He checks the seating chart and finds where he sits. The only seat open is in front of me.

Oh great, I thought.

I open my notebook and start to doodle. I can feel someone looking at me. I look up and see the motorcycle guy in front of me. He looks down at me and grins. I smile at him as he sits down.

He turns to face me and says, "Hm. Nice to see you again Katie."

"Yeah, nice to see you too...” I stop, hoping he will say his name.

"Oh, I'm Jake."

Hazel looks at me and raises an eyebrow. "Katie. Who's your new friend?"

I feel myself blush as I introduce them. I never blush. This is weird. After they were introduced, I go back to doodling.

The final bell rings and my teacher enters. She writes her name on the board. Right as she is about to speak, the announcements come on, stopping her.

"Welcome back to Maxwell High and welcome to the new students. Let's all rise and say the pledge," Principal Renner says.

Our principal is the coolest guy ever. He's really young. He's only 26 and extremely handsome. There actually was a rumor last year about him and Maya Jones. She was a senior last year. The most popular girl actually. Rumor was they were together a few times, in his office. Whether it was true or not doesn't matter. The rumor went on for months.

When the pledge is done we all sit back down. Our teacher, Miss Smith takes attendance and goes over the rules and expectations. This is the worst part of the first day of school. Every class will pretty much be the same. Miss Smith divides us into groups to "get to know each other."

Whatever. Pretty much everyone knows each other anyway. My group was me (obviously), Hazel, Jake, and Ginger Adams.

Great. Ginger Adams.

"Well. I guess I'll start since none of you have exciting lives like me," Ginger starts to say.

"Go ahead," Jake mutters, barely lifting his head.

"I'm Ginger. I'm totally rich and... Oh I forgot. None of you would ever understand my life," She sighed. "That's tres tragique."

"Tres tragique? This is America. Speak English," Hazel sneers.

"Oh sweetie, I'm surprised you know any French. Seeing as you're probably from the hood and only know ghetto."

"That was probably the lamest black joke ever. And for your information, I know French. In fact, vous êtes une..."

"Hazel stop! She's so not worth your time," I say, stopping my friend.

Jake lifts his head up. "Chienne,” he adds, finishing what Hazel was trying to say.

Gingers jaw drops. Anger floods in her eyes and she turns around. Hazel and I look at each other, then at Jake, who has his head down again. Both of us just laugh as the bell rang.

"Well, I hope to see you again sometime soon," Jake says to me. "Bye Hazel."

Instantly I blush. Hazel says bye to Jake, then turns to me. She stares at me, a huge smile is on her face.

"Shut up," I say walking towards the door. She giggles and we walk to our lockers.

Jake's different, I think to myself. He's so cool. In a totally bad boy way. Which I find pretty interesting. He's really cute too. Oh and his eyes. Oh gosh, they are gorgeous! Bright blue! Which looks really good with his dark hair.

I am totally zoned out. There is a sudden blur in front of me. I try to dodge it but it is too late.

Whack! I run into someone.

Hitting them hard I feel like I am going to fall down. An arm grabs my waist. They steady me. My cheeks burn red with embarrassment. Slowly and nervously I look up to see who I ran into. I look into his eyes and quickly push away.

"Principal Renner. I'm so sorry," I say.

"Don't worry about it..."He starts, but pauses for me to say my name.

"Katie. Katie Holt."

He just stands there for a moment. He stares at me like he has never seen me before. Even though I know he has. Last year I was an office assistant. I've delivered stuff to him. Maybe he doesn’t recognize me. I do look different.

"Oh right. Nice to see you, Katie," Principal Renner says, walking passed me.

I cannot help but watch him walk away. I mean seriously. Most attractive principal probably ever.

"Woah, you lucky girl," Hazel teases while giggling.

"What are you talking about?" I ask putting away the book I just got from Miss Smith's class.

"Oh you know."

I roll my eyes and shut my locker. We walk together to English. There are no assigned seats posted. Our teacher, Mr. Mitchell tells us to sit wherever. We both pick seats in the back. I hope some more of our friends have this class. I haven't even seen the twins yet.

Wow. They have great timing.

I look up and see Emma and Fiona. They quickly rush in and sit by us. Emma sits in front of me and Fiona sits in front of Hazel. Turning around almost simultaneously, they say hi.

"So, I heard a rumor," Fiona says. She is like the gossip queen. Always filling us in on the "latest news." I wonder what rumor could be going around already. It's the first day school.

"Really? What did you hear?" I ask curiously.

"Well, I heard the new guy..."

"Jake?” Asks Hazel, cutting her off.

Emma and Fiona look at each other for a second and then nod.

"Yeah, that's him," Emma says.

"How did you know his name?" Fiona asks.

Hazel grins at me and says, "Just ask Katie. Evidently he's her best friend."

"Whatever, I met him today, just like you. Anyway what did you hear Fi?" I ask.

"That I'm a bad boy that got kicked out of my old school for fighting and hitting the principal's car with a bat after getting a detention." Jake says, appearing out of nowhere.

All of my friends, including me, were shocked. Jake sits in the empty desk to my left. I look at my friends. None of us know what to say. Emma pulls out her phone. She sends us all a text to our group message.

Em - WTH! Where did he come from?

H - IDK. Creepy how he just showed up!

F - Yeah! And how he knew what I was going to say!

K - News travels fast, I guess!

We stop texting when the bell rings and Mr. Mitchell comes in. Even though it was a little bit sketchy how Jake randomly came in, I was glad to see him again.

Mr. Mitchell passes out rules handouts and starts talking. He goes over everything quickly. Once done he let us talk. He said he doesn't really feel like teaching.

Hazel, Emma, and Fiona turn towards me. They sneak little glances at Jake. He had put big black headphones on and is looking out the window. Every so often he will tap his fingers. He really is attractive. After he almost killed me, I didn't really think so. Looking at him now though, he really is!

I can feel my friends looking at me. They must have noticed me looking. It's not like I was staring. Was I? Fiona smiles at me and Emma giggles a bit.

"What are you giggling about Em?" I ask.

"You."

"Yeah Katie. We all saw you staring," Hazel adds.

"Wh- whatever!" I stutter.

They all laugh. I laugh too because I know they are right. I probably have been staring

There is something different about him. He seems to not care what people think of him. He is just... I don't know, so cool. I take a peek next to me, and I quickly turns back. Jake noticed my "sneak peek "and looks at me. From the corner of my eye I can see him laugh a bit, smile and take off his headphones.

He stands up and crouches next to me. He is on his knees now and his face is at the same level mine is. I look at my friends and they are all whispering and looking at me. I feel a wave of nervousness come over me as Jake moves closer to me.

"You know, if you want to talk to me, you can. I see you looking at me." He whispers in my ear.

I feel a tingling sensation go into my body. Instantly, I blush. I've only ever felt this way once before. With Owen. It was always a great feeling. Not knowing what to say, I look down and smile. He stands up just as the bell rang.

When Jake is gone, my friends rush to me. They all stand there wide-eyed. I pick up my stuff and tell them we will talk later. Not extremely thrilled by this, they agree. We all leave the class together.