Chapter Four
School began on a Monday; a cold and rainy Monday that seemed to be expressly designed to throw in Jesse's face that the blissful summer was over with and that it was time to get back to work – or get back to pretending to work at least, in Jesse's case.
He looked over his schedule, which had ended up crumbled in a ball next to his alarm clock at one point or another, and tried to keep track of the classes. There was Chemistry, first thing in the morning – well, that was a class he probably wouldn't see too much of; 7AM was seriously too early a time to wake up on any kind of a consistent basis.
After Chemistry was Homeroom – maybe he'd bother to roll in for that; after all, Homeroom was what mattered because if you got there in time for Homeroom, you were considered to be "there" for the day. As Jesse pulled off the shirt he'd slept in and pulled on another, he considered how stupid it was to set up the schedule that way – whoever taught the first class would probably have way fewer students than any other class, unless it was a porn-watching class or something.
After Homeroom would be English, followed by Gym and then, blissfully, lunch; afterwards he only had History and shop class. He'd tried to sign up for as many Vo-Tech classes this year as he could, but he had taken a number of them the previous years and he had gotten stuck taking a lot of the classes required to graduate in his senior year.
Shrugging off thoughts of how long the day was promising to be, Jesse changed the rest of his clothes and pulled open his door, walking into the hall and hearing his aunt walking in the kitchen below.
He walked downstairs, running a lazy hand through his hair to stop it from all sticking up, though it seemed pretty futile to do so.
"Good morning, Jesse," Aunt Jenny called, stepping out to the living room to meet him.
"Good morning," he mumbled.
"Breakfast?"
"Nah, I gotta get going…" He looked up at the clock. "Or else I'll be late already."
"Well, at least take a Poptart with you," his aunt suggested. "When's your lunch?"
"Around eleven, but it's always gross. So, yeah, I guess I'll take a Poptart." Jesse smiled and made his way into the kitchen, grabbing a foil packet and waving it. "I won't starve."
"Always glad to hear that," she teased back, leaning in to kiss his forehead. "Now, go – drive safe, okay? I'm always worried about you with that flashy red car of yours."
"I promise I will," he replied, grinning. "No drag-racing."
"There better be no drag racing."
When Jesse eventually climbed into his car, he still had fifteen minutes before class started, which was good – J.P. Wynne was only a five minute drive from his aunt's house. At least he hadn't had to change schools – that would have sucked – or, even worse, do what a good number of his classmates had done, lie about their current address in order to stay in one school or change to another, which tended to follow with school officials coming in and quite unceremoniously kicking people out of school.
Jesse figured he was going to get kicked out of school soon enough, anyway.
As he turned the corner, he caught a flash of red and blue out of the corner of his eye and turned his head.
Deanna Escobar was walking down the sidewalk, accompanied by an Asian girl with black curly hair, whose name Jesse didn't know. He considered just driving on by – hell, why not, it's not as if I know either of them all that well – but then remembered how much it blew walking in to school when other people had cars, and pulled up next to them.
"Hey. Get in."
He reached around and unlocked the door to his backseat, swinging it open. The Asian girl exchanged looks with Deanna, with an expression of some muted worry, before Deanna grinned.
"It's just my neighbor, Jesse," she replied, grabbing the door and hopping in. "You coming, Maya?"
"Sure… Why not?" She climbed in next to Deanna and slammed the door.
"Sorry," Jesse apologized as he got back on the road, "Didn't mean to seem like, a total creepy old man, yo."
"You want a ride, little girl?" Deanna teased. "At least offer us candy next time, yeesh."
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be sure to bring some lollipops next time," Jesse retorted. "What's your first class?"
"Chemistry," Deanna and Maya replied at the same time.
"Yeah? Me too." Jesse looked into his mirror and smirked. "All these years not having a class together and now… We've got one, right? Why the hell are we even in the same class?"
"Miss Simpson's on sabbatical," Maya piped up. "So there's just one class with Mr. White. They added a second class in the afternoon but they put all the Honors and Vo-Tech kids in the morning one since a lot of us leave early."
"Where are you leaving early to go?" Jesse inquired as he turned another corner.
"I'm in a Health Professions program over at the hospital," she replied.
"Wow… That's cool," Jesse said, "Yeah, I have Vo-Tech. Shop."
"I kind of wanted to sign up for shop," Deanna piped up, and Maya gave her a look. "What?"
"I don't want to picture you with anything sharp. It's just scary."
At that, Jesse quickly pulled into the parking lot and, nearly clipping a nearby car, pulled into a parking space.
The three unlocked their doors and walked in through the front entrance.
"Thanks, Jesse," Deanna said, "I appreciate the ride."
"Yeah, anytime… You just live next door, right? So… Why not?"
"Come on," Maya spoke up, looking at her watch, "We're gonna be late." They sped up (well, Deanna and Maya sped up, Jesse sauntered at a slightly less leisurely pace) and turned into Mr. White's classroom.
To their surprise, other students had taken up the majority of the seats already, with the exception of a set of one seat in the second to last row and two seats in the last row.
Jesse quickly chose one of the last row seats, while Maya grabbed a chair in between two girls, one with white-blonde hair and pretty blue eyes and the other a dirty-blonde with gray eyes and glasses. Deanna, somewhat begrudgingly, took the seat on the other side of Jesse.
A few moments later, the cacophony in the classroom died down (somewhat) as Mr. White entered the room – Jesse vaguely recognized him from seeing him around school, he looked fairly distinctive, if extremely square, with a moustache and brown hair styled into a haircut that Jesse thought should have been outlawed sometime in the 80's.
"Hello, everyone. Welcome to Chemistry. Let's start by calling roll."