Thanks for the reviews, here's chapter three :)
Stanley
"So let me get this straight. You can't come to lunch because you're going to math tutoring?" John asks me in disbelief. I sigh and nod angrily. Right now, Joseph, John, and I are walking up the hall. They get to go to the cafeteria, I get to go to the library.
"I don't really have a choice." I mutter, "It's either get my grades up, or get kicked off the team." I explain. I've only been on the hockey team for a week, and already my spot is being threatened because of my grades.
"That doesn't really seem fair. I mean, your grades can't be that bad yet. Right?" Jospeh pipes up from behind me. I open my mouth to respond, but I can't really defend myself.
"Well..." I start.
"He got sixteen percent on his first math test." John interrupts. I shoot him a glare as Joseph laughs.
"Okay, yeah that's pretty terrible." He admits.
"I can get my grade up on my own, if coach would give me time." I mutter angrily.
"No offence, but I think you might need a little help." John says. I huff turning to him, only to see him smirking at me.
"I don't-"
"Look, I think it's a good thing that your taking these steps." John teases, patting my shoulder.
"You know what they say; the first step to getting help is admitting you have a problem." Joseph joins in. Him and John burst out laughing and I roll my eyes. They're enjoying this way too much.
"You're right I do have a problem. You guys." I retort and I can tell they're stifling more laughter. I stop at my locker to get my math, expecting them to keep walking. Of course, they don't.
"That was hurtful." Joseph says, not even trying to hide the amused smirk on his face.
"Whatever." I grumble, giving up. I grab my math book and slam the locker shut, quickly stalking away so they get lost in the crowd.
I make my way through the crowd to the library, outside the door is a small white board with "MATH TUTORING AT LUNCH" scrawled across it in crappy bubble letters. I sigh, closing my eyes and feeling stupid for having to do this. I take a look around, self-consciously checking for anyone in the hockey team to be walking past. If they see me I'll never hear the end of it. I take a step in.
Inside looks just as bad as the outside, there are about five small, round tables in the room, one person sitting at each. I actually feel myself drop to a new level of hatred for the subject. I'm the only one here for tutoring. I look around, all of the math geeks have their books open ready to teach. All except for one. She's a girl, with medium length brown hair tied in a ponytail, wearing a hoodie and jeans. She's actually beautiful, in a simple way. She definitely doesn't look like she belongs here and for some reason, I feel like I recognize her. Unlike everyone else, she doesn't have her math taken out and instead, sits there doing something on her phone. For a second, I wonder if she's actually here to teach math, but then, I see her books sitting on the table in a messy pile. I almost laugh. She doesn't want to be here either. Well, what's the point of suffering if I'm not going to drag anyone down with me?
I walk over to the table, and only when I lay my books down does she look up from her phone, "Hey, I'm here for math tutoring." I almost spit out. I pull out a seat and plop down into it heavily. She doesn't seem to be turned off by my attitude, which is fortunate because that would make it a long lunch for both of us.
"Okay, cool." She says, sitting up in her chair, "What do you need help with?" She looks at me expectantly as I struggle to form a response. I don't even know what unit we're doing, much less what sections I need to focus on.
"Um, everything?" I say. She looks a little shocked, I guess she was only expecting to help with a question or two, she didn't know she was going to have to recap the entire unit.
"Right." She says, biting her lip. She looks at her books like she doesn't know what to do with them, "Uh... well I'm Riley." She says, probably thinking that an introduction would be a good place to start.
"Stanley." I answer, and her eyebrows pull together. She looks up at me with a hint of recognition.
"Oh, you're in my math. And you're the guy I pulled Maren off of in the hockey rink." She says.
"That was you? The goalie?" I ask and she nods.
"Sorry for her, again. She kind of has a quick temper." She apologizes. Immediately I shake my head, wanting Riley to like me for some reason.
"It's really okay." I assure her, "It was my fault anyway." What am I saying?
"I'm sure it wasn't all your fault." She says, "Anyway, we should work on your math. We only have an hour." Yeah, only an hour.
She starts from the beginning, and I actually listen this time, unlike when Mr. Collins was explaining it. She's not like I was expecting her to be though. As we go through questions, she actually seems to be enjoying herself. Shockingly, I don't mind it either. She cheerily explains the questions, and I find myself retaining the information, and actually having a good time, as weird as that sounds.
"So what do you get for this?" I ask her finally, gesturing around the room, "You can't be doing this for nothing."
"Um, no I'm not." She admits, smiling sheepishly, and I notice a two dimples appear on either side of her face, "They bribe me with volunteer hours." She explains. I remember something about that from the first day of school. We were told we needed thirty hours to graduate. I haven't started mine yet.
"So are you going to do thirty of these tutoring things to get them all?" I ask. She nods like it's no big deal, whereas I just described my personal hell, "So... I take it you like doing this stuff." I guess, nodding to the books on the table. She shrugs.
"Yeah, kind of." She admits, "I like how it's simple." I give her a confused look, and she quickly backtracks, "I mean, it's not simple for a lot of people, I guess not many people find it easy. I do for some reason, I guess I'm weird like that." Riley scratches the back of her neck and looks down at the table. I realize she thinks she offended me and is trying to explain herself.
"I just like it because for a lot of things there's multiple answers, but for math there's only one." She continues, and I stifle a smile, her rambling a little amusing. She sighs, "Thats why it's simple." She finishes, an embarrassed look on her face. She glances toward the clock, probably hoping the bell would ring.
"Well, that was fun to watch." I say after a second. Finally, she looks at me, rolling her eyes. She's smiling though.
"I'm glad you had fun." She says flatly, her voice betraying the happy expression on her face, "Because I'm obviously here to amuse you, not to teach you math at all." I laugh, Riley just shakes her head.
"Speaking of which, we should probably get back to that." I suggest regretfully. I'd really rather just sit and talk to Riley, but if I'm going to get my math grade up I need to put in the work. She nods understandingly, and flips to another question just as the bell rings. It's weird, I almost feel disappointed that it's over.
"Oh well, I guess you'll just have to come back next week." She takes a breath, "I'll be here... slaving away." She sighs dramatically, I snort.
"Slaving away." I repeat, shaking my head, "If I never came you would have been on your phone the whole time." I point out, smirking at her.
"If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn't have had any fun if I was on my phone." She says, packing up her books. I raise an eyebrow at her.
"So you had fun today?" I ask her, feeling happy for some reason.
"Is that even a question? Math is always fun." She looks up from her books and gives me a 'duh' look, which only makes me smile wider.
"I guess the company wasn't bad either though." She admits, and for some reason, it makes me feel a million times lighter. Riley finishes with her books and picks them up in her arms. She looks at me for a second before arching an eyebrow, probably because I'm grinning like an idiot.
She starts towards the door, "See you around, Miss Pierce." I call, remembering what Mr. Collins called her on the first day. She catches on and laughs.
She turns around and looks at me with a half smile, "See you around." She replies, then she's gone.
Only when she leaves am I able to tone down the smile. I pick up my books and head to my next class.
Maren
My house is pretty uninteresting. Small with white siding that I was told was once blue, creaky wooden steps leading up to a red door with one square window on either side. Every house in my suburb looks the same anyway, and mine is no exception, blending in the with the others, only a slightly different design then the house next to it. It's small, with only one floor (not including the basement) and two bedrooms, not that I mind though. Mom and I are the only ones that live here anyway.
I jump out of my car and walk up the creaky steps I mentioned earlier, pulling out my keys and unlocking the front the door. It's quiet inside, I already knew Mom wasn't home from work yet since her car wasn't in the driveway. If she's not home yet, that means it will probably be around 6:00 until she arrives, and if she isn't back by then, who knows when she'll get off.
I go down the hall and into my bedroom, it's terribly chaotic at best. My bed is unmade, random blankets litter the carpet, and washed clothes, that I didn't bother to put away yet, sits on a chair in the corner, the pile teetering precariously because of the height. I vaguely wonder how far my laziness will go as I pick down through the tower and rip a pair of jogging shorts out, holding onto the peak to make sure the rest doesn't topple over. I've never been a particularly tidy person. Generally, as long as my bed is visible from my door, I'm more than satisfied. Because Mom is a bit of a tidy freak, I strongly suspect that I got my shambolic nature from my father. Not that I would know anyway.
I shove on the shorts and a loose shirt, quickly going out through the door before the sun goes down. I step outside, a gentle breeze washing over me, already threaded with strands of cold in advance to the coming winter. These are my favourite kinds of days, in the months before winter when the sun sets early and I can eat supper just as the sky loses its light. I take a few paces down the sidewalk, briefly stretching both arms before speeding up into a light jog. I only do a short jog around the neighbourhood, four and a half kilometres, maybe five. The winds feels stronger as I pick up speed, but it's refreshing.
As I run, I notice myself subconsciously looking at the homes in orderly rows on either side of the street. I briefly wonder about the lives of the people who live in these houses, most are bigger than mine so they must have families or apartments or whatever. I pass by Riley's old house, it looks like the rest but stands out to me. Her sister wanted to move after the death of their mother, so they now live about ten minutes away from here. We used to ride our bikes up to Marina's house, which wasn't a very long trek, even for two little kids. For me, this street holds many cliche kid memories, like riding bikes, drawing with chalk, stuff like that. Not many of them are very strong though, faded with time as memories do.
I remember Marina's dad, which isn't that hard since he only died two years ago. I also remember Riley's dad, she was close with him. My issues with my father aren't like Marina's, the slow, continuous crawl of sickness and the life being drained out of the body until finally, that person is embraced by the sweet release of death, leaving behind grief and sorrow and family members that are never truly the same. Nor is it like Riley's, a quick departure by the wrong doing of another person. Unlike both of them, my father didn't play a big part in raising me, or any part at all for that matter. He just wasn't there, gone when I was born. Apparently he couldn't handle the stress of caring for a child and left all of the responsibility to Mom. I think of it as a cowardly decision, made by the unstable mind of a jerk that cared too much about himself to risk his life enjoyment on another living thing. But, whatever. I'm over it.
I continue to run.
. . .
When I get back, I'm surprised to see Mom's Ford Escape in the driveway, she must have gotten off early. I walk up the steps and put my keys in the front door, but it's already unlocked. I step inside, the aroma of deep fried food wafting through the house. Hearing noise inside the kitchen, I go there first and smile when I see mom unpacking a bag of KFC.
"You got home early." I observe, leaning against the kitchen doorway.
"Yeah, they let me off before my shift was over so I decided to get supper on the way home." She explains, still digging around in the bag.
"Cool, cool." I walk over to set the table and Mom looks up as I open the cupboard, eyeing my running clothes.
"We should get you a dog." She says causally. Confused, I raise an eyebrow.
"A dog?"
"Yeah." She answers, like it wasn't just the most random thing in the world. I pull two plates out of the cupboard as she continues, "With all that running you do, it might be nice for you to have a partner." She shrugs and looks up at me, I squint my eyes at her skeptically, laying the plates down on the table.
"Are you okay, Mom?" I ask. She shoots me a glare and I raise my eyebrows at her, opening the drawer to get the silverware.
"I am completely fine, thank you." She says, "I was just on my way home from work and I saw a dog jogging with this woman and I thought, 'You know who jogs a lot? My daughter. I should get her a dog.'"
"Well, I'm good without a dog." I assure her. I pull out a chair to sit down and she does the same on the other side of the table. Mom sighs.
"I know, I just worry." She shakes her head and gets a piece of chicken out of the box.
"You worry? About what?" I ask.
"Like, what if you drop down with a heart attack on the next street over? Or you get jumped or something?"
"Oh yes," I say with mock sympathy, "how could I forget about the immense dangers of a suburb five minutes away from a school?" I pretend to shudder, "Thanks for reminding me, Mom, or I might have just wandered right into the waiting jaws of an ax murderer." She rolls her eyes, a small smile on her face that tells me she's amused.
"Whatever, I'm just saying that it might be nice for you to have some company." She takes a bite out of her chicken as I pick up a piece. I assume the conversation is over when she doesn't say anything for a minute, then, "Why don't you ask Marina or Riley if they want to go?" She suggests with a shrug. I roll my eyes.
"No." I respond, "Marina doesn't even go jogging. And it doesn't make sense for Riley to drive ten minutes just to go for a run." Mom sighs again and shakes her head, "Where's this coming from anyway? I've been running on my own for four years now." I question. Mom presses her lips together, but doesn't say anything for moment, shaking her head.
"It's just..." she trails off. I don't say anything, waiting for her to finish, "There were a couple break-ins about ten minutes from here. And I don't want you to be out there alone." She explains finally.
"Oh." I say. We're both silent for a second, "Well, at least they're only breaking and entering, not taking people off the street." I reason. She lets out a frazzled laugh.
"That's not the point, Maren. The point is, it's dangerous out there and you shouldn't be going out by yourself."
She raises her eyebrows at me and I know I'm not getting out of this one. We've always been really close since it's only ever been the two of us, so Mom often crosses the line between best friend and guardian. Right now, she's in Mom mode. And when she's in Mom mode, she always gets her way, no matter how much I try to argue.
"Fine, if it worries you that much, I'll ask Riley." I tell her, pretending like I have a choice. Mom grins, clearly relieved, "But if we both get kidnapped, I'm blaming you for making her come." I add smirking. Her smile fades a little.
"Do you have to be so dark? Nobody's getting kidnapped." She sighs. I decide to humour her.
"Well, certainly not now that there's two of us to deal with the assailants." I rub my hands together, "We'll be unstoppable."
"My thoughts exactly."
"Two of us could probably take down about six grown adults..." I continue.
"Now your getting ahead of yourself."
"If we brought Marina, that's makes nine..."
"Maren?"
"Yes?"
"Eat your damn supper."
. . .
"So, why all of a sudden do you want a jogging partner?" Riley asks me as we walk out of the door. I lock it behind me. I invited her over after school to go jogging, as per Mom's instruction yesterday.
"Well, mom wanted me to go jogging with somebody. It was either I bring you or she'd get me a dog. Consider yourself liked." I tell her. She laughs as I turn away from the door and we start down the steps.
"Wow, thank god after twelve years of friendship I've finally been assured that you like me." She says sarcastically. We do a couple stretches, then we're off. Slow at first but gradually picking up speed as we go.
"So, why did Katerina want someone to go with you?" Riley asks after a second, continuing our conversation.
"Oh, there were a couple break-and-enters around here and she got worried." I explain.
"Oh yeah, that happen two streets over from my house." She says casually, as if she was talking about the weather. She lives in a sketchy area of town, even though it's just ten minutes away from me.
"You're not worried that your house is going to be robbed?" I ask. She shrugs.
"A little." She admits, both of us breathing a little heavy now, "But oh well, live sucks then you die."
"Well, that's encouraging." I reply flatly and Riley laughs realizing how depressing it sounded. I start to go a little faster but notice that Riley doesn't pick up her speed. Feeling cocky, I turn around, jogging backwards so I can face her.
"Really, R?" I taunt, "Come on, pick it up!" She rolls her eyes.
"Show off." She mutters and I laugh. She shakes her head but speeds up to my pace anyway, coming up alongside of me as I turn back around.
"I knew you could go faster." I tease her. She makes an annoyed noise.
"You should have taken the freaking dog."
I know that might have seemed slow but I figured I should give some insight into Maren's life. Please review!