Hi Guys and welcome to the first chapter of my new story, called Love, James! So, as I've mentioned a few times, this is going to be a Love, Simon-esc story focusing around James so the entire story will be from his POV.
I have to admit that when I started to write this story, I didn't have a very clear outline of what was going to happen so if the first few chapters are a bit all over the place then that is why. Now, however, I have a plan which I am happy with so it should be all cushty.
Another think that I should mention is that I can't write email addresses in the story. That shouldn't be too much of an issue, as the emails themselves are pretty clear but I just wanted to mention that.
That's enough from me for now, so I would love to hear what you all think of it! Let's crack on!
The problem with high school is that it's a social enigma, completely opposite to how the real world actually works. In the world at large, the intelligent are praised and often have some of the highest paying and rewarding jobs. In high school however, the intellectuals are instead ridiculed, and to be honest, bullied by what the high school kids view as the 'populars'. You know, the ones who don't do the work in class or at home, and mostly end up failing their courses. Yeah, those.
And I think it's safe to say that the currency within high schools is gossip. Whether it be about your friends, or even enemies everyone loves a bit of gossip. And of course, as the newest recipient of the gossip, you have one job to fulfil. Pass the gossip along. Spread the gossip like it's the plague, and most importantly, don't think about the life or lives that you are ruining by spreading said gossip.
Now, I don't know about you Comit, but I for one try to avoid this at all costs. I don't need my secret getting out there, and I can imagine you feel the same.
Lost.
At least, this was the email I sent this morning, right before I started to drive to school. And by my luck, it seemed Comit had responded by the time I got here.
To:lostinthemoment
From: comitinthestars
Subject: Re: High School Society
Lost
While I love hearing about your analysis of high school, I think it's safe to say I was only expecting an overview of what you expect to happen today. For example, I know that my lessons are gonna suck.
Anyway, I'm glad to see that we share a similar view on high school, even though it is evident that we both participate in the gossip that takes place. I can only hope that one of us does not get caught up in the middle of it.
Comit.
I chuckled to myself as I read the email. I loved how witty Comit is, always coming up with something to say in each situation. I stared at the email, considering if I had enough time to respond before school started, but that was thrown out of the window when my car door swung open. I panicked, and quickly locked my phone, hoping whoever yanked my car door open hadn't caught a glimpse at the email. When I finally looked over, I saw the brunet grinning, before climbing into the seat next to me.
"Holy shit Dak, you scared the shit out of me" I said, placing my hand over my heart to emphasis my point.
"You said shit twice" Dak replied, with a grin on his face.
"You bet I did" I replied, before starting to chuckle slightly.
"So, are you heading in? I saw you pull up like five minutes ago and you know how Camille likes to see us before lessons" Dak asked, causing me to nod.
"I was planning to before you scared me to death" I replied, before clocking on to what he had said. "Wait, have you just been watching me for 5 minutes?" I questioned, causing him to grow bright red.
"I wouldn't say I was watching you. More, waiting until you got out so I could walk with you" he replied, causing me to chuckle.
"Creep" I said, with a playful shove, causing him to chuckle before the two of us grabbed our stuff and made our way into the school. Like usual, the corridors were bustling with people, some who were just stood by their lockers, getting ready for the day, while others were just walking with their friends, talking about the latest gossip.
Apparently, Josie Rogers was caught giving Steve Douglas a blow-job in the boy's locker rooms a couple days ago. The news had spread like wild fire around the school, hence the topic of my email to Comit, one that he thankfully seemed to agree with. When we finally arrived in the cafeteria, most of the group was already seated, yet making awkward small talk. It was safe to say that our group was a very interest mess of people.
You had Dak, Camille and I as the main 'founders' of the group so to speak. The three of us had been friends since year 7, where we all sat on the same table in our form room. The three of us clicked instantly, and our friendship was legendary. Well, to us at least. Aside from us, there was Dak's football friends, Jett and Kendall. They were nice enough, and definitely hot, not that I told anyone, but didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the jocks, hence their presence. Then we had a mathlete at the table, Logan, who just seemed to sort of appear one day. No one can really remember why he joined us (it was probably Camille who invited them to sit with us) but since then, he always came and sat with us. The latest arrival to the table was Lucy or 'the new girl' as most people knew her as. She joined our school a few months back and I quickly became friends with her when we sat with each other in history, one of my optionals. Since then, she's also joined us causing a little tension between the group. Well, mostly tension between Camille and her, but Camille would never let on why. It's not like they were outright bitchy to one another, but Camille would sometimes make a few sarcastic remarks when Lucy said something. Like I said, not outright bitchy but weird.
I was snapped out of my thought process when I heard Camille speak as I sat down. "There you guys are! We've been waiting for you" she said, causing me to raise an eyebrow at her.
"What for?" I asked, curious to see why our presence was so important.
"I was wondering if we're going to the game this Friday!" She said, causing me to roll my eyes at her. The action caused me to get slapped on the arm but I persisted anyway.
"Camille, we always go to the games. Just like we always go Logan academic stuff, and how everyone comes to see our plays" I replied with a chuckle as a pout formed on her face.
"Well, I was just checking" she huffed, causing the rest of the table to join in. "So, what took you so long anyway?" she continued, and before I could reply Dak spoke up.
"James was just chilling in his car" he said, causing me to raise an eyebrow at him.
"Like I said earlier, creep" I replied with a playful tone causing everyone to laugh once again. Before long, the bell went and everyone began to scurry to their lessons. I quick glance at my timetable, I saw that I had history with Lucy, causing a small smile to grow on my face. I turned to see her making her way over to me and nodded my head at her when she approached.
"Morning" she said, as the two of us made our way to the lesson.
"Morning, you get the homework done?" I asked, causing her to huff out in annoyance.
"Only just. I was up until 1 am getting it finished" she replied, moving a piece of hair out of her face. "I mean, who cares about how Elizabeth quelled the rebellion in England, it was like 400 years ago and in a different country!"
"I found it interesting" I replied with a shrug.
"Course you would, cause you're a nerd" she teased before the two of us finally reached the classroom. As soon as I walked in, I got an awkward feeling in my gut, and I glanced around to see that Beau was staring at me. I made eye contact with him, but that didn't seem to deter him, with him putting more effort into the stare instead.
I shifted uncomfortably as I looked away and began my walk over to my desk, next to Lucy. I couldn't focus on the lesson after that, as for the whole thing, I felt like he was staring at me. When I would try to glance back at him, he'd always be looking forward at the teacher, or down at the desk yet when I looked away, the feeling returned. I was definitely on edge, mostly wondering why the jock was staring at me and whether it was because I had done something I didn't mean too.
The lesson passed relatively slowly, with me playing with the sleeves on my shirt or wiping my nose, two of my nervous ticks, before the bell finally went. I breathed out a sigh of relief, packing my stuff away and checking my timetable to see that I had a free next. Due to it still being quite early within the year, I wasn't sure who I shared these periods with, so I headed for the library knowing I would probably get the most work done there.
As I walked in, I saw that the large room was relatively empty. There were a few students scattered about, sitting in their friendship groups, as well as a few students like myself, with no one else to sit with. I made my way over to one of the more secluded areas of the library and sat down at the table, before pulling out my notepad and my textbook for geography. As soon as I looked up, I saw Beau stood at the other end of the table, and I jumped slightly at his sudden presence.
"James" The jock said, as he pulled a chair out from the table and made himself comfortable.
"Beau" I said, as I raised an eyebrow at him quizzically. "Any reason you're sat there?" I continued, causing him to chuckle.
"Actually there is" he replied, with a rather…charming smile. Except it wasn't a nice charming, but more of a weird repulsive charming. It was difficult to explain. I shook my head, getting rid of the thought as he continued. "So, the other day I logged onto to one of the computers after you, and when I launched Gmail, it seemed to load your email instead of mine" he began, and my face paled at what I knew he was going to say next. "And I may have accidentally read some of the emails."
"How can you accidentally read my emails!?" I asked, outraged at both myself and the boy in front of me. With myself, it was due to the fact that I was stupid enough to not log out properly, and I was outraged with him…well because it's Beau and he READ MY EMAILS! I exhaled through gritted teeth as he spoke next.
"Would it interest you to know that my brother is gay?" he asked, causing me to stare back at him, no sign of emotion on my face.
"No" I replied with simply, showing how disinterested I was. An air of awkwardness passed over the table, leaving us in silence for a few minutes before he spoke up again.
"Anyway, I was thinking maybe we could…you know help each other out" he began, that smug look returning on his face.
"And what could I possibly want from you" I replied sarcastically, causing him to chuckle, kind of sadistically.
"Well, I won't show anyone the emails, if you… help me out with Lucy" he replied, causing my eyes to widen significantly. I slammed my fist down onto the table, causing a loud bang as well as a few heads to swivel towards our direction. They stared for a few seconds before turning away, continuing whatever conversations they were having.
"You printed them?" I asked, gritting my teeth once again.
"Well, screenshotted them, but you're missing the bigger picture" he replied, and I felt like I wanted to rip my hair out.
"Missing the bigger picture? You screenshotted my emails!" I snapped back, causing him to chuckle which only infuriated me more.
"Like I said, I wont show anyone if you just mention to Lucy what a great guy I am, and you know, help me out."
"Great guy? You're blackmailing me!"
"Think of it more as an…arrange. You help me, I help you" he replied with a shrug, before finally pulling himself up from the desk. "Think about it" he said, beaming me that smug smile once more, before he finally walked away, leaving me to seethe in anger. That jackass had seriously put a dampener on the rest of my day, hell who knows, even the rest of my week or my entire life. I sighed once again, running my hands through my hair as I considered what he said.
'I'm gonna freaking have do it! I mean, I'm not ready to come out yet. But more important, I'll have to do it to protect Comit. The poor guy doesn't have a clue about any of this, and if those emails get leaked, it'll probably scare him off and he'd never speak to me again'
It seems I was so consumed by my thoughts that I hadn't noticed that two people have joined my table. Well, not until someone was waving their hand in front of my face.
"James" I heard a voice say, and when I looked up, I saw Dak and Kendall had joined me both chuckling to each other.
"Geez dude, you were out of it" Dak said, as he pulled his stuff out of his back.
"Yeah, we were easily calling your name for 5 minutes" Kendall continued, clearly over exaggerating the amount of time that had passed. Right?
"Sorry guys, I just got lost in thought" I replied, giving the two of them a small smile. Kendall was quick to return the smile, before awkwardly averting his eyes away as he pulled some stuff out of his bag.
"So I'm guessing we all share this free? That's pretty cool right!" Dak said, breaking the awkward silence that had filled the table.
"Yeah, that's cool" I replied, trying not to think about Beau had said. The conversation on the table continued to the light as the three of us started our work. I was trying to figure out how heat moved around the earth for my geography lesson later, while the two of them seemed to be working on some maths homework or something.
The atmosphere on the table was nice, the only thing ruining it being the mental image of Beau's creepily charming smile.
It was safe to say that by the end of the day, I was ready to go home and wallow in self-pity, but before that could occur, we had rehearsals for our musical, which was Annie. I was cast the main male lead of the film, Mr Stacks, meaning that I couldn't just skip rehearsals. I walked in to see that most people had already arrived and were just lounging about on the stage.
I made my way over to Camille and Lucy, who were currently sat scrolling through their phone. They looked up as I sat next to them and Camille instantly knew something was up.
"What's wrong?" she asked, putting her phone in her pocket as she turned to face me.
"Nothing" I said back, trying my best to act like it was nothing. "Just been a long day" I replied, rubbing my forehead in an attempt to emphasis my stress. She looked at me for a moment, as if she was considering if I was lying to her, which I clearly was, before shrugging.
"Hopefully rehearsals will make you feel better. I love how much you love to be on stage Daddy" she replied with a laugh, causing me to cringe slightly. Camille was cast to play Annie in the play, and as the script said, she had to refer to me as Mr Stacks, which I was perfectly fine with. Camille however, decided it would be hilarious to make me uncomfortable by referring to me as Daddy, much like in the original Annie, taking the situation to a whole new level of weird. Before I could say anything, Miss Wainwright began to talk, rounding everyone up as she did so.
"Ok, we're going to start with The City Yours since we finished with Little Girls yesterday. The rest of you that aren't in that scene-" which was basically everyone but Camille and I "-I want you to continue to run lines" she finished, causing everyone to nod. Of course, one hand shot up, and everyone snickered when we saw it was Jo.
"What shall we do if we've already memorised everything?" she asked, making sure to let everyone know that she had. That's what Jo was like. Don't get me wrong, she was a sweet girl if not slightly self-centred. Miss Wainwright just wiped her forehead before replying.
"Run lines with someone who hasn't" she replied, causing everyone to chuckle once again. Before long, Camille and I were stood on the stage, singing our hearts out, as the set changed behind us.
And for that moment, I seemed to forget that I was being blackmailed.
So there we have it, the first chapter! I introduced Comit right at the beginning, who is James' pen pal so to speak and emails from him should occur about every two chapters or so. I would also just like to say that there is a reason why the name is spelt Comit, instead of Comet, and you will find what that is later on! I also had Beau be the 'bad guy' in this story, as I felt like I was using Jett quite a lot. Plus, I always forget that Beau exists, so it was nice to include him.
And finally, the play that James is doing is the 2014 Annie, because I love that movie so much, and I think all the songs in it are amazing! Plus it's kinda one of the only musicals I have watched. Well, apart from Disney Musicals but it didn't want them to perform High School Musical. To quote Simon 'Not that gay'
Anyway, I just want to say a massive thank you once again for all the support on Rekindled, as it was truly amazing and it's so sad to think that that story is actually over. Another thank you as well to Guest, Winterschild11, RainbowDiamonds and EpicallyObsessed, who seemed to love the Alternate Ending, which I am so happy about! Like you said, it was nice to see them both achieve their goals, and of course James would wait for 7 years just to see Kendall again. True Love has no time frame (or some cheesy shit like that haha) But I am truly grateful that you all enjoyed it so much, and left so many reviews telling me what you thought about each chapter, it was so nice to hear!
I will see you all on Monday for the next chapter of Class Vs Character, but until then
TTFN :D
