Disclaimer: I own the people you've never heard of before. Also, I've never been to the East Coast before, so if what I write isn't exactly correct, my bad.
They say that the first week of school is always the hardest. "Yeah right," Tyler mumbled to himself. "It only gets worse from here."
Orientation week had almost gone by too slowly for him. The endless activities that the school planned for the boys were attended mostly by Caleb and him. Reid and Pogue came to some of them, but they never skipped out on the same activity. That was considerate of them. Today was Pogue's turn to skip. He wanted to talk to Kate, so he stayed up the previous night talking on the phone.
The numerous school tours and meetings with teachers were pointless to Tyler, but he went anyway. And it was a pain for him to have to wake up at eight every morning for the activities. Too bad he wasn't as excited about learning as every other freshman in the school.
So he sat in his class with his head in his hands and an empty seat separating him and Reid.
Their professor didn't look much older than they did. And he walked around with a bounce in his step that irritated Tyler because he would never be that happy that early in the morning. "Good morning, everyone," their professor said in a very chipper voice. "This is your Humanities class."
Tyler softly sighed. "It's going to be a long hour."
Reid leaned over the chair separating him and Tyler and swatted him on the arm. "Check this out," he whispered.
"No," Tyler said.
"Just watch."
"Not on the first day, Reid."
"Then when, baby boy. Come on, Captain Chipper is too happy to be human. This is just going to give at least me some entertainment."
"What are you going to? Drop a banana peel from the sky?"
"What am I in the third grade?"
"Just wait at least until…"
Tyler continued to talk, but Reid paid him no attention. Tyler realized that when he looked over and saw that his eyes were black. Luckily for the both of them, they were in the back corner of the classroom and all of the other thirty or so students were more concerned with their professor than anyone else.
Reid slowly exhaled as he prepared himself for what he was going to do. He quickly sucked in a breath and his eyes changed back to their normal color as he saw the door open and two people walk in. "No way," Tyler said.
The professor stopped his talk and looked at the two women standing in the doorway. "And you two are?" he asked.
"Kaize Donovan."
"Ariana Price. But please call me Remy."
"We were given the wrong classroom. They told us to come here."
"Well, glad to have you here," their professor said. "My name is Jeff. Miss Price, can you take the seat in the front here, and Miss Donovan, can you take the seat next to Mr…"
"Garwin," Reid said as Jeff pointed to him. "Reid Garwin."
"Mr. Garwin."
Remy took the seat in the front of the class and Kaize walked to the back. She took off her bag and sat herself down between the two guys. She soon as she got her self settled, Tyler leaned over and smiled. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you were following me," Tyler whispered.
"Ha, keep wishing, pretty boy."
"Actually, it's Tyler. But I'll let that slide for now."
"I couldn't forget your name even if I tried. Concussion or not."
"All right, now since everyone is here," Jeff said. "So if most of you guys can tell right now, you are in this class with your roommate. This is so that you guys can help each other and get to know each other better."
"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you and Reid are rooming together," Kaize asked. Tyler nodded. "Not really into the whole making a new friend idea?"
"I could say the same thing about you. You and Remy?"
"I'm from the other side of the country. I need my best friend with me. That doesn't mean that I'm not up for making new friends. We should be trying to listen to what the professor has to say."
The two of them turned to their professor and listened to him talk. With less than ten minutes left in the class, Jeff turned to the students. "So, Mr. Garwin, since yours is the only name that I can remember at the moment, tell the class about yourself," Jeff said.
"I really don't want to," Reid replied.
"Oh, come on," his professor said encouragingly. "Don't be shy. Everyone is going to have to do it."
"No, really."
Remy turned around in her seat to face him "What? Are you too scared to talk in front of a big crowd?" Remy challenged. "Or you just don't want to have to get to know about all of these people around you."
Reid glared at her. "My name is Reid Garwin," he started. "I'm from Ipswich. I went to Spenser Academy. I don't have any siblings. I don't know what I want to be. I don't enjoy coming to school. I'm just here because as long as I'm doing something with my life, my mom doesn't cut me off." Reid's eyes never left Remy's as he spoke.
His little spiel threw everyone else in the classroom into an awkward silence. "Well," Jeff said. "Now you get to choose anyone in this room that you would like to get to know better."
Reid smiled at the opportunity. He would have easily chosen Remy because of the challenging way that she spoke to him, but he had other plans. "This person on the other side of Miss… Donovan is it?" Reid said, obviously playing dumb.
"No way. Not cool, Reid," Tyler hissed.
"What is your name, Mr…"
"Sims. Tyler Sims. And me and Reid are roommates, so he should choose someone else."
"Do you not want to know you're roommate, Tyler?"
"No, it's not that. It's just that I know him too well."
"What if he wants to know you better?"
"I highly doubt that."
"Just tell the class about yourself," Kaize said. Tyler instantly blushed forgetting who was sitting next to him. And for Reid, that was more entertaining that what he was going to do to the professor. Lucky for Tyler, Kaize didn't notice his cheeks turn a little pink. "For our sake, not his."
"My little spiel is going to be just like Reid's. Except I get along with my parents. And I'm here because I want to go into something involving science. I am also an only child and I'm from Ipswich. I graduated from the same school as Reid. And I'm still seventeen for three more weeks."
"See, that was good," Jeff said. "Now you get to chose someone else. Whoever it is will be the last person to go today and we'll continue this tomorrow."
"Miss Donovan," Tyler said.
"What?" she asked completely surprised. "I'm not prepared for this."
"It's not a homework assignment," Tyler replied. "Just tell the class about yourself," he said repeating what she had said to him only a few minutes ago.
"I don't know what to say. I don't want to sound generic and say the same things everyone else is saying. But I guess I have to right?"
"Just start off with where you are from," Jeff said.
"My name is Kaize Donovan. It's pronounced like rise, but with a 'K'. I am from San Francisco. But I was born in Hawaii. I honestly don't remember too much about it. I was two when I moved away. I have four brothers. I'm not really sure what I want to be yet, just trying anything and everything. And I chose this school because they gave me a scholarship and my family."
"But I thought you were from California?" Tyler asked.
"So that means I can't have family in other parts of the country?"
"That's not what I meant."
"I know, I was joking. Well, that is all that I have to say."
"Thank you, Miss Donovan," Jeff said. "Well, you are the last person for today. Tomorrow you can choose the next person to go. That's all that I have for today. I'll see you tomorrow."
The students gathered their things and headed toward the door. Some paused to talk to the professor, others just tried to get out of the classroom as fast as they could. Reid and Tyler were a part of the latter.
They got out of the classroom in record time and walked back toward the dorm. "Man, that class is going to be hell," Reid said.
Reid continued walking and waited for a response from Tyler. When he got none, he finally decided to look and saw that Tyler wasn't anywhere near him. He looked back and saw him standing outside of the classroom. Reid shook his head and walked to the dorm alone.
Tyler stood outside of his Humanities class and waited. Kaize and Remy exited and he strolled toward them. "I'm going to head back to the room first before I go to my meeting, okay?" Kaize said.
"Sure. But can you take back my book since you're heading there anyway?"
Kaize held out her hand and Remy put her notebook in it. Remy smiled in gratitude and walked in the opposite direction. She looked up and saw Tyler standing next to him. "So now who's following who?" Kaize said.
"You aren't mad that I called on you, are you?" Tyler asked.
"No, of course not. Why would I be mad? I was more surprised than anything."
"So you're not mad."
"No. Should I be?"
"Well, the thing is that if you were," he paused, unsure if he was brave enough to do what he was planning on doing. "I was going to ask you out and I'd buy you lunch or something so that I could make it up to you."
"I guess that it's a good thing that I'm not mad then."
"What does that mean?" Tyler asked. "You don't want to go out with me?"
"I don't even know you. And therefore I don't like the fact that a stranger is spending money on me."
"What about everything I said in class?"
"That is generic information," Kaize stated. "Everyone in the class knows all of that. I know as much about you as I do Reid. I need to know you on a personal level."
"Then let me take you out so that can happen."
"Persistent. But not this week," Kaize said.
"Is that a nice way of saying never? Give me false hope and never think of me again?" Tyler said defeated.
"No. I really mean not this week. I'm really busy. I'm saying rain check. You seem like a person that I'd like to get to know better. But I have to go to an advisor meeting."
"You should get going. I don't want you to be late."
Kaize nodded and ran off into the dorm building. Tyler was about to follow her in when he saw Reid standing to the side of the building pulling out a cigarette. Tyler walked over to him and slapped the cigarette and pack out of his hands. "What the hell are you doing?" Reid yelled.
"Your lungs will thank me later."
"But they're pissed at you now." He bent down to pick them up, but Tyler got to them first. He walked over to a trashcan and threw them away. "So did you ask her out?" Reid asked following him.
"No. I don't even know her," he said opening the door to their dorm building.
Reid walked in as Tyler held the door open for him. "So she rejected you."
"No. I didn't ask her."
"That's a lie."
"Okay so I did ask her. But I didn't get shut down. I got a rain check."
"And you believe her?"
"She's nice. I don't think she'd hang me out to dry."
"But you said you didn't know her."
"I don't."
"Whatever you say, baby boy. Just don't fall for her too quickly."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You meet a girl, you start to like her. Then she breaks your heart and Reid, that's me, has to get you drunk to piece your heart back together. And I don't want to have to do it in the first week of college. Or second. Actually before you turn eighteen."
Tyler thought of a smart-ass remark, but he knew that everything that Reid had said was true. "I promise that I won't piss off anyone bad enough to break my heart until after my birthday," Tyler replied.
"That's what I like to hear. Now let's head up, Caleb and Pogue want to check out the pool. I told them that we'd go too."
Reid ran up the stairs to get up to their third story dorm, while Tyler walked after him. When he got upstairs, he saw Pogue and Caleb waiting outside their door. "What took you guys so long?" Pogue asked.
"Ask him," Reid said pointing back to Tyler.
"What did you do?"
"Guess who's in our Humanities class," Reid said as he unlocked their dorm room.
"Is it Kaize?" Caleb asked.
"Ding," Reid said. "And that's not it."
"You asked her out, didn't you?"
"Let me grab my stuff, then we can head down to the pool."
Caleb and Pogue smiled. They knew that because he was switching the subject he was putting a wall up. "Ouch," Caleb whispered.
Tyler and Reid walked out of their room with their bags and headed toward the staircase. Tyler took the lead while the other three trailed back. "So what is the whole story?" Pogue whispered to Reid.
"Don't even!" Tyler yelled.
Reid bit his lip to stop from revealing too much, but Pogue and Caleb laughed because they knew that eventually he would tell them.
All right, here is chapter two. I don't really have that much to say about it. I just wanted to say again that I've never been to the East Coast, so I don't know if this is what Boston University really does. But just go with me and my imagination. Thanks to all those who reviewed the first chapter. It was a real confidence booster. Please review. Thanks. Lil-Rock
