It's an agonizing few hours. However, it makes Jack forget about yesterday with his ex-friends. It's peculiar how Carson and the rest of the Black Dragons could make him forget about his ex-girlfriend woes by just practicing for a tournament that's by the end of the month. He really did not expect to make friends with anyone but now he does see a friend in both Heather and Jake...and maybe Carson. Their talk earlier changed his perception on Carson...just a little. He still didn't really like Carson since he's still a cheater, in his eyes at least.
He has more than enough time to decide on whether he should forgive Carson or not. Even if forgiving his cousin before some kid, even when his cousin broke his arm and has caused psychological harm to Jack, seems disproportionate.
Most of the students are already congratulating Jack on what he did yesterday by the end of the day, including Kai, who gave his cousin a more meaningful fist bump.
"You gonna be alright?" Heather asks as soon as Jack exits the men's locker room.
"Yeah," Jack replies. Heather smiles, and grabs Jake's arm, leaving the dojo in a hurry. Jack follows right after, his duffel bag on his shoulder.
Carson's right behind him. "Brewer, wait up."
Jack turns around, hearing Carson's voice. "I have a first name, you know."
"Brewer sounds better," Carson shrugs. He adjusts the strap on his duffel bag and leads the way. "Plus, it annoys you, so I'm doing something right."
"Joke's on you," Jack replies. "I don't care what you call me, but I still have a first name."
Carson rolls his eyes half heartedly. "Okay, Brewer." They walk to his car, with Carson taking the driver's seat and Jack semi-hesitantly taking the passenger's seat. Since Carson did drive him over to the dojo, it almost seems fitting that he would take Jack home as well.
Jack watches as Carson pulls out of the parking spot and drives all the way to Jack's house. The trip is silent again, much like the other ones, but this time, Carson breaks the little silence by turning on the radio and an 80s rock song plays. It makes the silence less awkward...for the most part. Jack looks out the window, and for a minute, Carson passes by the mall that Jack used to frequent for the dojo.
It sucks that his friends are now part of the Black Dragons and his enemies are the one dojo that made him love karate again, but things change. He wants to do this to get back at his ex-friends, but now he doesn't even want to quit. He still doesn't trust his new sensei, or his cousin, or the person offering him rides almost every night, but now doing this for petty revenge doesn't make sense anymore.
Carson makes the turn and stops right in front of Jack's house. "Your stop. Now get the hell out of my car."
"Rude," Jack scoffs. After Carson flips him off, Jack exits out of the car, chuckling lightheartedly as he walks to the front door.
When Jack goes back to school, he expected his old friends to give him death stares (except for Milton). It's not like he didn't ignore them anyway, but it's even worse when he realizes that his lockers are near his ex-friends. "Great," he whispers to himself after closing his locker shut. He also starts to realize that he shares a lot of classes with at least one of them, especially when he realizes that Kim is following him because they have history together...and science...and physical education.
All in all, it's hella awkward.
Lunch is the only other place where he can get a break from his old friends glaring at him. Since he can't sit at his usual table, he goes across the room to sit at the Black Dragons table, fist-bumping almost everyone at the table and sitting between Brody and a girl named Sabrina, who's an orange belt and is significantly younger than the rest of the group.
"The major perks of being a Black Dragon is sitting at our table, and you also get to wear this," Brody gives Jack a bomber jacket, with red, black, and white in letterman style, the Black Dragons emblem in the front and the logo in the back. Jack reluctantly takes the jacket away from the brunette, who seems enthusiastic. "What are you waiting for? Put it on!"
Jack chuckles a little, and puts the jacket on. It's the perfect fit. "I feel official."
"You should," Brody replies, clapping Jack on the back. "You're now one of us. We would've given it to you yesterday but you were a no-show."
"Sorry about that," Jack frowns.
"It's ok man," Elliott, a black haired green belt with freckles on his face, waves off. "Sometimes you need a break from this place. We sure need another break."
Brody laughs. "School just started again, dude."
"Yeah but I don't wanna see those washed-up Wasabi has-beens," Elliott snarls. "No offense, Jack."
"None taken," Jack replies, laughing at Elliot's joke.
"You know who are the lucky ones? Carson and Heather," Sabrina adds in. "They get to go to a better school with more academic activities and way more AP classes while we get to suffer with subpar common core teaching."
Jack laughs, "You sound like Milton." He had enough of that from Milton, but the difference is that Sabrina had a lot of confidence in herself, something that Milton definitely does not have.
"Whatever," Sabrina replies, pointing her hummus-covered carrot at Jack. "Listen...I value my education, ok? I'm thirteen and I'm in high school. I might as well keep up the good work while I'm here. No slacking off for me."
"Nerd," Elliott says, sticking his tongue out at Sabrina.
Sabrina sneers at Elliott. "You want me to take that tongue out your mouth and make you lick your own ass with it?"
Elliott cowers, while the rest of the table laughs. Yeah, Jack's going to enjoy his time here.
"Oh, hello Mr. Brewer," his science teacher Mrs. Hayes waves Jack over. Only one teacher so far has spoken with him because of the new girl issue, so he assumes that this will be the case this time around. He walks over there and gives Mrs. Hayes his full undivided attention. "Since we have a new student and an even amount of students, I am assigning you to work with Ms. Brownstein, which means you can no longer work with Ms. Crawford and Mr. Krupnick."
Jack suppresses a satisfied smile. "Ok, that's fine."
Mrs. Hayes raises an eyebrow, but doesn't say anything. "Alright, she's right over there and we're going to be working on the fifth lab on page sixty."
Jack nods once for confirmation. He turns around and walks to the other side of the room, where the blond haired, brown eyed new girl is located, skimming through the clearly used lab book. She looks up momentarily to stare at Jack. She stops herself, realizing that her partner is not only the same guy from her history class, but that he's really attractive. "Hi. Y-You must be my new lab partner."
"Yeah," Jack replies, with a friendly smile. "I'm Jack."
"Taylor Brownstein," the blond replies, biting her lip. "I transferred here from Swathmore."
"Oh, ok," Jack says back. He has had his arguments against Swathmore, but he isn't going to allow that to ruin his perception of the new girl. She seems nice, and she's also pretty. "Well...welcome to Seaford."
"Thanks," Taylor smiles. "Ever since I got here, no one's really been nice to me...except for the teachers."
"They're usually the nicest people in the school," Jack jokes. Taylor starts laughing, while Jack gives her a stern look, implying that he isn't lying. Taylor looks at him, and subsides her laugher.
She starts to frown a little, realizing that the school she enrolled to is really unfriendly. "Yikes."
Jack opens his lab book to the fifth lab, grimacing upon seeing the words 'metals'. "Anyways, let's get started. We're learning about metals."
Carson leaves the locker room to see everyone practicing. It's a rare sight, but with the tournament in a month, they have to practice hard in order to win this time. The tournament makes everyone fight, despite focusing on the darker belt students. Carson is strong enough to beat a good chunk of people; yesterday he beat Jack in a practice round, but then again Jack wasn't giving his 100 percent until the very last hour, when he practiced on Jake and beat the college freshman once again.
Speaking of Jack, he sees the black belt walk in, with the recognizable Black Dragon brand bomber jacket (he thought Ty ran out of those!) which makes him look even more relaxed than his usual persona. "I see you got the official Black Dragons letterman jacket," Carson says as soon as he reaches Jack.
"Oh, this ol' thing?" Jack queries, and gestures to his torso. "I gotta admit, this is so much better than the Wasabi merchandise...or lack thereof."
Carson snorts. "You know full well that Rudy couldn't afford us jackets even if he tried. His first gi's were a t-shirt and white sweatpants...with belts colored with cheap ass marker. I would know; it was me and Eddie who had to color them after practice!"
Jack starts laughing. "Oh man, that's hilarious."
"But nothing could top the time when he tried to pass off a large branch that he got from his tree as a bow staff," Carson replies, doubling over in laughter. Jack also couldn't keep his composure, and starts laughing. "Yeah, I may hate the guy, but he was too animated."
"Same,"Jack agrees. Their laughing subsides, until they are just looking at each other. "I'm gonna go get ready," Jack announces, and disappears inside the locker room.
Carson hears a snort behind him. "Seems like you two are getting acquainted really fast."
"Yeah...seems like we aren't so different," Carson replies.
Kai raises both eyebrows in curiosity. "You still hate him, right?"
Carson isn't so sure if he hates Jack anymore. There's no real reason to. They are going to be in the same dojo, and Jack only exposed him of being a cheater (which he was) so...is there a reason to hate Jack anymore? He hasn't even realized that he hasn't answered the question, or tear his eyes away from the pathway to the locker room until Kai waves a hand in his face. "What?" he hisses, glaring at Kai.
"Jeez, I didn't know you getting a new friend will make you ignore my questions," Kai frowns. "I'm gonna go train someone."
Carson groans. "He isn't my new friend."
"Ok dude, keep telling yourself that," Kai replies, with his hands up in defeat.
Carson sighs. Of course he would expect something dramatic from Kai. Both him and his cousin are dramatic. It must be a Brewer thing.. "I'm not acting weird...am I?" he asks himself.
"Yes you are," Jack replies jokingly. "Then again, you're always weird so it doesn't count."
Carson sneers. "Fuck you."
"Tempting, but no," Jack teases, with a smirk that Carson couldn't figure out. "Everyone else is partnered up, so you wanna stretch?"
Carson, a little thrown off by the comment, nods a little. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever."
When Carson leaves the locker room at the end of the day, he sees Jack talking with both Jake and Heather. He overhears their conversation, particularly because Heather is enthusiastically talking about some party. "We're gonna have a welcome back party for Jake on Friday. You should totally come."
"I agree," Jake shrugs. "I'm gonna invite almost everyone here, including you."
"Although it would be weird inviting Sabrina," Heather comments. "I like her, but she's young."
"So are you," Jake replies. He throws his arm around Heather's shoulders, and rubs his knuckles on her head with his free hand.
"Fuck, Jason, can you stop?" Heather complains. Carson and Jack start laughing simultaneously, watching as Heather grows even more annoyed with Jake messing up her sweaty hair. "Alright! Alright! Uncle!"
"I thought you'd never surrender." Jake lets go of Heather. She lets out a grunt, and tries to fix her hair. "Anyways. I'm gonna send out a mass text so that everyone knows where it is and if you wanna come, you can come."
"We'll see," Jack says, vaguely.
"You're coming, Brewer," Jake says back, pointing at him. "I'll see y'all tomorrow." He grabs his duffel bag and throws his arm around Heather's shoulder again before leaving the dojo.
Jack finally looks next to him, where Carson is practically yawning. "Don't fall asleep now. You gotta take me home first."
"Ha ha," Carson rolls his eyes. "Come on." Carson leaves the dojo, with Jack following right behind him.
